It is obvious that Woodruffe’s Internal Marketing programme encompasses
activities that have traditionally been part of the human resource management
function. The relationship between the two concepts has been the focus of much
discussion and criticism. The literature suggests that Internal Marketing and Human
Resource Management are interdependent and they cannot be separated in a service
organisation (George 1990). Berry (1981) and Filiatrault (1988) argue that Internal
Marketing is in fact the interface between marketing and human resources. On the
contrary, Rafiq and Ahmed (1993) argue that Internal Marketing is merely an attempt
to subordinate to marketing various functions that traditionally have belonged to the
HRM function. Underpinning Internal Marketing is the notion of viewing employees
as internal customers. Even though the focus of Internal Marketing, just like personnel
management, is the fair treatment of employees and the satisfaction of their jobrelated
personal needs, IM is guided by a marketing orientation. Internal Marketing
is aimed at promoting/selling the notion of internal customers to staff in order to
inspire them to become more service minded and customer-oriented with the view
to ensure external customer satisfaction. Internal Marketing embraces the idea of
“…getting everyone in the organisation to practise marketing” (Berry 1986); that is,
to be customer focused and service oriented in their internal service interactions and
hence, satisfy their internal customers’ needs. If every individual accepts the Internal
Marketing ideas then the intervention of personnel management in the everyday
manager/subordinate relationships may no longer be a prerequisite for achieving the
proper treatment of staff and the satisfaction of their needs.