How to
Build A Magnetic Employer Brand™ - Part I
by David
Lee
Originally
published on ERExchange.com
In The True Power of a Magnetic
Employer Brand , we explored the importance of
building a Magnetic Employer Brand™ . When you make the effort to create a
Magnetic Employer Brand™ , you save yourself the work
of trying to convince employees of choice that you are an employer of choice.
With a Magnetic Employer Brand™ , your reputation acts
like a huge talent magnet, drawing the best, most talented people to your
organization. To enjoy the benefits of a Magnetic Employer Brand™ , you need to deliver a unique and attractive work
experience – i.e. a branded work
experience – that sets you apart in the labor market.
In the previous
article, we discussed the “Why” of employer branding. In this three part
series, we’ll discuss the “How” – how to build a Magnetic Employer Brand™ . This part will focus on the foundation and assessment
phase of an effective employer branding process. The next two articles in the
series will focus on the process of building a Magnetic Employer Brand™ .
Put Together a Team
That Understands, Influences, and Experiences All Facets of Employer Branding
and Your Employer Brand
Developing a
powerful employer brand requires that you involve all constituencies who
influence your employer brand in the branding process. This cannot be
overemphasized. Creating a Magnetic Employer Brand™ isn’t about your Human Resources
Department getting together with an ad agency and coming up with the ultimate
ad campaign. It isn’t simply making sure all your collateral material has a
consistent image.
Creating a
Magnetic Employer Brand™
requires rigorously examining all facets of the work experience
your organization delivers and making sure you create an experience that leads
to an employer of choice reputation. To address all the various facets and
factors that impact your employer brand, you need to involve people who
represent these varied perspectives. You want to include one or more
individuals representing human resources, management from all levels, public
relations, sales and marketing, customer service, and frontline workers.
Group size
permitting, you would ideally have someone from each of the major divisions or
departments represented. Because a strong brand is one that gives consistent
messages and provides consistent experiences, you can’t afford to have pockets
of discontent and areas of poor work experience that contradict – and therefore
weaken – your employer brand.
Effective
employer branding also involves expertise from a wide range of disciplines and
perspectives. You will want your team to
possess expertise in the areas of advertising and marketing, market research,
customer service, public relations, human resources management, psychology,
organizational development, and management.
Involve Employees In Every Facet of the Process
Because
employees directly experience whether or not you deliver on your employer brand
promise – whether you walk your talk – they play an essential role in the
employer branding process. Without their input on how to make your organization
a better place to work and their ongoing feedback about how well you’re delivering
the work experience you promise, you are likely to do what many organizations
do. You are likely to end up “advertising your fantasy,” in the words of Alan
Brewer, VP of Creative Services with Burgess Advertising Associates, Inc.
To paraphrase advertising
legend David Ogilvy, nothing will kill your
reputation in the labor market faster than doing a great job advertising a work
experience you don’t deliver. Organizations that promote themselves as an
Employer of Choice when they’re anything but; end up with an angry, cynical
workforce that is only too happy to counteract their employer’s paid
advertising with more credible word of mouth advertising.
Frontline
workers possess critical workplace quality intelligence that senior managers
huddled around a conference table would never be able to provide. If you truly
want to develop a Magnetic Employer Brand™ , employee
involvement is nonnegotiable. How do you involve your employees? First, make
sure frontline workers are represented on your employer branding team. Second,
conduct employee focus groups and surveys both in the beginning and on an
annual or biannual basis, to find out organizational and managerial practices
that are weakening your employer brand. These focus groups and surveys can also
provide you with internal best practices that you will want to spread throughout
your organization. Third, create an Employee Advisory Council that will give
you critical “voice of the (internal) customer” feedback in all phases of the
employer branding process.
If your
management team has a reputation for soliciting employee input that only ends
up in the La Brea Tar Pits of inaction, it will take time to build enough
credibility and trust for employees to care enough to give their input. To
restore damaged credibility, honestly acknowledge your less than stellar
performance in this area and then demonstrate as quickly as possible what you
are doing with their input. For input that can’t or won’t be implemented,
explain why. Share information on best practices regarding employee input and
involvement with your employer branding team, and all of management. There are
numerous books, articles, and white papers on this topic. You might want to start
with the Society for Human Resource Management’s website.
Become an Expert on Your Target Market
As any marketing
expert will tell you, the most successful brands are built upon an intimate
knowledge of their customers. The stronger the brand, the more the brand
manager understands the hearts and minds of their ideal customer. In employer
branding, this means understanding what:
·
today’s
employees want
·
the most talented employees want
·
employees in your particular industry want
·
employees from the demographics you hire want
·
employees from the various fields and job positions you hire want
Although this
may seem obvious, we have plenty of evidence that many, if not most, organizations
don’t understand or don’t know how to deliver the kind of work experience that
employees want. Knowing what employees value most highly not only allows you to
build an employer brand that is relevant and compelling, it also provides a
framework for ongoing monitoring of whether you are delivering the kind of work
experience you think you are. Where do you find out what your target market(s)
want? For today’s “typical” employee, you’ll want to draw on the plethora of
research identifying what matters most to employees and what impacts both
satisfaction and productivity. Good places to start include
To discover what workers in your specific industry value, contact
your industry association. For information on what the most talented employees
are looking for, interview your star performers to find out what is most
important to them. Interview star performers who’ve left.
Find out what important factors they found elsewhere.
Regardless of what industry you’re in, you hire people that
represent a variety of professions. You’ll want to understand their unique need
and value hierarchies. This amount of precision allows you to create not only a
Magnetic Employer Brand™ to the general
labor market, but also to fine tune your message and the work experience you
deliver to your various sub-markets. For instance, your accountants’ value
hierarchy will likely be very different from that of your sales force or your
customer service representatives. You might be delivering the kind of work
experience that accountants want, but not what sales or customer service
professionals want. Thus, your employer brand would not be consistently strong
across the board. To learn more about the value hierarchies of the various
professions and demographics you hire, contact the various trade associations
that represent the profession in questions or The Society for Human Resource
Management (www.SHRM.org).
If you draw heavily from a particular demographic, become an
expert on that demographic. For instance, when Deb Franklin, HR Manager at
Designer Blinds of Omaha, Nebraska wanted to hire from two different ethnic
groups, she brought in experts and studied the cultures of these ethnic groups
so Designer Blinds could more accurately address their needs. The result? They
have a waiting list for their second shift and a turnover rate of 7.5% – one tenth the
average rate for manufacturers in their region.
You will also want to understand the different work experience
value hierarchies of the different generations. To learn about these
generational differences, start with the classic Generations At Work by Ron Zemke et al.
The values and
needs that are unique to today’s employees and to the various demographics lie
upon a bedrock of timeless, fundamental human needs. Regardless of one’s
profession or age group, or changes in societal norms, human beings
have fundamental, hard-wired needs and drives that impact employee
satisfaction. These include the need:
·
for meaning and purpose (i.e. to matter and to be part of
something that matters)
·
for community and connection
·
to learn and grow
·
to feel a sense of control and autonomy
·
to experience mastery and self-efficacy (e.g. to feel the
“thrill of victory” rather than “the agony of defeat” at work each day)
When your work
experience taps into these fundamental human needs, you unleash a gusher of
enthusiasm, pride, and appreciation – and an impassioned word of mouth PR
campaign that positions you credibly as an Employer of Choice. To make sure you
do tap into this powerful source of employee satisfaction and inspiration, make
sure you have someone on your team with a strong psychological background who
understands what fundamental human needs drive employee motivation and
satisfaction.
Find Out If You
Deliver What Employees Want
Once you know
what your target market wants, the next step is to find out how well you’re
delivering that. Conduct individual interviews, focus groups, and employee
surveys to find out whether or not you are delivering the kind of work
experience the most desirable employees are seeking. For this to work, you will need to make it clear what you plan to do
with this information – and that in fact you will do something with it.
As mentioned previously, if your management team has a history of not doing
anything with employee input, credibility building will be an important first
step.
Think “Experience”
To provide your
employer branding team with precise, actionable intelligence from employees,
break down employees’ total work experience into process experiences or moments
of truth. For instance, what is the new hire experience like in your
organization? Does this critical moment of truth feel like sink or swim or
“We’re glad you’re here. You’ve joined the best… and here’s why”?
How would they
describe their “interaction with senior management” moment of truth? What about
their “the organization is going through change” experience? Asking employees
how they experience each moment of truth will provide you with valuable
information about how to create an exceptional overall work experience.
Companies known
for providing unique, stand-out customer service – companies such as Ritz
Carlton or Southwest Airlines – do this with their customers. They pay close
attention to each facet of their customers’ experience to make sure it reflects
and strengthens their brand. By carefully managing each customer service moment
of truth, they differentiate themselves in the marketplace with what the Forum
Corporation calls a “Branded
Customer Experience”. You can use this same principle to create a Branded
Work Experience. By using this same attention to detail in making sure each
facet of your employees’ work experience reflects and strengthens your employer
brand, you create a branded work experience that establishes you as an employer
of choice. The first step in this process is to identify and analyze these
moments of truth and how well you are doing in each.
Get Ready For the Next
Step
At this point in
the process, you have:
1.
An
employer branding team in place
2.
Active
employee involvement
3.
A
clear understanding of what your employees of choice want in an employer.
4.
A
clear, honest, ongoing feedback loop with employees that enable you to
continuously gather information about organizational strengths and weaknesses
5.
A
clear understanding of what needs you address well, and what ones you don’t
6.
A
list of organizational practices and policies that weaken your employer brand
and those that strengthen it
7.
A
list of moment of truth experiences that help shape employees’ overall work
experience, and a clear picture of how well you do in each area.
In the next two articles in this series,
we’ll look at identifying your Default Employer Brand and then move into using
the information your employer branding team has gathered to create your own
unique and Magnetic Employer Brand™ .
Click
Here for more articles by David Lee
About the
Author: David Lee is a consultant, speaker, and executive coach.
The founder of HumanNature@Work, he has worked with
organizations and presented at conferences throughout
For More Information:
David Lee, President
HumanNature@Work
P.O. Box 430
Bar Mills, Maine 04004
Tel: 207-929-3344
E-mail: info@HumanNatureAtWork.com