tips to help transform your hr stories biocom hr executive breakfast september 24, 2015 v1.5

Tips To Help Transform Your HR Stories

Biocom HR Executive Breakfast

September 24, 2015

© Dr John Sullivan 1

These slides are currently available on www.drjohnsullivan.com

EMPLOYER BRANDING

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Topics for today

1. What exactly is employer branding?

2. What are the positive benefits of EB?

3. Who are the benchmark firms?

4. The best ways to spread your messages

5. How to make your stories more powerful

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Let’s have a conversation

Please interrupt at any time… with questions, comments or examples

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Part 1

Can we agree on exactly what is

employer branding?

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Most have no EB strategy

Employer branding is a proactive “image management” strategy

Globally, 87% of companies “believe that a clearly-defined strategy is the key to achieving employer branding objectives”

But what % actually have a strategy in place?Only “17%

Source: Employer Brand International 2014 5

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The 10 components of external employer branding

1. EB is an “image management strategy”… where you make your image as an employer visible, focused, positive and differentiated

2. EB is the only long-term recruiting (& retention) strategy

3. The 1st goal is to have your firm’s name known as a great employer by your target audience

4. The second goal is to have your target audience know the factors that make you a great employer… known and believed

5. The third goal of EB is to be rated higher, when compared to other talent competitor firms (there will be winners and losers)

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6. EB is a form of boasting or even bragging

7. EB requires a shifting away from a reliance on “inauthentic” paid advertising and corporate webpages…

Toward viral messages that are spread by others (your brand is owned by others)

8. EB drives your target audience to take action (apply for and accept jobs)

9. EB must be data-driven (science not an art) >

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You must have a metric driven approach

Use data toDetermine what your targets care aboutWhere they would hear a branding messageWhat factors will be “talked about” and spread

virally spreadWhat factors actually worked (survey of new hires)

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Shift to data-driven decisions EB

I

Source: Entelo 2015

Poaching seems even… until you add DecemberDuring what month should you start branding efforts?

When do salespeople accept a new job?

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Only recently has the candidate experience been considered part of employer branding

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10. The candidate experience may become a story, so it is part of your EB (are they a customer?)

A bad candidate experience will be “talked about” on SM (Glassdoor, Yelp, Indeed)

Ex. - The hiring manager (at Wind River Associates) took a week to respond, so the candidate said…

“It's not like I need their job. If it takes them a week to respond to a resume like

mine for a job of this importance, they're not the kind of company I want to work for.

I move fast, and I can already see that my style wouldn't fit their culture.”

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The benefits of a positive candidate experience component of EB

Provide a good candidate experience because happy candidates act positively:56% would consider seeking employment again

with the company

37% would tell others to seek employment there

23% would be more likely to purchase products or services from the company (more rev.)

Source: CareerBuilder 12

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Employer branding negative consequences

A negative candidate experience also has consequences

42% would never seek employment at the firm again

22% would tell others not to work there

9% would tell others not to purchase products or services from the company (Lost rev. $)

Source: CareerBuilder

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Fully understanding the positive benefits of having a strong employer brand

Part 2

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Illustrations of the benefits of employer branding

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HR must identify and focuses its resources on activities that increase revenue & profit (BCG)

16Source: BCG/WFPMA - From Capability to Profitability: Realizing the Value of People Management, 2012

Which HR functions have the highest impact on rev. /profit?

Does a top “employer of choice” ranking correlate with business success?

Employer brand

1. Google

2. Apple

3. Amazon

4. Facebook5. MS

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Market cap value

1.Apple - $603 b

2.Google - $419 b

3. MS - $344 b

8 Facebook - $248b

8/24/2015

Product brand

1. Google

2. Apple

3. IBM

4. MS

Do you see the similarities?Source: Poachable

http://www.chinanews.com.cn/sh/news/2008/01-09/1128811.shtml

Are the top branded firms more productive?

Expectation: better branded firms will have a higher Rev. per Employee #

Average rev per ee $208,000

Amazon* #3 $622,000 (Nearly 2 ¾ times the average)

Microsoft #5 $788,000 (Nearly 3 ½ times the

average)

Google* #1 $1,290,000 (Nearly 6 times the average)

Facebook* #4 $1,590,000 (Nearly 6 ½ times the average)

Apple* #2 (Source: MarketWatch.com 9/24/15)* The red # is the firm’s employer brand rank among all firms in the US

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$2,410,000 (Nearly 10 ¼ times the average)

BCG found that frequent “best place to work” placement influences stock market returns by ___

19Made Fortune list 3 out of 10 yrs. (109%) vs. S&P (10%) - BCG 2012

S&P

10x

10X

Positive impacts of branding

Branding improves quality of applicant & hire

Firms “can improve applicant pool quality by 54%”

And “quality of hire by 9%”

Source: Corporate Executive Board (CEB 2014)20

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Employer brand impacts job applications

It attracts currently employed not-looking applicants

87% would consider leaving their current job… if offered a job with a company that had an excellent corporate reputation


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EB is a prime driver of offer acceptance

Brand reputation is a top job acceptance factor

It is # 1 for senior managers

It is # 1 for sales people

# 2 - All employees (After compensation)

Kenexa Global Survey 22

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The costs of weak employer branding

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Employer brand impacts job applications

75% of Americans would not take a job at a company that had a bad reputation, even if they were unemployed

Top job seekers especially would not consider interviewing for a position at a company with a negative employer brand


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Know & emulate the benchmark firms that have the most powerful employer brands

Part 3

The “dream firms” for the average employee

LinkedIn – Most in demand employers 20141. Google2. Apple3. Amazon4. Facebook5. Salesforce6. Disney7. Nike8. Microsoft

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http://www.chinanews.com.cn/sh/news/2008/01-09/1128811.shtml

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The dream firms for non-lookers

Poachable – Firms that employed people admireCompany Desirability rank1. Google 1.02. Apple 0.613. Amazon 0.304. Facebook 0.265. Microsoft 0.216. Uber` 0.177. Twitter 0.158. LinkedIn 0.099. AirBnB 0.09 10.Netflix 0.0711.Tesla12.IBMSource: https://poachable.co/

Bold = Bay Area firm

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What are the best ways to communicate your

brand messages?

Part 4

• Your corporate webpage• Recruitment advertising• Recruiters and hiring managers• Your employees through the referral program

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Ways to spread your employer brand messages

Your corporate webpage has many weaknessesCandidates today only rely on the employer for

only 20% of the information that they gather when looking to apply for roles

Why? Because 60+ % of applicants “say they are more skeptical today of what employers say about themselves than they were three years ago”

The problem is that websites are written by a PR, screened by lawyers and they include no negative information, so they are not judged as authentic

Source: Corporate Executive Board (CEB 2014)

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Recruitment advertising has many weaknesses It makes it appear like you must pay to have your

message spreadAds are expensiveAds may be skipped by everyone (because it’s an ad)It’s written by you… so it’s not authenticThere isn’t space to say muchAds are not interactiveAds are often generic and not targeted to what

top performers and innovators demand An example >

High-performers are different because they are attracted by “the work”

Criteria for top performers

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1. Appreciation for their work2. Relationships with

colleagues3. Good work-life balance4. Relationships with superiors5. A firm’s financial stability6. Learning/career develop7. Job security8. Attractive fixed salary9. Interesting job content10.Company valuesSource: BCG survey

Criteria for average workersDoing the best work of your life means1. Can’t put it down exciting work2. Having an impact 3. Work with top coworkers4. Great managers5. A chance to win / be 1st 6. Learn advanced things / growing7. Opp. to innovate/ take risks8. Be an expert / mastery of an area9. Opportunity to implement ideas10.To be constantly challenged11.Freedom, a choice of projects12.Input into schedule / location13.Opportunity to make decisions14.Measure & reward performance

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Recruiters aren’t always the best story spreadersMost don’t like talking to recruiters… “People

don't always listen to recruiters, but they do

listen to their friends” (CEO of ThoughtSpot)Recruiters don’t always know much about the jobRecruiters have been known to stretch the truth in

order to get a hire (some will quickly quit)Hiring managers are not good salespeople

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Employee’s spreading stories as part of the referral program is the most effective way because:

Top people… know other top people and they already have relationships

Colleagues can get close, with little resistance from top performers

Talking to recruiters may be seen as disloyal Employee stories are more real and credible

because they “work there” they are considered likely to know the inside story

When employees tell stories, questions can be answered to tailor the story

One-on-one conversations last longer, so detailed stories and follow-ups are possible 33

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My extensive “candidate research” revealed what story elements excite candidates

You can take an ordinary EB story and make it great by adding these factors…

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Add these to make your stories more powerful

A great program name Often just having an HR program with a great

name can turn an informal program into something credible.

A “cool” or catchy name for any program makes it even better.

Ex. – The zombie smashing contest at Google

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Quantifying program results in $Using performance numbers to demonstrate the

business impacts of a program is important. Adding dollars to quantify program outputs or

the reaching of goals makes any story stronger. Include a benchmark comparison number with a

great performance number & a weak number, make understanding the magnitude of a number easier.

Also showing the large amount spent per employee or as a large % of total expenditures tells the listener right away this program is important.

Ex. – “We invested $10,000 per employee (10% of revenue) for career development & employee output improved by 12%”.

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Comparison with the industry average / best Try to show how "your program" is superior to the

competitor’s on a side-by-side basis. The use of direct comparison percentages or

numbers makes for an even better story (improvement over last year, compared to the industry average or the best in the industry).

Being first in your industry or region to offer a program is also an excellent story builder.

Ex. – “We were 1st to offer 1 year maternity / paternity benefits and we’re still the industry leader”

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Add a WOW to the story A WOW is a story element that when told / read,

it is so powerful that the person literally responds with a verbal sound (WOW).

A WOW the most likely part of the story to be remembered

Ex. – “75% of our managers started out as hourly employees”

Ex. – “Applications from women went up nearly 50% in the position after we let them re-write the job description”.

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Add a video clip Sometimes words aren’t enough and a moving

picture may be worth 1000 words. Short video clips (< 3 minutes) can clearly reveal

the excitement at your firm Employee generated videos are often viewed as

more authentic… than professionally done ones. YouTube instructional videos can also be

powerful

Two quick examples >

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Employee generated videos – Film Festival

Make “finding the excitement” easy for outsiders

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Video job descriptions provide an EB message

A video job description can reveal the excitement behind a job (Quickstop, Accenture and Deloitte)

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Degree of participation Just having a program isn’t compelling… if no one

participates in it. Show the estimated percentage of workers that

actually use a program helps make the message stronger.

Ex. – “90% of our employees change their work schedule each week in order to participate in family or civic activities.”

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Testimonials from individuals Short testimonials from individuals outlining

their passion for the program “personalize” a program.

Testimonials about their treatment, experiences or impacts also add value.

Video testimonials and employee profiles can be powerful.

Ex. – “The weight loss and wellness program literally saved my life – Kim Doe

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Add a picture to a story Many people don’t like reading 100% narrative…

so a picture can be attractive. A picture that raises emotions can be a valuable

addition to a story. The mobile phone is great for spreading stories Also consider posting or encouraging your

employees to place powerful pictures on Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Ex. – “Here is a picture of our employees building a house for “Habitat for Humanity” on our community involvement day”.

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Add a link to more informationBecause of limited space, you can’t often tell the

whole story in the written piece

Make it easy for the reader to find more detailed follow up information by adding a web / social media link or a QR code inside a written story or blog,

Ex. – “Here is a link to the complete report outlining the extent and the impact of our sustainability program.”

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Note that you’ve been cited in a major publicationNoting that something you have done has been

cited in a major publication adds credibility to a story, because it is often assumed that editors demand the best examples.

Rather than avoiding reporters and bloggers, build a relationship with the credible ones.

Encourage editors and reporters to do a complete story highlighting your HR program.

Ex. – “the Wall Street Journal noted that we had the most advanced STEM women recruiting program.”

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Note the impact on low-level employeesMany people to remember stories that reveal how

“the common employee” did well.Seek out examples of where a low-level,

struggling or diverse employee made great progress in a short period of time as a result of your program.

Ex. – “A year ago Ted Dias was a struggling maintenance man, but after completing our after-hours “Employee Coding Program” he now holds a six-figure Python coding job.”

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A story inventory makes your stories more accessible

Part 5

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Put together a story inventory

Benefits of a “story” / best practice inventoryEmployee access means better referralsThe goal is to respond quickly to reporters

inquiries with powerful “on the mark” storiesIt should also allow managers that are giving

speeches/ writing articles to find powerful stories related to their topic, function or business unit

Use it for “best place list” applicationsUse Excel or develop an internal web site >

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Google has a story inventory

A story Inventory for recruiters and employees

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Branding requires story inventories

Microsoft “Spreadthelove” internal websiteTheir “Spreadthelove” website allowed Microsoft

employees to "write up" their own individual story about their career with Microsoft (their story might include pictures, testimonials and video)

Employees can then share the web link and "spread the love" with targeted friends, family and potential referrals

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Additional EB categories

The available time means

I can’t cover the 50 additional employer brand factors that can excite potential applicants… but

they can be found listed in the slide deck… which is available right now on

www.DrJohnSullivan.com

http://www.drjohnsullivan.com/

[email protected] 63

Did I make you think?

Did I give you a few takeaways?

www.drjohnsullivan.com

tips to help transform your hr stories biocom hr executive breakfast september 24, 2015 v1.5

Recruiting & HR