HR, It’s Time to Think Like a Marketer - 2025 Change Mindset

Listen up, HR, it's 2025, not 1985 anymore! You’ve been playing the same game for way too long, and guess what? It's outdated. While you're busy pushing policies, marketing is out here stealing the spotlight with engagement, strategy, and actual storytelling. 🤯

It’s time for you to ditch the old HR playbook and start thinking like a marketer.

That’s right—HR needs a rebrand, and I'm here to tell you why (and how) to make it happen.

Your employees are customers, and your workplace is the product. Here’s why you need to start treating it that way. 👊        

1. Your employees are your audience—start selling the experience

Marketers know that the key to success is understanding the audience and selling them something they want. Well, guess what? Your employees are your audience, and the experience you’re selling them is your company culture.

💡 Companies with highly engaged employees see a 23% increase in profitability. 🚫 Translation: If your employees don’t feel engaged by what you’re “selling” (aka your culture, vision, and values), they’ll be mentally checked out by Monday morning.

👉 Fix It: think like a marketer. What’s your value prop for employees? What makes your workplace better than the rest? If you can’t sell it, you can’t keep them.

2. Employer brand = consumer brand

Guess what? People talk about their jobs the same way they talk about their favorite (or most hated) products. If you aren’t actively managing your employer brand like marketers manage their consumer brand, you’re leaving your reputation up to Glassdoor reviews written by disgruntled ex-employees. Oops. 😬

💥 86% of candidates say they wouldn’t apply to a company with a bad reputation. Let that sink in.

👉 Fix It: build a killer employer brand that reflects your values and culture. Make it as important as your product branding, because it IS. People want to be proud of where they work.

3. Storytelling > policies

Marketers don’t sell by listing product specs—they sell by telling a story. Meanwhile, HR is still out here talking about policies and procedures. Yawn. 🙄

You want to get your people engaged? Start telling stories they care about. Create narratives around your culture, your mission, and how they can be part of something bigger than just showing up to punch the clock.

👉 Fix It: highlight real employee stories. Show how they’ve grown, thrived, and made an impact. Don’t tell people why your company is great—show them.

4. Think of employees as internal customers

Marketers are obsessed with customer experience, but when’s the last time HR took a hard look at the employee experience? If you want your people to stick around, you need to start treating them like internal customers who deserve just as much attention as the ones buying your product.

🚫 Stop treating employee engagement like a quarterly task on your checklist. Make it a daily priority. If your employees feel like an afterthought, they’re already halfway out the door.

👉 Fix It: companies with a strong focus on employee experience are 4x more profitable. That’s not a typo. 💸

5. Marketing uses data, HR needs to do the same

Marketers don’t just guess what’s working—they use data to measure it. HR? Not so much. If you want to get better at engaging your people, you need to look at the data. What’s working? What’s not? Where are the turnover hot spots? Are people happy with their benefits? Why are they leaving? What turns them on? What turns them off?

💡 80% of employees say they’d stay longer at a company that listens to their feedback. Start listening.

👉 Fix It: start treating your HR data like gold. Use employee surveys, feedback loops, and stay interviews to understand how people really feel—and then act on it.

6. If you can’t market your culture, you won’t keep your talent

The job market is competitive AF. Top talent isn’t going to stick around for a paycheck—they want purpose, meaning, and a workplace that gets them. If you’re not actively marketing your culture to your people, someone else will.

👉 70% of employees are open to new opportunities. Don’t assume you’ve got them locked down. Start selling your culture every single day, or you’ll lose them to the competition.

TL;DR?

👉 Start thinking like a marketer if you want to build an engaged workforce.

👉 Your employer brand is just as important as your product brand.

👉 Employees are your internal customers—treat them like it.

👉 Data isn’t just for marketing—use it to understand and improve the employee experience.

It’s time to step up your game. If you can’t sell your workplace like a marketer sells a product, you’re going to struggle to attract and keep top talent. Build a workplace people want to be part of—because they’re more than just employees, they’re your most valuable customers. 🏆

Catch you on the rebellion side,

Stephan🤘