Polly Pearson's Blog

The Basics of Employment Branding

I participated in an executive round-table with the senior HR officers of some MAJOR companies recently. Everyone went around the room and shared their current challenges. I was amazed how often employment branding came up. In fact, I think every executive mentioned the need for better branding of their company to help recruit, retain and/or engage their workforce.  Even companies you and I would think of as truly great companies, cited better branding as a priority need.  If you are in this situation, here are some things that might bring you some peace of mind, or a way to begin your journey on improving your company's employment brand.

 

1. Know that every company is dysfunctional and/or sub-optimal in some way.  Actually, in many ways! So while you think your company has more warts than you can count, that makes your company normal. :)

2. Every company has one or more truly compelling attributes.  Not "unique." Unique does not matter.  "Compelling" matters.

3. A great way to begin unearthing what makes your company compelling is to ask your employees what inspires them about your company, and what makes them proud to work there. A good way to ask that question is in a one-on-one format with a cross section of your company's employee base -- across divisions, silos, geographies, age spans, etc.  I bet a pattern will begin to emerge from the answers. You'll hear the same phrases or concepts from many, if not most or all, of those questioned.  The patterns in the answers are the foundation of your true employment brand.

For example, let's say a company named "Magenta" had a management team who felt its image in the marketplace wasn't so hot.  They might feel the market looked at their company as boring, niche, silo'd, in a bad location, and/or cheap with pay and perks. Just as bad, the management team might think the market has never heard of the company, and that it has nothing much  that could be considered special or marketable.

Wrong.

Let's re-visit the points made above for this situation.

1.  Yes, "Magenta Company" has a lot of things about it that are a drag, many of which the market knows about.  Big deal. Every company has issues.

2. "Magenta Company" has many compelling attributes.  It just needs to realize what these are.

3. If "Magenta Company" asked a sample set of its employees (between 1 and 2 dozen people) what inspired them about the company, and what made them proud to work there,  what they might hear  back would be phrases like,

• "I get to work on challenging problems here."
• "I work with truly smart people."
• "Our company is making a difference. We ___ (fill in the blank)____."

Do you see what Magenta could be embracing here?  What is truly compelling about its brand offering as a place to work and as a corporate culture?  Magenta is the ideal company for smart people, who love to be empowered to solve problems, make things happen, and make a difference.

Wow.  That's compelling to a lot of people out there.  After a dozen or more interviews, it will become clear to you what your compelling or stand out offering(s) is as a place to work.  Work that pattern into a value proposition that is worded from the perspective of the talent market. 

I define a "value proposition" as, "The benefit exceeds the cost."

"The perspective of the talent market" means that your value proposition should center on what THEY get from working for your company, not who your company is and why your company is so great (for investors, potential customers, etc.)

---------- Okay, so those are the basics of your employment brand foundation.  Next steps would be validating and refining the compelling aspects with the informal influencers, and the formal influencers inside your company, while also having honest conversations about what would make your company more compelling (ie. what is not good, and needs to be upgraded) as a place to work.  You would then share the findings, and get to work on fanning the flames of the good, while bettering all that could be better. 

During the "next steps" phase, remember that your people are your best branding mechanism and medium. Invite them into the process, and avoid at all cost having this be an initiative driven into the company by a chosen few (like you and your team.)  "The Chosen Few" can be in the lead, design the framework, and make the final calls, but making this an inclusive, two-way process will enhance the final product (actually, it should be considered an "on-going living product"), and accelerate branding results faster than you could ever imagine.

Inclusive employment branding (what's in it for ME, as an employee), quickly evolves to a deeper sense of culture and community ("all about 'ME,'" transitions to" pride for 'US'") -- the latter is the foundation for your full company's brand identity, and your offering to the marketplace (the revenue driver.)  This latter part is what will build stronger and deeper ties with your customers and potential customers.  This is when every employee actually fills a role now taken primarily by your sales force and your CEO -- giving you a heck of a lot more from your S&GA expense line.  Think ROI.  Your payroll is already a huge sum.  Why not work to get more return from that investment by enabling all of your employees to add to the affinity the market has for you. Be that the talent market, the local community surrounding your facilities, or the market of organizations who may want to buy what you have to offer.

When your people are carrying forth your brand values and identity every day, the need for a dedicated "initiative," budget, and weekly meetings on your part diminishes.  Now, doesn't THAT sound nice?! 

----------------- Talk Back -------------------

 

How does that framework on the basics sound to you?

Have you had success doing something similar? If so, how?  Share your story.

If you could use some help positioning how this journey might unfold for your leadership team -- or seeing the bigger picture of "being" a great company in addition to "getting great company awards," contact me. I'd be happy to help.  Because achieving branding success is fun, and truly making companies more invigorating, inclusive and thus more productive, innovative and awesome places to work, is even better.

Passionate people are productive people. And productive people make companies more profitable. That's what I think, anyway.

 

-- Polly Pearson
www.pollypearson.com
@PollyPearson on Twitter. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Social Media for Marketing -- This is "Varsity" Content

 

Has everything been said that needs to be said about social media for marketing, and its bottom-line impact? 

Not even close.  Pick this book up to see what I'm talking about. The Power of Real-Time Social Media Marketing. How to Attract and Retain Customers and Grow the Bottom Line in the Globally Connected World. It is fresh off the presses by McGraw-Hill.

I had the pleasure to collaborate on this hot subject with the authors, Beverly Macy and Teri Thompson, and was impressed by the case studies they gathered, and the the approach they took in exploring the subject.

Want a taste?  Check out this article, The Global Brain, Chaos Theory, and the Power of Real-Time Social Media, in the Huffington Post.

 Wow-za.

--------------------------- TALK BACK --------------------------

Interested to hear your thoughts on the content.

If you've ever heard me speak on the subject, you've likely heard me talk about "leveraging the global genius."

Last night I was a guest lecturer at the Boston University School of Management's MBA program. The topic was crowdsourcing. Many of the MBAs seemed doubtful this could be applied within a mainstream company.  Sure, the model works for http://www.threadless.com/, but, mainstream companies? Or the company THEY worked for?   

With the MBAs, I gave real-world, ROI-rich examples how  social media -- and the power of the global genius -- can be leveraged for innovation, cost savings, revenue, customer satisfaction, product enhancements, culture building, branding, and perception management in a FORTUNE 500 setting.  Learn more about the case I shared by reading this book  (the work I was involved in at EMC is a major feature), or by hiring me directly to come speak with your management team. ;)

Thanks for engaging.

Polly Pearson
@PollyPearson on Twitter
http://www.linkedin.com/in/pollypearson

 

 

 

Are You Speaking "CEO-Speak" or "Functional Jargon?" Learn to RAP.

When you present what you're attempting to accomplish at work, do you discuss it in terms that the CEO would care about? 

 

Come on now, does s/he really care about getting you more headcount, or performance management, succession planning, learning & development agendas, corporate culture ...  or employment branding for that matter? Yes, and no.  Mostly, those topics are boring. Necessary evils. 

When talking about your important little program, expect the CEO to listen, nod, and smile politely  -- while s/he secretly can't wait for you to leave the room so they can get to work on the truly important things.  Like closing deals which will generate revenue. Or consulting with the folks who help enhance the company's profit margins. Or doing media interviews. Or reading positive press about the company. Or delighting in an "up" day for the company stock.  See a pattern here?

You know what the CEO really cares about?

I boil it down to three things:

Growing ...

    1. Revenue

    2. Admiration 

    3. Profit

RAP for short.

Now, admiration may look like an odd one in the mix.  When I think of admiration, I think of everything that can help build the value, and perceived value, of the company. (Public company CEOs have a top goal of improving shareholder value; they also generally have egos which drive them to win -- and a stock price is a VERY public score card.) While it would be gauche for a CEO to admit it, they love to get admiration from their industry peers, employees, customers, shareholders, competitors, and next door neighbors.  They need not be shy about this desire.  All that admiration is contagious, and it works to build the brand, the value, and start the next funnel of revenue generation.

Are you playing the admiration card enough?  Subtly of course, but don't forget to include it on your "TO DO" list if you want to impress the boss and do something that matters to those concerned with building value, or perceived value, of the company.

Building admiration generally happens from the "outside-in." (Are you too internally focused?) It can involve getting awards, positive media attention, best practice case studies, keynotes, analyst upgrades, and competitive wins.

So if you're working to "get a seat at the big table," or trying to get your pet initiative off the ground, remember to RAP it, if you want to get the attention of the CEO.

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Of all the presentations you saw this week, how many tied the goal back to what needs to be done for the bottom line health and vitality of the business?

I spent 15 years working directly for FORTUNE 500 CEOs. Maybe it was just the ones I worked with, but I saw what got their juices flowing, and what didn't.  And let me tell you this, they LOVED it when the value of their company was higher than their number one competitor.

If you happen to be in the C-suite and could use more help in the RAP department, contact me.  Helping CEOs and Companies become bigger than they really are in the eyes of the world is my favorite thing to do.

 Thanks for reading and engaging.

Polly Pearson, Pearson Advisory
http://www.pollypearson.com
email: pearsonpolly@gmail.com
@PollyPearson on Twitter

The Seasons of Your Career

In Belize a few of years ago, I was at a retreat with women who had obtained a certain level of professional success. A core part of the retreat consisted of short presentations by the member community, held on a beach under a palm tree hut.

One such presentation has stayed with me. It offered insight I had not yet stumbled upon in my career. It came from a woman who had successfully started, and sold, many businesses. She sat on elite Boards. She was the vision of confidence and success.

She began by pointing out that most of us were likely in a go-go-growth career stage. And then she said, "It won't always be like that, but that's okay. You will find that your career has seasons. It won't -- it can't --  always be all growth, all the time."

 

She told a story of selling a business, and then her husband falling on ill health. Her girlfriends tried to pry her out of the house with Martini's, and instructions to "Take some Valium and get on with it!" (You can guess her approximate age by that statement!)  She did not however, and that was the point.

She said that Spring needs to be followed by Fall, and Winter, to get Spring again. She said it is important to "feel" these seasons as they happen and know that they are perfectly natural.

"Wow," I remember whispering to myself.

It makes so much sense, doesn't it? We're organic creatures. And yet, how is it possible that this isn't core wisdom in the world of work?

I suspect it is because we're all raised to continually move up, like rungs on a ladder. Be more. Get more. Better grades, better placement on the team. Promotions. Manager, leads to Director, which leads to Vice President, and onward, right?

 Now that I'm almost half-way through my 40's, I see career pauses everywhere. (Fabulous women in the mom-zone are especially vulnerable.) And it seems everyone is always FREAKED out about it.

If you're in that boat, take a breath. You're a living creature. Things are always changing. You can get back on the race horse at any moment.  But even race horses need a rest now and then.

------------------ Talk Back ------------------

Make sense?

I was inspired to share this story by my mom.  She has been writing our family history lately, and took particular pride sharing a short story she wrote about her father. It was the "Great Depression,"and he was a Jukebox repairman. She wrote of her childhood with him, the twirly stools she sat on eating pastries in the "joints" he'd have to visit, and the rolls of coins he would give her. He was a king beyond words in her eyes.

She never once wrote of his life before the Depression.  His full-length fur coats, his bachelor year of residence in the swankiest hotel in Boston. His thriving career as a stock broker.

No, she cherished what he must have thought of as his own winter deep freeze.

What's your Career Season story?

Was there a rainbow, following the storm?

Has your company supported career seasons?

Thanks for reading and engaging.

Polly Pearson
http://www.pollypearson.com
@PollyPearson on Twitter