Building a Homegrown Employment Branding Strategy
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DirectEmloyers (DEAM13) Conference. Presentation by Ozzie Meza and Kristi Zimmerman. Topic: How to build a homegrown branding strategy.
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Building a Homegrown Employment Branding Strategy
- 1. Cultivating a „Homegrown‟ Employment Branding Strategy Ozzie Meza Kristi Zimmerman Talent Acquisition Manager, Strategic Services, Allstate Senior Employment Branding Specialist, Allstate
- 2. What You Will Learn Today Allstate and the Social Media “thing” Who is Allstate? Our Brand The Need for Social Media Strategy Introducing Employment Branding Consultant Presenting the Talent Attraction Strategy A limited budget can be a good thing Step by Step Internal Following Identify Quick-Wins Build a Portfolio Present Your Case Lessons Learned We laughed, we cried…now where do we go from here?
- 3. Brand-neutral KAT E CARL OS Local Advice & Assistance Self-serve DAV E ANN A Brand-sensitive
- 4. Brand Identity Through the Years
- 7. New Language: Talent Brand n. the highly social, totally public version of your employer brand incorporating what talent thinks, feels, and shares about your company as a place to work a significant asset for both hiring/retaining great talent and promoting your corporate image to the market
- 9. Pre-Employment Branding Consultant No No No No Yes Yes • SEO strategy • Consistency in brand • New videos • Metrics/analytics on what we were doing • Social Media/Collateral …and more • Vendor Management …and more
- 10. We have a brand consultant… Whaaaa...?
- 11. Part 2: Cultivating a Homegrown Cultivating a homegrown Branding Strategy branding strategy
- 12. 2 3 Print Media Digital Media 1 4 Social Media Talent Attraction Strategy Messaging 7 5 Mobile/SMS SEO/SEM 6 Engagement Metrics
- 13. Whaaaaa…?
- 15. STEP 1: Build an “Internal” Following
- 16. Step 1: Build an “Internal” Following • Get connected to people who can help you get things done. • Talk business. • Talk less, listen more. • Keep a finger on the pulse. • Introduce them to the competition.
- 17. STEP 2: Identify “Quick Wins”
- 18. Step 2: Identify “Quick Wins” • Take note of the resources you have at your disposal. • Figure out what you can do in-house. • Determine what you can do for free (more than you think!) • Build a task force to help (developmental opportunities)
- 20. STEP 3: Build Your Portfolio of “Awesomeness” [with a side of metrics]
- 21. Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. - Abraham Lincoln
- 22. Step 3: Build Your Portfolio of “Awesomeness” • Compile data you‟ve gathered via your own research / experiences over time. • Gather your own data (metrics are KEY). • Pull together examples of your accomplishments so far. • Pick top three things you want to achieve in the next 12 months. • Benchmark what other organizations have done.
- 23. STEP 4: Present Your Case
- 24. Step 4: Present Your Case • Focus on your three priorities (keep it simple). • Use the time to “show off” what you‟ve already accomplished. • Use competitor benchmarking / case studies and data you‟ve compiled to back you up. • Invite senior leadership to meet your vendor partners. • Don‟t underestimate the power of a pilot.
- 25. STEP 5: Execute
- 26. Step 5: Execute • Be fearless. • Keep leadership and strategic partners in the loop along the way. • Focus on you top three priorities (getting tired of this one!?) • Plan each priority and determine how you will present the results to leadership.
- 28. We Are Allstate
- 29. Good Work. Good Life. Good Hands
- 30. Priority 2: Social Engagement
- 37. The Lessons Learned • Continue to educate (constantly connect the dots!) • Gather feedback from recruiters • When in doubt, pilot it out (then do a “bake sale”) • Don‟t be afraid to experiment and have fun (Harlem Shake) • Strength in numbers • Don‟t always have to start from scratch – leverage what organization is already doing elsewhere
- 38. Connect With Us Ozzie Meza Kristi Zimmerman Talent Acquisition Manager, Strategic Services, Allstate Senior Employment Branding Specialist, Allstate LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/ozziemeza LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/kristiannezimmerman Twitter: ozziemeza1 Twitter: ktozgumption Email: omeza@allstate.com Email: kristi.zimmerman@allstate.com
Editor's Notes
- Today we will share Building a business case: how to get your ducks in a rowThe Advantage – what you can do with a limited budget, and how this can be an advantage to you in the long runThe Strategy – five steps to creating a home grown strategy. Piece of cake! (sort of )The Lessons learned – challenges, obstacles … and what to do next (Advance Slide)
- We are very proud to be with Allstate, a fortune 60 company, the largest publically traded provider of P and C products in the Domestic US and Canada. Our Talent Acquisition department recruits for our Exclusive Agent and Exclusive Financial specialists (independent business owners) and about 6000 new employees from non-exempt to officers reporting t the C Suite. To share more about Allstate, we would like to take 60 seconds to view our latest ad as it shares the Brand we reflect in our employment marketing. (Click video, advance slide) (Discuss how this video ties into the need for a strong employment brand)We’ve focused the Allstate brand on serving consumers who seek a trusted local advisor. We’ve put a stake in the ground with our customer-focused strategy, the Allstate Customer Value Proposition and our brand promise to deliver “a good life” for our customers, every day.How we deliver “a good life” will set Allstate apart in a highly competitive marketplace. Everyone in the entire organization – from Finance to the front line, Claims to contact centers, home office to the field – can take the Allstate customer experience to the next level by focusing on three things:Do the right thing – If it’s a coin toss, the customer always wins.Put people ahead of policies – Customers are people – not IIF, PIF, Auto, Home, Life. Imagine yourself in their situation.Defy expectations – Deliver what people wouldn’t expect from an insurance company.
- The average candidate uses 14.5 online resources before making a decision to apply for a job.88% of employees say they leave an organization for reasons other than money promoting the importance of communicating what ALL we have to offer – 30,000 employees84% of job seekers go to a company’s career site and feel that it is the primary platform to tell a story.54% of applicants check out social media, 84% of them do so before applying.74% of job seekers begin with Google (importance of SEO)
- We had to build a business case to hire on an employment branding consultant, which required pulling together information on the importance of a strong employment brand and assessing our “current state” and how it was impacting the candidate experience and the perception of our brand as an employer.We
- We also reviewed our current state (or state at the time) in terms of our external employment brand. Prior to hiring an employment branding consultant, we had:No SEO Strategy (tie into DE)No consistency in brand across the board (digital and print collateral) – made for an inconsistent candidate experienceVideos were outdated (large monitors, not in HD, outdated music and styles of employees, etc)No social presenceNo metrics/analytics on what we were doingNo guidancePoor job descriptions written by recruiters – no tools/resources to guide them
- Bringing in an Employment Branding Consultant: Didn’t know what to do with the role at firstWe made a case and knew it was needed – but didn’t have a plan for the new person The role evolved over time – kristi taught and educated the team on what is important and why. Tie this into what wehave done to build a home grown strategySo we didn’t have much of a plan … we didn’t have much of a budget … and we had a brand new person starting at the organization with a lot to tackle. What we learned, and what we will share with you throughout this presentation – is that although conditions for Kristi’s first year at Allstate were not ideal – we were able to turn lemons into lemonade – we were able to work the situation into our advantage. Having a minimal budget and no pre- conceived plan on how we should approach employment branding forced us to think big picture. It forced us to be strategic and carefully iron out our plan of attack. We knew we needed to do a lot of research so that we could gather more data to back us up. We knew that we had to spend our money wisely – rather than throwing money at CareerBuilder and Indeed and Glassdoor and a video vendor and our website – which can often be the case when someone has a significant budget to work with – we had to be thoughtful about how we approached our brand strategy. By moving at a slower pace, piloting ideas, and building strategic partnerships with our internal business clients – we were able to make solid and informed decisions that ultimately helped us gain credibility and, most importantly, the budget we need to continue to grow and expand our brand presence. Transition to Kristi
- Kristi – introductionMoving into part 2 of this presentation, I want to start by showing you what we’ve been able to accomplish so far via our “homegrown” strategy. To put it into context, I will share images/content of the past (pre-employment branding consultant) and then share similar images/content of the present.
- Bringing in an Employment Branding Consultant: Didn’t know what to do with the role at firstWe made a case and knew it was needed – but didn’t have a plan for the new person The role evolved over time – kristi taught and educated the team on what is important and why. Tie this into what wehave done to build a home grown strategy
- Bringing in an Employment Branding Consultant: Didn’t know what to do with the role at firstWe made a case and knew it was needed – but didn’t have a plan for the new person The role evolved over time – kristi taught and educated the team on what is important and why. Tie this into what wehave done to build a home grown strategy
- So this mission sounds like a piece of cake, right? I thought this visual was perfect: in my head I thought, “a fortune 100 organization, so I know we have $$ and resources, I just need to pull together some data and get access to that money and those resources…piece of cake…” then I quickly realized my mission was more like launching a daredevil car off of that piece of cake into the air and not knowing where I was going to land. The first year it involved a lot of winning people over, second year I could execute So over the next few slides I’m going to review the steps that I took to accomplish what we have done so far – and again, we still have a long way to go, but hopefully it will help you get started on your own mission as well.
- Reach out to business partners, colleagues, senior leaders: They are out there living it – they know what they need and you can come up with the innovative strategies that will help them get thereIntroduce yourself, explain that you are new and what your goals are – ask them how you can use them as a resource and whenListen to them! Show them that you are invested in their success and that you want to help and make a difference. More than likely their experiences in the past have been that people don’t have the time or resources to assess their needs and take action. You have an opportunity to step up to the plate and show them that you are committed to helping them.Figure out what has been done, any lessons learned, who you need to be connected with to help get things done. Follow up and keep a finger on the pulse – if you can’t do something right away, let them know you haven’t forgotten themNeeded to connect with people in a cool interesting way to get their attentionInfographicsVideo examplesData points
- Obviously as I stated before, I quickly learned that I didn’t have much of a budget and the org’s plan for me was more vendor management – i.e. job boards and facebook. I had to think outside the box to figure out what I could do on my own that didn’t require a big budget or additional resources. Started with iPad – created amateur videos, used as examplesDon’t get flustered over the resources you don’t have / wish you had: begin to take note of the resources you DO have to your disposal such as the internal marketing team, etc. Determine what you can do for free – photographer on the team, etc. Request the help of other members on the team – employment branding/marketing/social is fun, and can be a great learning/developmental experience for sourcers or entry-level individuals who want to get involved and have time to assistFigure out what you can do in-house
- EXAMPLES: Photographer on our team who was willing to take photos around campus for us for free – used these for our own collateral and Direct Employers pages and for standardized linkedin photosPhotoshop – purchased a license, luckily I knew photoshop but you can always get someone to take a class or tons of tutorials online and with purchasing the program – Adobe cloud is a good way to use the tool, monthly fee that is not as expensive as buying a full licenseTA social media task force to help with social challenges/updatesjob description portal project leveraging resources like sharepointiPads for campus recruiting, easy quick videos, photos, etc.
- Abraham Lincoln quote: I knew that I needed to prove to senior leadership the importance of a strategy that was beyond job boards and just facebook – needed to spend time pulling together what I already did, what other companies have done/were doing and what we needed to doAbraham Lincoln once said, “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”
- After you’ve made some quick wins and built trust/some clout, you can begin positioning yourself as the expert and make recommendations – but first you need to build a thorough casePick top three things you want to achieve – will keep you on-task and will be easier to pitch (example: 1 career video, new recruiting brochure, improve social media presence)Use data you gather from conferences like this one, credible blogs/articles, networking with other organizations, etc. and use it in your proposals to management Gather your own data – social media traffic since implementing quick wins, source of hire, etc.Direct employers – uses google analytics
- Reach out to business partners, colleagues, senior leaders: They are out there living it – they know what they need and you can come up with the innovative strategies that will help them get thereIntroduce yourself, explain that you are new and what your goals are – ask them how you can use them as a resource and whenListen to them! Show them that you are invested in their success and that you want to help and make a difference. More than likely their experiences in the past have been that people don’t have the time or resources to assess their needs and take action. You have an opportunity to step up to the plate and show them that you are committed to helping them.Figure out what has been done, any lessons learned, who you need to be connected with to help get things done. Follow up and keep a finger on the pulse – if you can’t do something right away, let them know you haven’t forgotten themEXAMPLE: Meeting with Claims, assessing needs
- May need to present your case in chunks – don’t forget to focus on three priorities to keep it simple for management to understand, this is all new territory for many so the more simplified the betterUse case studies and data acquired from outside resourcesInvite management to meet vendor partners (i.e. LinkedIn, etc) Achieve the budget you need to get started – aim high but be flexible, you can work with what you get and continue building cloutIf you can’t get the budget you request – don’t give up. Request enough for a pilot and carefully outline how you plan to execute and track for successShow off the things you have accomplished and how they’ve performed – compare past and current to show the changes that have been made
- May need to present your case in chunks – don’t forget to focus on three priorities to keep it simple for management to understand, this is all new territory for many so the more simplified the betterUse case studies and data acquired from outside resourcesInvite management to meet vendor partners (i.e. LinkedIn, etc) Achieve the budget you need to get started – aim high but be flexible, you can work with what you get and continue building cloutIf you can’t get the budget you request – don’t give up. Request enough for a pilot and carefully outline how you plan to execute and track for successShow off the things you have accomplished and how they’ve performed – compare past and current to show the changes that have been made
- Fought for a budget for video – again, during my “build a portfolio of awesomeness” and “presenting my case” I made video my number one focus since I knew it would be the hardest to get a budget forIn our case, we were required to use our internal video team – which can be good in terms of cost effectiveness, but bad in terms of getting the quality and look/feel that you wantOur internal video team is excellent at news-type videos: they spend most of their time out in the field doing videos during Catastrophe events with our CAT team and filming agents and their customers. They also do a lot with our CEO – most of it seems very CNN, and it’s great – but we needed something differentWe knew we had to start small to prove a point, so we acted quickly and did something Ozzie was adamant that we not do – a green screen video. It was cheap and quick and easy way to approach it, and we knew that it would be a good way to pilot it out and see what we could do / what we were working with.I knew we had to differentiate – I didn’t want the video to be like CNN – nothing against CNNWhat differentiated us? Obviously our environment is awesome but we didn’t have that luxury for this video – Ozzie and I put our heads together, interviewed / surveyed people around allstate and realized what we loved most was that Allstate just let be us – it wasn’t the quitessential “boring” insurance company environment. I make a lot of voices and love a good joke – and I feel like I can do that at Allstate. So, that’s what we focused on. We interviewed a set of nominated employees from our Allstate Ambassador program – over 20 peopleNarrowed it down to 8 peopleAsked each of them what their hidden talent was and/or what they like to do in their spare time – the point was to show that Allstate allows us to bring our whole selves to workVIDEOSo it kind of turned into a diversity video, but we knew it was a start and a good thing to take on our “bake sale” to other parts of the business. We needed more funds and the way to do that is to show the teams what we can do, show them examples of other videos we liked so they could see how we could go even further, and get them to chip in. That’s what we did. And diversity was a huge willing partnerFrom there, I began story boarding with the video team. I stressed that we did not want it to be like a news broadcast. It had to be different.I showed them examples but not just of other career videos – of music videos I liked with split screens and interesting shots. I told them the quality had to be there – and no green screens!After three months of working with the video team on a story board and recruiting a set of people to be a part of the video, we went to work. Here was the final product: VIDEO
- The Now: We have contemporized our videos and they all align to our EVP: Good Work. Good Life. Good Hands.
- May need to present your case in chunks – don’t forget to focus on three priorities to keep it simple for management to understand, this is all new territory for many so the more simplified the betterUse case studies and data acquired from outside resourcesInvite management to meet vendor partners (i.e. LinkedIn, etc) Achieve the budget you need to get started – aim high but be flexible, you can work with what you get and continue building cloutIf you can’t get the budget you request – don’t give up. Request enough for a pilot and carefully outline how you plan to execute and track for successShow off the things you have accomplished and how they’ve performed – compare past and current to show the changes that have been made
- Social MediaI created a social media task force in talent acquisition – one individual from each team within our department was nominated by a senior leader to be a part of the teamThe team meets bi-weeklyEach week – every Monday I send an email to the team with their assignmentsWE bundled the team into mini teams to help hold each other accountable – especially since this is in addition to their full time job, it’s like working with volunteersDevelopmental opportunities – exciting opportunity outside of day-to-day workLeverage tools like hootsuite and QueSocialLearned that gamification really works – challenges/competitions within task force and outside of task forceIntern challengeCampus recruiting challengeIncreased following by 1,000 members on Facebook within one monthTotal in 2013 since we launched the task force our following went from 1600 to nearly 6,000 followers on Facebook
- May need to present your case in chunks – don’t forget to focus on three priorities to keep it simple for management to understand, this is all new territory for many so the more simplified the betterUse case studies and data acquired from outside resourcesInvite management to meet vendor partners (i.e. LinkedIn, etc) Achieve the budget you need to get started – aim high but be flexible, you can work with what you get and continue building cloutIf you can’t get the budget you request – don’t give up. Request enough for a pilot and carefully outline how you plan to execute and track for successShow off the things you have accomplished and how they’ve performed – compare past and current to show the changes that have been made
- Collateral – External Employment Brand look and feelOur past collateral did not have a consistent look – it was outdatedWe had to determine what differentiated us as a company – we went with our EVP to start:Good WorkGood LifeGood HandsWork life balance was hugeWe wanted visuals that showed w/l balanceWe wanted to visuals that didn’t make people think “insurance company” – typically people think boring, stuffy – we had to prove that isn’t usWe had to make sure that it was consistent and modernWe learned through research the importance of using real peopleWith campus recruiting season looming over us, we had to start acting faster that we hopedWe decided to purchase images from an image library that kind of had the style of instagram – since that is such a hot style right nowIn the future we hope to do an employee competition of photos showing work/life balance to show that humanistic side of the brandUsing images we took from the video shoot (to save money) and images we took with our amateur photographer as well as images from our paid image library, we were able to do some things on our own and get some new items created in-house
- Collateral – External Employment Brand look and feelOur past collateral did not have a consistent look – it was outdatedWe had to determine what differentiated us as a company – we went with our EVP to start:Good WorkGood LifeGood HandsWork life balance was hugeWe wanted visuals that showed w/l balanceWe wanted to visuals that didn’t make people think “insurance company” – typically people think boring, stuffy – we had to prove that isn’t usWe had to make sure that it was consistent and modernWe learned through research the importance of using real peopleWith campus recruiting season looming over us, we had to start acting faster that we hopedWe decided to purchase images from an image library that kind of had the style of instagram – since that is such a hot style right nowIn the future we hope to do an employee competition of photos showing work/life balance to show that humanistic side of the brandUsing images we took from the video shoot (to save money) and images we took with our amateur photographer as well as images from our paid image library, we were able to do some things on our own and get some new items created in-house
- Collateral – External Employment Brand look and feelOur past collateral did not have a consistent look – it was outdatedWe had to determine what differentiated us as a company – we went with our EVP to start:Good WorkGood LifeGood HandsWork life balance was hugeWe wanted visuals that showed w/l balanceWe wanted to visuals that didn’t make people think “insurance company” – typically people think boring, stuffy – we had to prove that isn’t usWe had to make sure that it was consistent and modernWe learned through research the importance of using real peopleWith campus recruiting season looming over us, we had to start acting faster that we hopedWe decided to purchase images from an image library that kind of had the style of instagram – since that is such a hot style right nowIn the future we hope to do an employee competition of photos showing work/life balance to show that humanistic side of the brandUsing images we took from the video shoot (to save money) and images we took with our amateur photographer as well as images from our paid image library, we were able to do some things on our own and get some new items created in-house
- We learned a lot of lessons along the way – and we are still learningAlways continue educating so you can help leadership connect the dotsIf you’re working with an ad agency, we’ve learned that it is imperative to work with one that knows employment branding space and has experience in itWe learned that recruiters have an opinion and are important in terms of gathering feedback on the work that we are executing – but keep in mind as subject matter experts we have to continue to influence and educate – give opportunity for them to learn and for you to get feedback. We created a committee to gather feedback and insights on some of the work we are doing.We learned the importance of piloting things – for example, the videos I showed earlier. We started with a simple green-screen video that was relatively inexpensive and done quickly in-house. We then used that for our road show or bake sale to get other parts of the business to chip in dollars so that we could afford a bigger and better video. Other lessons learned:Have fun with it – don’t be afraid to experiment Harlem Shake Video – Ozzie had his hands slapped but we tested our boundaries and that’s what it’s aboutGot people thinking more outside of the box – created a buzz and excitement If you’re hiring an employment branding consultant, make sure that the individual is good at maintaining vendor relationships but also, more importantly, can roll up their sleeves and do things on their ownDon’t be afraid to leverage the assistance and expertise of others: amateur photographers, social media addicts, etc. – there is a strength in numbersA lot of times you don’t have to start from scratch – you can leverage other campaigns happening in the business and tie that over into the employment brand (our example: force for good campaign)Great thing of all of this is what we learned is we were the catalyst within the department – we were connecting marketing and our EVP, and the importance of this – while we were working hard on making this happen we were influencing the other areas