In our current age of noise, distraction and shrinking attention spans, employer branding has never been strategically more important to help employers stand out and attract exceptional talent. But are our current approaches to employer branding as an industry fit for purpose and what can employers be doing differently to get a competitive advantage?
To discuss all of this and more besides, my guest this week is David Thompson. David is an employer branding veteran and founder of new employer brand consultancy, People Brand.
In the interview we discuss:
• The current state of Employer Branding
• The importance of sentiment in branding
• The power of storytelling
• Employer Brand versus Talent Brand
• Audience-centric thinking
• The role of technology
David also shares his advice to employers who are thinking of getting started with a new Employer Brand strategy
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Transcript:
Matt Alder [00:00:00]:
Support for this podcast comes from Smart Recruiters, the hiring success company. Smart Recruiters is an enterprise grade talent acquisition suite designed for hiring success. Move beyond applicant tracking with a modern platform that provides everything you need to attract, select and hire the best talent. From candidate relationship management, sourcing and recruitment marketing to screening, selection and offer management experience. A talent acquisition suite with a user experience that candidates, hiring managers and recruiters all love. Companies from Kelly Services to Visa to Bosch leverage smart recruiters to achieve hiring success and expand their business. Visit smart recruiters@www.smartrecruiters.com to find out why companies across the globe consider them the number one ATS replacement.
Matt Alder [00:01:09]:
Hi everyone, this is Matt Alder. Welcome to episode 155 of the Recruiting Future podcast. In our current age of noise, distraction and shrinking attention spans, employer branding has never been more important as a strategy to help employers stand out and attract exceptional talent. But are current approaches to employer branding fit for purpose? And what can employers be doing differently to get competitive advantage? To discuss all this and more is my guest this week, David Thompson. David is an employer branding veteran and founder of new employer brand consultancy, People Brand. Enjoy the interview. Hi David, and welcome to the podcast.
David Thompson [00:02:03]:
Hello Matt. Great to speak to you and delighted to be here.
Matt Alder [00:02:06]:
Pleasure to have you on the show. Could you just introduce yourself and tell everyone what you do?
David Thompson [00:02:11]:
Sure, no problem. Thanks. Okay, so I’m David Thompson. I’ve worked in employer brand agencies for about 25 years, most recently working for PEN and I was head of agency for 33. I’ve recently just set up my own business called People Brand and my passion and specialism is employer branding. Finding out why companies are great organizations to work for and helping them to tell that story.
Matt Alder [00:02:36]:
So we’ve, we’ve worked together in the past, so very familiar, very familiar with your work. And I know that you’re, you know, someone who’s passionate about employer branding and always has their finger on the pulse in terms of what’s going on. So how would you describe the sort of the current state, the current status of employer brand?
David Thompson [00:02:55]:
Good question, good question. I think we’re at a bit of a tipping point, Matt, and let me explain the story behind it. I think the way we approach employer branding at the moment, what we refer to as employer branding is still, in a way, kind of better job advertising if you like. So there’s a focus on the employer, but the Focus on branding isn’t quite there yet, and I think this is going to become more and more important over the next few years. My starting point for this thought process was some research I was reading recently from Deloitte where they were talking about the kind of preferences and behaviors of millennials and their attitudes towards employers, their future employers. And it’s basically saying they’re becoming more and more concerned about their corporate social responsibility credentials and want to know that they’re working for the good gu more and more driven by sentiment rather than just the job prospect. And it got me thinking, you know, are we set up for this in the future? Is employer branding in the right place to be meeting the needs of kind of the next generation of job seekers? And I was also thinking about the way we’ve changed in our consumer shopping behavior and our attitudes to brands and the fact that we’ve all become more sentimental. We all love storytelling now, for example, you know, we love the hero journey of our brands. You know, brands like Innocent and Airbnb and nationwide. And your recent podcast with Shane Snow was, you know, he was telling us about the power of storytelling and how it produces more dopamine in the brain and how we just remember brands more when we. When storytelling is attached to it. So we’ve all become more used to storytelling, we’re all becoming more socially aware, and we’re all looking for more validation when we’re making purchases. So we’re all looking at TripAdvisor and Amazon for validation that we’re buying the right things. And I think what we’re starting to see is this happening more and more in employer branding. We’re starting to see audiences wanting to validate whether they’re working for the good guys or not by looking at employer reviews on Glassdoor. And indeed, we’re wanting to see the social credentials of any organization. And we want to hear the story. We want to hear the story of why they’re a unique, differentiated employer. So this is kind of what the audience is wanting and how we’re changing. But the question I’m asking is, you know, are we doing this in employer branding? Are we doing enough to kind of meet these needs?
Matt Alder [00:05:27]:
It’s interesting you say that, actually, because I remember back to, you know, my very first job in recruitment marketing was working for, was working with a Guardian, the big national newspaper in the uk, and at the time, it used to carry lots of, lots and lots of print recruitment ads. And the first time I came across employer branding was when my, my manager introduced me to the concept. And she said, when you’re on the phone talking to these agencies and employers, mention employer branding. And I said to her, well, what’s employer branding? And she said, I’ve got no idea. But it basically means they’ll buy a bigger ad and it might have color in it. And I’m not entirely sure that the way that we think about employer branding has moved on massively from there. I mean, you know, to sort of answer your own question, I mean, you know, do you think where employer branding is now is a good place to sort of meet the changing needs that you’re talking about?
David Thompson [00:06:29]:
I think we’ve got some work to do. I still think we approach employer branding very much from kind of an inside out process. If you think about how your favorite consumer brands kind of win your affections and win your attention, they’ve got some very definite, kind of very defined ways that they go about building their brand. You know, they make sure they differentiate that they’re completely different to the competition. They make sure they understand their audience first and foremost. So they’re looking at what the emotional need of the audience is and what their product or service is going to do to fill that need. They find a really, really unique voice and then they maintain that really, really consistently. So if you think, you know, brands like Nike, Walt Disney, for example, or, you know, winning, winning your hearts, emotional activity, John Lewis Dyson are kind of more pragmatic in the way they go about it, but they know exactly what kind of emotional reaction they’re trying to elicit from you. I don’t think we’ve mastered that in employer branding yet. We still kind of put down a list of the things that we think are good about working for our organization and then kind of throw them out there without really understanding our audience very well and understand what kind of reaction we’re trying to elicit from them. So I think we’re kind of approaching it slightly wrong. We still kind of approach it very much from a process point of view and kind of build our story from the inside out, you know, and if you think about the kind of process that Nike would go through, for example, you know, they would win your heart first with their brand marketing. You know, there would be, you know, just do it, win that, you know, win your heart with that kind of really exciting proposition. Only then would you look at their products on their website, their trainers or their sports clothing and make your purchase decision. So they understand that we build the brand first and then we get people to make the purchasing decision. But in Employer branding, we kind of work in resources. We kind of work the other way around. You know, the first contact that the audience has with us usually at the moment, is in the job listing. It’s the functional specification they see first. Then we try and win them over with our career site information or our social media content. So we’re trying to win their hearts and minds after we’ve showed them the functional specification. So it kind of feels like this is all a bit the wrong way round, you know, and I think it’s because we don’t naturally think like marketeers yet, you know, a marketeer wouldn’t take a brand to market without understanding their audience first and wouldn’t stick their products out there without having any understanding of what the market is wanting and what they’re trying to fulfill. So, you know, I think we need to think more like marketeers, basically. And that’s an easy thing to say to resourcing people. But I think there’s a new kind of skill set that needs to be adopted where we start off by thinking about our audience first and foremost and how we’re going to differentiate and what exactly we’re trying to say and what kind of emotional reaction we’re trying to elicit.
Matt Alder [00:09:30]:
So one of the, one of the most interesting things for me is the, the actual rebranding of employer brand as talent brand, which is something that we’re kind of seeing more and more. And I think the, you know, the, the reasoning and the thinking behind that is all about the voice of employees and, and giving that sort of authentic access to, you know, to an audience to see, to, you know, to see what the companies, to see what the company’s really like. But, but I’m guessing that, that actually, you know, effective employer branding, or talent branding, whatever you want to call it, you know, is. Is about much more than that. It’s about actually sort of, you know, creating and executing on a compelling, compelling, sort of unified story as well, I’d imagine, isn’t it?
David Thompson [00:10:18]:
It is, mate. Yeah. It’s. I think in the past, employer branding has largely been driven from the top down. So we’ve had a habit of kind of getting our chief executive or some senior people in the organization to say, okay, this is what I want said. But that’s not really meeting needs of the audience that we’re seeing developing. You know, they want to hear authenticity, they want to hear the real voice of the organization. So I think there’s a real shift now towards wanting to capture those authentic voices. But those authentic voices need to be kind of underpinned by a kind of consistent narrative. Because the danger is if you go out to your business and just get lots and lots of people to kind of say why they like working there, you end up with a kind of very muddied picture. Lots and lots of people saying different things. So I think, you know, a good employer brand uses authentic voices, but builds a framework of a strong employer value proposition for them to work around so they know the points that they are making.
Matt Alder [00:11:22]:
I think that’s really interesting, and it kind of makes a lot of sense, I suppose. You know, my next question is something that comes up in employer branding all the time, and it certainly comes up in the, you know, the consulting that I do that, you know, across a particular industry, all employer brands tend to sort of look. Look exactly. Look exactly the same. And, you know, there isn’t any differentiation for, you know, people looking to sort of work at one company over, over another. I mean, how do you think that’s happened and how do you think companies might avoid that in the future?
David Thompson [00:12:02]:
I think it happens because it’s kind of, you know, we built the employer brands from the inside out. So we do it without researching our market and without exactly what our competitors are saying and how we can be different and how we can make something feel different and sound different. So I think we haven’t done our homework well enough in the past, and I would encourage anyone who’s going through the process of building their employer value proposition and putting an employer brand together to start off by really looking at the competition and understand what they’re saying and make sure what you’re saying is different as a starting point. After that, it’s about finding that true voice of the organization. You’re right. When we look at lots of employer brands, they all kind of look and sound the same in many cases. But when I spend time with these organizations, they’re all so different, you know, So I think it’s about capturing that realistic voice and really probing, doing lots and lots of focus groups within the organization, getting to the bottom and distilling what really, really makes you different. So it’s all about doing your homework. I think, Matt, it’s rather than just kind of, you know, reading off five or six things that you think is great about working in the organization. It’s doing your homework, doing your research, understanding what the outside world is saying, being different, maintaining your tone of voice, and being confident. I think we’ve also got a little habit within resourcing that we like to kind of Slip into stuff that looks a bit like our competitors. It feels comfortable. But going back to the world of brand marketing, that’s the last thing you want to do. You want to create something which is totally different to your competitors. So again, I think it’s just about having a slightly different mindset and being excited and not being scared of being different and saying do different things.
Matt Alder [00:13:42]:
I literally couldn’t agree with you more on, on that one. And what about, you know, what about technology? We’ve, we, we’ve seen that sort of technology is becoming pervasive in every, almost every aspect of recruitment marketing. Is technology a help or a hindrance when it comes to employer, brand?
David Thompson [00:14:04]:
Both. I think, man. I think, you know, technology is great for the recruitment process. It allows us to bring candidates through a better journey. But I still think that again, because most of the people we are, our backgrounds is mainly resourcing, we tend to think about the recruitment process but kind of forget about the story. So you know, we will come into a recruitment process and kind of see a really nice career website, but then go through the application process and all of a sudden that, that emotional connection that you’ve made starts to break down a bit, you know, and you go through what’s called a functional application process and, and then into an interview process and by the end of the process you’ve lost all of that kind of emotional connection you had at the start. So technology can be a great facilitator and a great assistant in helping us make a better process, but it can also be an obstacle in that it can break down that kind of emotional connection that we’re making. And I think we need to again think like marketeers. The great brands that we love have this lovely, these golden threads going throughout their whole kind of purchasing process with Amazon, with Nike, whoever it is, Apple in particular all the way through that process of buying a product and their after sales as well, that emotional connection is retained. So we’ve got to make sure we do more of that I think in resourcing.
Matt Alder [00:15:27]:
I think that’s a fantastic point because it’s something I see time and time again where someone has obviously invested, invested a lot of time and effort in, you know, in, in the sort of the front end of their, of their, of their talent attraction. But you know, literally as soon as you reach, as soon as you hit the apply button, you know, that all disappears and you’re, you’re, you’re kind of into often a, quite, a quite grueling and unuser friendly process. So yeah, absolutely, I think that’s, you know, that’s definitely a fantastic. A fantastic point.
David Thompson [00:16:02]:
Yeah. And I think it’s possibly, you know, there’s a realization that this is the case because we’re seeing the introduction of more and more employer brand managers in organizations now. You know, this used to be just the kind of, you know, you only find these people in, you know, big four consultancies or in major corporate banks. But we’re starting to see it appearing in more and more kind of mainstream organizations now as organizations realize, actually someone’s got to take control of this. You know, someone’s got to take control of this brand and this storytelling and make sure that it’s being told really, really consistently right the way through the process. So I think we’re kind of waking up to it, but we’ve got a bit of work to do.
Matt Alder [00:16:41]:
And what about measurement? You know, measurements always been a bit of a thorny issue in employer brand, and I’m still seeing, you know, large, large companies who invest huge amounts of money, employer brands, arguing about how best to measure it. What’s your perspective on measuring the kind of return on investment here?
David Thompson [00:17:04]:
It’s a thorny issue, isn’t it, you know, measuring an employer brand at the moment. And again, there is a difference in the world of brand marketing, there is a separation between what the expectations of a brand and the expectations of a sales campaign, for example, and I think we still lump the two together. So most of our systems of measurement at the moment are still kind of fairly hard metrics around a number of applications or number of hires or cost per hire. But in the world of brand marketing, you focus much more on sentiment. Are people reacting positively to your brand? And therefore will they feel more disposed to purchasing your products in the future? So the systems of measurement that will be used in the world of brand are using services like Brandwatch or YouGov to kind of measure the sentiment towards a brand. And then there’d be a totally different set of measures for sales. You know, how many pairs of trainers did we sell? You know, the two are very, very separate. Whereas in the world of employee branding at the moment, we’re asking people, you know, to build a brand and create this sentimental kind of attachment, but not actually measuring if that’s having any effect. All we’re measuring is what the final output is, you know, how many applications we get. So I think we haven’t quite got that right either. We need to start separating out the two.
Matt Alder [00:18:27]:
So, final question. There’ll be lots of people listening from companies who haven’t sort of got to the stage of having their own employer brand manager, and indeed, probably many companies sort of listening who, you know, don’t feel that they’ve done much work at all around their employer brand or their or their talent brand. What would your advice be to a company sort of looking at this for the first time or wanting to, you know, radically overhaul what they’ve done in the past? How should they get started?
David Thompson [00:19:00]:
I think the first thing to do, Matt, is nail your employer value proposition. Understand what makes you unique, understand why anybody would want to come and work for you and why your employees would stay with you. I’m always amazed, my experience of working within agencies. Go and see clients, you sit down and talk to them and say, okay, why would anyone come and work here? So often you find people just kind of shrug their shoulders and go, we’re not actually that sure. So if you really understand what makes you different and makes you understand why your people are passionate and you create an employee value proposition that every single employee can look at, nod and go, yeah, I recognize that you’re off to a really, really good start. After that, it’s just a question of telling the story intelligently in the right places at the right time and getting the words and pictures right and using film and things like that. But if you haven’t got your employee value proposition nailed, all subsequent work that you will do will be wrong. It’s like trying to put Ikea furniture together without reading the instructions. You kind of put it together on your instinct and you get to the end and go, ah, right. That first thing I did is wrong. So I’ve now got to undo all of the work that I did to get back to get the first part right. So get your EVP right first time, research it really, really well. Run focus groups, run surveys, look at your competitor landscape, look at what your competitors are saying and make not saying the same thing. Once you’ve done that, once you’ve done your homework, you’ve got your EVP mailed, you’re on a good footing to start actually starting to tell the stories and say the right things to the right audiences.
Matt Alder [00:20:32]:
David, thank you very much for talking to me.
David Thompson [00:20:34]:
Thank you very much, Matt. It’s been a pleasure.
Matt Alder [00:20:37]:
My thanks to David Thompson. You can subscribe to this podcast in Apple Podcasts or via your podcasting app of choice. The show also has its own dedicated app, which you can find by searching for recruiting future in your app store. If you’re a Spotify user, you can also find the show there. You can find all the past episodes@www.rfpodcast.com on that site, you can 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.
