Employer branding has never been a more popular discussion topic with a huge amount of content and conference time now dedicated to it. However, when you dig below the surface, there is very little that addresses the day to day concerns of employer brand practitioners, particularly those working within global organizations.
Working in partnership with my regular co-collaborator Mervyn Dinnen and in conjunction with employer brand solution provider Papirfly, this summer we did a piece of research design to restore the balance by uncovering the real issues in employer branding.
On the podcast this week I’m joined by Sara Naveda, Client Director at Papirfly, to discuss the research and its findings.
In our discussion we cover four key issues:
• How to align internal and external brand to greater effect
• Why employer brand becomes even more important in times of commercial turmoil
• How to adopt employee generated content to grow your employer brand at scale
• The importance of measuring effectiveness of your efforts, and best practice techniques for doing so
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Transcript:
Matt Alder [00:00:12]:
Hi everyone, this is Matt Alder. Welcome to episode 64 of the Recruiting Future podcast. Employer branding has never been a more popular discussion topic with a huge amount of content and conference time now dedicated to it. However, when you dig below the surface, there is very little that addresses the day to day concerns of employer brand practitioners, particularly those working in global organisations. Working in partnership with my regular co collaborator Mervyn Dinon, and in conjunction with employer brand software provider Paperfly, this summer we did a piece of research to help restore the balance by uncovering the real issues in employer branding. For this week’s podcast, I’m joined by Sarah Naveda, client director at Paperfly, to discuss the research and tell you more about our findings. Hi Sarah and welcome to the podcast.
Sarah Naveda [00:01:18]:
Hello Matt. Thank you for having us. Great to be here.
Matt Alder [00:01:20]:
A pleasure to be talking to you. Could you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about what Paperfly do?
Sarah Naveda [00:01:27]:
Sure. I’m Sarah Naveda and I’m client director and partner manager at Paperfly. Paperfly is, simply put, kind of like a production toolkit and it’s been created to solve specific employer brand challenges. And we’re working with some fantastic global companies, really making a difference to their employer brand activation, so delivering results around consistency and cost and time savings. So yeah, really fantastic company and really exciting times for us.
Matt Alder [00:01:57]:
So the reason that we’re speaking is me and my co collaborator Mervyn Dynan have actually just done a piece of research for you guys and it’s something that we wanted to sort of discuss on the podcast and let everyone know what we, what we found and why we found it. But before we sort of talk about the details of the insight report that we’ve produced, why did you want to do this research in the first place? Tell us what your motivations were.
Sarah Naveda [00:02:28]:
Well, we’ve got a really lovely range of clients now, people from BP to P and G, Rolls Royce, Unilever, Monster, Walmart, and we’re working really closely in the employer brand space with them and we wanted to just sort of contribute to the debate, to the discussion and work with you guys to do some qualitative research to understand the key issues that are keeping our clients and those in the industry awake and sort of just look at what the issues are, open a conversation about it and offer also some practical advice. And obviously Matt, you and I, we’ve worked together before and we’ve seen the work you and Mervyn do. And we thought it’d be a really good partnership and something where we could add real value to our clients.
Matt Alder [00:03:07]:
Absolutely. And I think it was interesting for us because there is a huge amount of content that gets put out on the Internet and social media about employer brand, but a lot of it is very, very kind of superficial. It doesn’t perhaps address the concerns, motivations of practitioners who are actually sort of delivering employer brand work within corporations day in, day out. So really what we did with this piece of work is we spoke to a number of employer brand professionals within global organizations and identified their sort of key areas, their key challenges, really. And once we found those challenges, we went and we went and spoke to people who had solved them in practice, or if they hadn’t solved them, they were, they were working towards, you know, working towards solutions in that area. And basically we’ve pulled it together into an insight report which Paperfly have published. And I think there were some really interesting, some really interesting findings.
Sarah Naveda [00:04:18]:
Yeah, I agree. I think one of the key things that you mentioned there, Matt, is that people know where they need to go, what the point that they need to get to within employer branding space more and more. But actually the road map to getting there, it’s so clearly delineated and people really do look for that practical advice and that, and that guidance as, as to things that they could actively be doing, you know, some steps that they could take. And I think that’s exactly what the report offers. It gives that insight, but also that, that practical advice as to how they might approach the key challenges and overcome them.
Matt Alder [00:04:51]:
So what we thought we’d do in this podcast is just give you a real sort of overview and a taster of the, of the issues that we identified and some of the things that we found. So they fell broadly into four areas. The first one was the challenge of aligning external brand so the employer brand that’s communicated externally with the actual internal reality of what it’s like to work at the organization. Well, what struck you as interesting about this particular topic, Sarah?
Sarah Naveda [00:05:26]:
Well, I think there’s a lot focus in employer branding on the external brand. So maybe around that candidate journey, around aiming for consistency and authenticity in those messages. I think sharing the values, the purpose, what it’s like to work for you. Some organizations also have to factor in the customer experience because obviously the brand perception can be heavily influenced by not only the candidate journey, but perhaps that candidate’s experience as a customer. And I think it was really interesting the way I, I ended up Feeling like really the whole focus needs to start with the internal brand first. Because if you have happy employees, you’re more likely to have happy customers, you’re more likely to have happy shareholders. And this will create a really exciting and energizing culture which will then of course, inform the external brand, giving it true authenticity. So I thought the internal first was a really good starting point. And I think that means that really as a practical step, what recruiters need to do is really make sure they’ve got all the relevant stakeholders involved from talent acquisition, hr, marketing, internal comms, maybe the wider business stakeholders. Because you really need to align all of those external and internal brands to make sure they’re all coherent and that that actual candidate journey from the beginning right the way through to becoming an employee, that it is still consistent. They don’t arrive and there’s a disconnect. It all needs to be. All the brands need to be going in the right direction.
Matt Alder [00:06:59]:
I think it’s interesting because the word authenticity is seen by some people to almost be a cliche these days. And I think what we found in the report is it’s not a cliche, it’s reality. You know, authenticity and kind of alignment in between, you know, the practical reality of the employment experience and what can. How companies communicate and market what it’s. What it might be like to work there was critical and it came up in almost every section.
Sarah Naveda [00:07:32]:
I agree there’s kind of like a growing distrust of corporate messages and with Glassdoor and indeed that they all kind of add to this desire and culture and wishing to get validation from an insider’s point of view. So really, obviously employers can’t control Glassdoor and the like, but what they can do is try and encourage employee advocacy, brand ambassadors, advocates and use technology to try and control that message a little bit more.
Matt Alder [00:08:02]:
Absolutely. And that’s something that we’ll talk about in a bit more detail a little bit later. So the second section of the report is called Employer Branding in a Challenging Commercial Environment. And this was really interesting. The point of having this section in here was a lot of the reaction that we got to the practitioners that we spoke to kind of, sort of expressed their dismay that a lot of the case studies that are out there about employer brand come from companies who already have, you know, an image of a, you know, a great brand, a place that everyone kind of always already wants to. Wants to work at. And we thought it’d be interesting to explore how companies who work in what might be considered less attractive industries or industries that are Currently having, you know, economic issues or other issues, what they could do to, you know, really focus on their employer brand and attract, attract the best talent to their, to their organizations. What did you think of this particular issue, Sarah?
Sarah Naveda [00:09:08]:
I agree. I mean often you’ll get the fantastic companies, Google, Virgin, all of those that have got a more appealing brand that comment on this area. And I do think, you know, there are industries which have more challenging commercial environments. The report mentions perhaps the tobacco industry, there’s negative feeling towards industries or difficult trading circumstances maybe like oil and gas or poor profits. And I think what the report focuses on here is it’s perhaps easier than ever to get a bad reputation given. Again, that word of mouth is so powerful these days. So what recruiters kind of need to do is work hard to own their message and look to demonstrate what their offer is, what the key messages of appeal as part of their employee value proposition are. There’s obvious things like remuneration, career development, style of leadership, culture of valuing individuals, strong internal relationships, corporate citizens, all these points. But I think it comes back to seeing employer branding as part of a broader picture and looking to your internal teams to work together. So again, maybe talent acquisition, hr, learning and development, and really putting the time and the resource into identifying what you can offer to your potential candidates and your future employees and looking for ways to bring in what they want to life within your company. So again, you can authentically offer it. So the paper’s got some lovely detail there about how to appeal to different audiences because obviously the younger workforce, their aspirations are going to be a little different from mid career or late career aspirations. So it’s really just giving some advice around the most compelling way to show how you as a business can deliver on what it is that your job seekers would want.
Matt Alder [00:10:49]:
I think the interesting thing that came out of the couple of interviews that I did with, you know, people who are, who are, who are doing this well in challenging circumstances was just how important candidate experience and a totally joined up talent acquisition process was. And the feeling was that if they’d got the attention of a really good candidate, they, they had to do absolutely everything that they could to, you know, persuade, persuade that person to work for them. And having a quality candidate experience was an absolutely critical part of that.
Sarah Naveda [00:11:27]:
Definitely.
Matt Alder [00:11:28]:
Okay, so the, the third one, which is something that we’ve, we’ve kind of touched on already was employee generated content. Now interestingly, a lot of people that we spoke to in the initial interviews identified this as something they knew they absolutely had to do. But a lot of people not necessarily sure on the best way, the best way to do it, the processes they need, the technology they might have to, they might have to use or really the outcomes that they were looking for. So it’s a classic example of something that’s, that’s talked about a lot, but actually only a few companies seem to be doing it really, really, really, really well. And they were the people that we looked at and kind of modeled for this section of the report. What struck you about this particular area, Sarah?
Sarah Naveda [00:12:19]:
Well, as you say, there are methods to generate employee led content that will then resonate with target audiences and massively extend. I think it is that whole area of people, okay, we need to do that. It is a bit of a buzzword again, but how do we do that? And I think one of the key areas is first of all finding and encouraging those brand advocates. And there’s various ways to do that. It might be to people might do that, for example, to enhance their own brand. You know, a lot of people are looking to increase their profile or perhaps they might do it for reward or kudos or winning a competition. But it’s, it’s finding out how can you motivate people to become brand advocates? Who do you want to become and motivate to brand advocates? And then it’s about how you can harness technology really to do that efficiently. So it’s not an onerous process. And from our point of view, as I mentioned at the beginning, we’re always looking for ways to add value to our clients. So we’ve recently partnered with Andrew Mart at Workometry. And what happens here is I think a really beautifully nimble process where using Andrew’s technology, for example, I’ll give a little scenario. A company can contact last year’s graduates and ask them three open questions. For example, why did you join us? What have you enjoyed this year since you’ve been working for us? And what would you say to graduates looking or thinking about joining us this year? And then Workometry’s technology will then very efficiently and in real time pass that information so that you can see very quickly what your key strengths are. You can even drill down to specific quotes. And then when you partner that with our technology at Paperfly, where we empower people to produce their own brand marketing without any outside support. So it’s very quick and cost effective process. For example, you could then take those messages, use our social media module and then publish into your social platforms the key appeals to those to graduates this year what they might like to consider and what the employees are saying from last year, graduates from last year as to why they should consider you as a company. So it’s just that really, really nice way of listening to your workforce. And if you consider that for a global company that’s across all different regions, across all different territories and in all different languages, you can really quickly start to evaluate what your potential key messages are. And then using Paperflow, you can then get them to market very quickly and really just start that relationship with your job seeker. That is a real, authentic and an honest assessment of who you are and what they can expect and what you really offer.
Matt Alder [00:15:01]:
That’s very interesting. And Andrew of course was a, was a guest a few podcasts ago talking about his work in, in kind of HR and recruitment analytics. And I think, you know, pairing this kind of employee generated content with analytics is a really interesting approach. So the final section of the report is measuring employer brand effectiveness. What did you think to the findings here?
Sarah Naveda [00:15:29]:
Well, it’s a really complex area. I mean, I don’t think there is a universal agreement or definition on how to measure employer brand effectiveness. So I think what the report focuses on is the ideas in the employer brand industry about how you might want to do that. But obviously I think the trouble here is people are always competing for resources. There can be a lack of priority. There’s so much to do. It means often that the reality of how things get measured differs from what people would like it to look like. But there are, there are some specific ways you might wish to do it. From external benchmarking, looking at how you’re placed on review sites or awards, to performance, KPIs, internal surveys. There’s lots of practical suggestions there. But I think the key element here is there’s no single way to measure it. So people kind of need to look at their company and look at what does success mean to them and sort of develop their own scorecard and work out again as part of the bigger picture. Because employer brand is always feeding into the corporate brand and the corporate company overall objectives. It’s how really do you want to measure your success within that bigger picture. So it’s about reviewing the range of options and developing your own scorecard based on your company’s own version of success and then always looking to get that bigger picture with an eye on the broader business objectives.
Matt Alder [00:16:51]:
Yes, I think this was really interesting actually because all of the companies who were doing effective employer brand measurement were using that balanced scorecard approach. So they had four or five different external and internal metrics that they were using to really see what was being effective. So the Insight Report is available now. How can people get hold of it?
Sarah Naveda [00:17:19]:
Well, if you go to our website or just email us on helloaperfly.com paperfly is p a p I r f l y dot com and yeah, register your interest for it and we’ll send it over to you. And we’d love to have a conversation and just share a bit more around our thoughts on the Insight Report and our experience in the employer brand space working with our global clients as well. It’d be great to catch up with people and start that conversation. That’s what the whole report’s for, really.
Matt Alder [00:17:47]:
Sarah, thank you very much for talking to me.
Sarah Naveda [00:17:49]:
Matt, thank you very much and we’ll speak soon, I hope.
Matt Alder [00:17:53]:
My thanks to Sarah Naveda. If you want to download our free report, you can find it@bitlyebinsights16. That’s bitlyebinsights16 and that link will also be in the show Notes. You can subscribe to this podcast on itunes or via your podcasting app of choice. Just search for recruiting future. You can also find all the past episodes@www.rfpodcast.com on that site. You can also subscribe to the mailing list and find out more about working with me. Thanks very much for listening. I’ll be back next week and I hope you’ll join me.
