Employer branding IS the new black! I delivered this interactive session on Employer Branding at SocialHRCamp 2014 (#SHRC14) at the Achievers Canadian HQ in Liberty Village, Toronto.
2. Agenda
1. Introduction – meet Andrea! (me)
2. What is Employer Branding and why is it important?
3. The Achievers Employer Branding Story
4. Time Out – let’s reflect on your current strategy.
5. Key Takeaways
6. Q & A
…yes, we need one.
14. Time Out – Let’s reflect.
1. Think about your current employer branding strategy.
2. Where would you like it to be?
3. What resources do you need to get there?
4. What challenges might you face?
You have 5 minutes… GO!
15. Key Takeaways:
1. Determine your needs. Each company is different.
2. Engage your employees.
3. Always have a call to action.
4. You’ll get out what you put in.
5. Be able to demonstrate results. Numbers talk!
Let’s get started. How’s everyone doing? It’s 3 pm. I was really excited to be doing this at 3, which is usually when I’m on my second coffee of the day so thanks for being present and engaged. I am personally really excited to be sharing back with you today, it’s my first time speaking at SocialHR Camp.
I’ve named this session Employer Branding is the new Black, so no surprises we’re going to focus on employer branding, why it’s important for your company to have a strong employer brand and how you can achieve this.
Wanted to share the agenda for our session together… yes, we need one.
I’ll start off by telling you a little about myself and my professional background, we’ll jump into defining employer branding and why it’s so important.
I’ll tell you the Achievers employer branding story and examples of things we have implemented. We’ll take some time to talk about your employer branding needs and on how you can address these.
And finish up with key takeaways and Q&A.
Quick house keeping item/mandate.
Would love for this session to be as interactive as possible. My goal is for everyone in this room to have at least 1-2 takeaways to share back with their teams or if you’re a company of one, a learning that you yourself can incorporate into your current plan.
Quick exercise – turn to the person next to you, introduce yourself and tell them one thing you are currently doing for your employer brand strategy or personal brand.
Awesome, see we all know each other a little better now.
My turn, a little about me…
My name is Andrea Webb and I am a Corporate Recruiter here at Achievers. I’ve been with the company for two years. My main focus is to hire for our teams in Toronto and San Francisco, however, the past 6 months or so of my role here have heavily involved recruitment programs including social recruiting, our employee referral program, co-ops/internships and employer branding initiatives.
My background is in both corporate and agency recruitment. I got my start in recruitment at a small boutique agency where I mainly focused on IT, Finance and Hospitality recruiting and prior to joining the recruitment world, I worked in client services for a large US financial services company. Feel free to check out my LinkedIn profile if you want to know more.
*Pause – Are there any questions before we get started?
So what exactly is employer brand?
Let’s think about it this way. The way we consume information is changing.
These days, we are always plugged into the digital world through our smartphones. Quick show of hands, I know I personally am guilty of this, but who checks their smartphone first thing in the morning?
Information is always available to us anytime, anywhere. Think about when you are looking for information on your next vacation or want to try a new restaurant. Where do you go? Customer opinion sites like Tripadvisor and Yelp are making it incredibly easy for the public to share their experiences. This trend has infiltrated the professional world as well, making it easier than ever before for employees to share their experiences and for candidates to get an inside look into an organization before they even decide to apply. This means your employer brand has a direct impact on your ability to attract and retain top talent. Employer brand is your reputation as an employer to candidates and even your employees. If you don’t take action and manage it, someone else will.
In 2013, a survey conducted by ERE of 4,700 talent acquisition decision makers said they saw 50% cost-per-hire savings with a strong employer brand. That is HUGE. This means that companies who have a strong employer brand are putting the right message out there and attracting the right talent.
It’s no longer just about creating a Facebook page or adding photos to your career site. It’s become critical for employers to promote their brand where today’s job seekers are looking for information.
*Any questions before we move on?
Let’s talk about the Achievers story. For anyone who doesn’t know Achievers. We are a social recognition company. Our tool allows employers and their employees to recognize each other for the amazing work they do every day through a customized thank you and points system. Employees choose their reward making it a truly personalized experience. Our problem is that we had an amazing marketing team, they did an awesome job of promoting our product and getting our name out to prospects but the challenge we experienced was with candidates. Our brand as an EMPLOYER wasn’t as strong.
Where to start right? Well, we have always had a YouTube presence for our product marketing side, so we started adding more, but these videos featured our real employees doing real Achievers employee things. Although responsible for Justin Bieber, Youtube does have some positive attributes and is a great tool for strengthening your employer brand.
We needed something else though, something that made it easy for us to share our world. We have this great culture and awesome work environment but we didn’t have the ideal channel to showcase it.
The first plan of attack was our Careers Page. We essentially built our page so that candidates can have access to a virtual Achievers space. We spent time partnering with our marketing team to share information about our locations, our culture, and our teams, we had each of our departments write up their own description so that it had the proper voice. And finally, a call to action. This is your money maker right here. Once the candidate has gone through the site and learned more about us and all the great things we do and have to offer, they can make an informed decision about whether they want to join us. This apply button is what will turn your potential candidate into a potential hire. This is where we get to see that 50% cost savings I talked about before.
As a side note, we’ve also partnered with LinkedIn to build out a Careers page in their platform as well. It has a very similar message and look and feel to this page.
Next up for us was Glassdoor. Who here is familiar with Glassdoor and can tell us what it is?
Exactly. With Glassdoor it’s a little different, you can manage your company’s content. Adding photos, videos, tying it to your Twitter and Facebook accounts.
But what makes Glassdoor special is that the core content, which are evaluations and comments regarding employee experience are completely owned by your past and present employees and candidates. You cannot remove any comments, BUT you can respond to them. We manage this on our HR team, however, it can also be a marketing initiative depending on your organization.
We went through a total revamp of our profile last October and have maintained it since then and seen great success in educating our employees on what glassdoor is. Since we kicked off this campaign, we’ve seen a dramatic increase in the number of reviews we have and are super excited about our rating.
*Any questions before we move on?
I thought that might be a question… so I put together this slide to share how you can get your organization listed as an Open Company.
Next up, was slideshare. Does anyone not know what slideshare is?
We partnered with our marketing to to launch slideshares that were focused cultural initiatives like our annual company retreat shown here, and moved into role focused slideshares more recently to really speak to the right candidates and up our recruiting efforts.
And finally Instagram. Kindof a fun story behind Instagram – this was the first employer branding initiative that we launched as a team with our social media team. We had representatives from different departments and office locations to really give prospective candidates a look into Achiever-land. We launched in February of last year and to engage our employees and get them involved we kicked off our launch with a valentine’s day contest. We asked our employees to post photos depicting the reasons they love working at achievers and made a contest out of it, awarding points to the photo that received the most likes.
Awesome, so now that you’ve heard about our story. Let’s take a moment to think about your own. I have a little activity for us to do together.
1. Think about your current employer branding strategy.
2. Where would you like it to be?
3. What resources do you need to get there?
4. What challenges might you face?
The point is to come up with at least one or two key action items that will have an impact on the brand of your company.
If you could do anything, what would that be?
*Wait 5 minutes*
Awesome, ok great who wants to share maybe just one key area that would make an impact on their corporate brand? Great and what do you think you would need to get there? What challenges might you face?
Write these down on your tablet, smartphone, or notebook. Feel free to discuss with your colleagues if they are here or your neighbor.
1. Determine your needs. Each company is different.
2. Engage your employees.
3. Always have a call to action.
4. You’ll get out what you put in.
4. Be able to demonstrate results. Numbers talk!