In this episode Matt Alder talks to Kevin Hough Head of Resourcing at LV=
Responding to changing markets by evolving new approaches to talent attraction is a big challenge for many large employers. Over the last few years I’ve been very impressed with a number of the employer branding and recruitment marketing initiatives I’ve seen coming out of financial services company LV=.
It was great to get to talk to LV=’s Head of Resourcing Kevin Hough and get the inside track on some of their successful initiatives as well as his thoughts on social media, data and employer branding.
Topics we discuss include:
- How LV= has used community engagement to implement a successful social recruiting strategy.
- The importance of brand ambassadors and how they can come from surprising sources.
- The power of learning via mistakes and challenges.
- The economics of the candidate experience.
Kevin also talks about why an EVP can be like owning a bidet and how LV= found out they were sponsoring the wrong station!
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Transcript:
Matt Alder [00:00:00]:
Support for this podcast comes from Format. Format provide award winning careers websites to employers such as View, Atkins and Muller. Working with Format can help you attract and engage higher numbers of better quality applicants. They get these results by their complete focus on the candidate experience. Fantastic technology that enables long term passive candidate engagement and seamless integration with your ats. For more information and to get in touch for a free review of your career site, Please go to www. Format.com podcast. Format is spelt with a number 4, then M A T the web address again. Www. Format.com podcast.
Matt Alder [00:01:04]:
Hi everyone and welcome to episode 23 of the Recruiting Future podcast. This week’s guest is Kevin Hough from LV. I’ve been really impressed over the last few years by a lot of the things that LV has been doing with their talent attraction and resourcing strategies. It was great to talk to Kevin and get the inside track about everything from social media through to employer branding and some of the really interesting insights LV getting from using data. Enjoy the interview. Hi everyone and welcome to another Recruiting Future podcast interview. My guest this week is Kevin Hough from LV. Hi Kevin, how are you? Hello.
Kevin Hough [00:01:46]:
I’m very good, thank you. Enjoying the sunshine at the moment, which is great.
Matt Alder [00:01:49]:
Ah, you’re down in, down in sunny Bournemouth, aren’t you?
Kevin Hough [00:01:52]:
That’s correct, yes.
Matt Alder [00:01:54]:
Yes. There’s no sunshine where I am today, unfortunately, but I sent some down for you. Thank you, that’s kind of much appreciated. Could you just, for people who kind of aren’t familiar with you and what you do, could you just give us a little background on what you’ve done in the past and talk a little bit about your role at LV?
Kevin Hough [00:02:17]:
Sure, absolutely. So in terms of my background predominantly have been working in sort of project management. Traditionally my core area of expertise way back was information management, so did a lot of work with the police and the army. So the Holly and Jessica murders. I was invoLVed working with the police IT organization from the information management side. So very exciting there. I then moved into financial services and then arrived at LV back in 2009 as a senior Project manager and did some work with the HR function there, which thoroughly enjoyed and saw the recruitment team and thought, you know what, that would be a fantastic challenge to take on. Always had an interest in recruitment and the rest is history. So the current role that I hold is the head of group resourcing. So I’m Responsible and me and my team are responsible for all of the recruitment across LV, so all of the sites and all the functions. What I find particularly interesting is, you know, I don’t have a recruitment background, so I guess this role has been fantastic to learn the trade, but one thing it has done, it’s given me a real passion for the whole world of talent acquisition, employer branding. And that’s why I’m here today.
Matt Alder [00:03:40]:
Really fantastic. I think I’ve seen you sort of present a couple of times and I’ve been aware of LV through kind of various awards that you’ve won and things that you’ve done. And I know that there’s quite a few things that interesting things that you’ve done in the kind of resourcing space in the last two or three years. What are you kind of most proud of in terms of things that have been implemented at LV in terms of resourcing since you’ve kind of been working in this role?
Kevin Hough [00:04:15]:
I think there’s a couple. I think the largest one for me, and probably the most obvious answer has been our social media strategy that’s been tied into recruitment. I think looking back two years ago, we had a Facebook account, we had a Twitter account, which we used to a certain extent. Everyone consistently asks the question, how effective is social media for recruitment? And you just can’t answer that question unless you dip your toe in and actually go for it. So together with the team, we pulled together a proper social media recruitment strategy which looked at what we’re trying to aim for, achieve. And over the years we’ve built a really strong social media presence and indeed expanding that through to LinkedIn, Instagram and some of the other media. And I think what it’s actually done is really demonstrated that it does have a really strong place in recruitment and definitely for us here at LV. But it’s always great when even competitors will approach us to understand how we’ve achieved what we’ve done. And it goes back to our mentality, you just got to get on and do it and do it well and have a focus there. So I think the social media is definitely the key one I’d look at. The other one is around some of our thinking with some of the data and I think, and how we use our mi. So just to use one example that seemed to get a bit of attention at the time is we had frustrations with some of our sites around where we’d potentially hire successful candidates in terms of localities. And we were so frustrated that to actually point out where we could get some great people from. We just literally took a data dump from our HR system that demonstrated where our people are willing to travel from where they lived in relation to our offices and then on top of that overlaid where people were applying from as well. And it just really helped to have some really great conversations with the business to point out where people are traveling, where our core communities are and conversely helped us really look at where our attraction capabilities are and how effective. So one example was we pointed out we’re probably sponsoring the wrong train station.
Matt Alder [00:06:41]:
Interesting.
Kevin Hough [00:06:42]:
Yeah, it was quite an interesting exercise. And for me that was an Excel spreadsheet dump and integrate it into Google Maps, but it’s just making use of that data. So those are probably sort of two of the bits. There’s many that the team I’m very proud of delivered, but those are probably two of the more higher profile ones, I guess.
Matt Alder [00:07:01]:
No, there’s some great stuff there. Just kind of out of interest and it might be a difficult question to answer. But with the social media, what have you found to sort of be the most effective thing that you’ve done as part of that strategy?
Kevin Hough [00:07:19]:
I think it’s really trying to time what are you trying to achieve from it? Because I think if you look at we’re going to use social media to recruit, I think you’re going to fail immediately because we know from our stats and anecdotally looking at others just posting we’ve got a job, we’ve got a job just doesn’t hit it for me. The focus is around engagement around the community. It’s not necessarily the number of followers, it’s how you engage them. And therefore posts that we’re particularly proud of are those that around the diverse approach. So we’ve done a lot of work with our LGBTQ community and our disabled community here at LV and actually those posts tend to get a lot of of engagement around our support of a brand. The one thing that social media does do is it really demonstrates the authenticity. So I could stand up or the chief exec stand up and say why it’s such a fantastic place to work here at LV and the culture is wonderful. But actually until you can see it coming through from people posting, and it’s not even necessarily posts that we make, it’s people that are contributing to those posts. So the example I used is I think a mother post in response to one of our ads about sort of working there, saying how fantastic her son’s finding it. And it’s changed his life and he’s so much happier. And actually, that’s the kind of stuff that really is more powerful to someone.
Matt Alder [00:08:51]:
Totally. And I think it’s very interesting that it’s that kind of content that’s kind of really resonating for you, because I think we’re stuck in a. A kind of a state of mind. Lots of companies are stuck in a state of mind where they think it’s all about posting jobs. And, you know, obviously, obviously it’s not.
Kevin Hough [00:09:13]:
And I think it’s evoLVing it as well, because I think, you know, we’ve been building upon that strategy. So it’s gone from posting. I think a lot of people are afraid to start conversation on social media. There’s always a fear of, you know, if there’s any backlash or anything comes out, you know, you know, across wrongly. But we’re really trying to now engage further, such as starting conversations. If we’re seeing someone’s tweeting about wanting a job in Bournemouth, we actually start to engage and support people. So there’s some really interesting trails that we’ve got where we’ve supported people right the way through, from the fact they were looking for a job through to giving them confidence and interview tips, coming up to their assessment day. So you can utilise it in a. You know, in a really different way. It just transforms how you can access and communicate with your candidates.
Matt Alder [00:10:03]:
Very interesting. So I suppose one of the other things that I wanted to talk to you about was you recently did a presentation at Wreckfest 2 about employer branding, which had a kind of particularly interesting title. And I just wondered if you could perhaps share some of the key lessons that you kind of learned on your. On your kind of recent employer branding journey.
Kevin Hough [00:10:33]:
Sure. I mean, I think that for me, what was really important about that particular presentation is I feel that people like myself learn through seeing where other people may have had challenges. And I think it’s much easier to look at what challenges you faced rather than, there was a fantastic job. How can I replicate that? Because every brand is different, every organisation is different. So that particular presentation focused on my top 10 employer branding mistakes. And I think broadly, some of the theme with that is, firstly, fundamentally, do people really understand what employer brand is? Because one of the stakes that potentially we probably fell for a few years ago is that it’s very fundamentally around the look, the feel of your website or your career’s advertising. And, yes, that’s an initial touch point, but the way I like to talk about it is it’s what people say about you when you’re not in the room. And one of the interesting anecdotes that I know gets banded around is the employer brand and employee value proposition is often referred to as the corporate B day. Every posh place has one, but doesn’t know what to do with it. And I think sometimes that is the case. So presentation talks about, do you really understand what your EVP or your employee value proposition is? Why would someone join your brand? And it goes back to that old adage of the elevator pitch. What sets you apart differently and what we’re trying to do. I’m hoping we’re trying to be clever, not tying ourseLVes in knots. But we know what drives one of our customer service representatives to join LV is very, very different to a senior, experienced professional in our finance function, for example. So we’ve done a lot of work actually redefining that proposition, but also designing the messaging matrix coming out of it. And the output of that has been really, really intriguing to look and say, goodness, I think we’d have pitched adverts for finance a bit differently. So that’s been really useful. I think the other core themes that I touched on were things like consistency. So I had a really interesting slide that was quite embarrassing, I think, for me to produce, which was demonstrating that we have adverts out there that are part of our 2015 employer brand. Candidates were then encouraged to apply via our 2012 careers website, and if they were successful, they’d have an offer pack we designed in 2009. And it kind of sort of goes on and it’s just about thinking about all of those touch points, not just when someone’s being recruited, but actually fundamentally when they’re joining the organization. So it’s just thinking about that, and if your employer brand is centralized around your people, how are you going to engage with those people and make them ambassadors? I always joke about, you know, a journalist was asking me how many people work for the resourcing team, And I said, 6,000, because you know what? Which ironically did lead to a bit of an awkward misquote, which I had to correct because I think people thought I’d run the biggest resourcing function in the world. I think Mum was proud. But fundamentally, that’s true. You know, the organization absolutely should all be ambassadors for your brand and help you to attract that top talent. And finally, the other one that I think is particularly more prevalent now is what I call the economics of candidate experience. So if you consider how many people you may reject every year, how many of Those people have had such a poor experience that they would never choose to purchase an LV product again. I hope not many, but if you start to think about that, there’s a real economic too, actually. You could be losing a hell of a lot of business commercially if you’re not actually treating people in the right way. So everyone has that, you know, we want everyone to walk away, even if they didn’t get the job and think, what a great experience. But we know fundamentally that’s not always the reality. So that was another area that I’m particularly interested in, really. So I hope that, I hope that get a bit of, a, bit of a summary, but it’s quite an interesting subject, I guess. Talk for hours, Matt.
Matt Alder [00:15:08]:
You know, feel free. There’s never a, there’s never a time limit on the podcast. I think that’s really interesting, actually, because I think the theme that’s coming out of everything that you’re saying is, you know, this kind of whole brand ambassador. So, you know, your resourcing team is brand ambassadors, the rest of the company is brand ambassadors, but also, you know, the kind of external audiences and stakeholders as well. So, you know, someone who works for the company’s mother as a, as a brand ambassador. And I think that’s really, you know, really, really interesting that, that you found that. And, you know, it sounds like the results kind of speak for themseLVes that, that, that, that works as a strategy.
Kevin Hough [00:15:49]:
Yeah. And I think also I think organizations are going to have to work a bit harder as well. And, you know, with the introduction of things such as glass, that’s another one that I think is worth keeping your finger on the pulse with, because the conversation is going to be happening on that medium whether you like it or not, and whether you choose to engage actually starts to separate you as an employer. That’s something I’m very mindful of because it’s almost like the online TripAdvisor that’s monitoring your employer branding, what the word is on the ground. That’s definitely one that I’m keeping an eye on.
Matt Alder [00:16:26]:
So final. You know, obviously I could talk for hours as well, but we should probably, you know, we should probably kind of.
Kevin Hough [00:16:33]:
It will be flopping off to sleep.
Matt Alder [00:16:35]:
Yes. Yeah, absolutely. You know, absolutely. But final question, I’m obviously very interested to know, you know, what’s kind of, what’s kind of next for LV. What’s your focus over the sort of next 18, 18 months or so, and how do you think, you know, recruitment, resourcing are going to develop over that over that time as well.
Kevin Hough [00:16:59]:
I think Broad is a group. We’re looking to transform the business in terms of actually being more efficient at what we do. Getting to the next stage in terms of, if I look at the general insurance market, for example, all of the introduction of new technology such as the telematics that can tell how you’re driving through to to on our life business, how you can start to get a bit of online advice, etc. So as a business, we’re always looking to grow and do things differently. I think there’s always that big question mark about the full impact of digital and that tends to be the buzzword everyone likes to use. But I think fundamentally as the business starts to develop and move itself forward, we need to be set up correctly as a team to deliver what the business needs because roles that we were delivering two, three years ago are really evoLVing in terms of the true skill sets and requirements. So if I just look at the IT and change, there’s lots of different developers and codes that we code languages that we need to be getting in the door. The piece that’s been really big for us and where our vision as a recruitment team is really becoming a true talent acquisition function. And that’s around looking at the whole target operating model of the resourcing function, which we’ve recently restructured to really be able to service the business in the right way. So rather than being business focused, we’re transforming ourseLVes to be function focused, which then makes sure that we’re leveraging the brand, we’re understanding what the sell is and building strategies around that. And I think that for us, when we can tick the box and say we’ve got there, I think that for us is a tremendous achievement. What I’m not willing to do is just re badge ourseLVes the talent acquisition team because it’s a sexy word to use. It’s what tells us that we’ve got ourseLVes there. So it’s a really big year for the resourcing function. So it’s one that’s quite exciting, but terribly busy and setting ourseLVes up for the future.
Matt Alder [00:19:05]:
It sounds like it’s going to be a very interesting, a very interesting time. Kevin, thank you very much for talking to me.
Kevin Hough [00:19:13]:
Pleasure. I really enjoyed it.
Matt Alder [00:19:15]:
My thanks to Kevin Hough. If you’re enjoying these podcasts, I’d be very, very grateful if you could share them with a colleague who might be interested. Also, I’ll be even more grateful if you could write a review in itunes for the podcast. You can of course also subscribe to the podcast in itunes as well as on Stitcher. For show notes all the past episodes, and to subscribe to the mailing list, go to www.rfpodcast.com. i’ll be back next week and I hope you’ll join me.
