Employer branding is increasingly moving up the HR
agenda, as HR professionals are trying to recruit top talent to speed their
business through recovery.
HR
REVIEW:
Who do you think should take
responsibility for employer branding within their company? Should it be
marketing, training?
PAUL
HITCHENS – VERVE BRAND CONSULTANTS:
Well I think it’s all of those to be
honest. This course is focused at HR, but it’s not just the preserve of HR –
we’re talking about evolving a strong employer brand, and it starts at the
heart and the soul of the organisation. So it’s not just the responsibility of
HR – I would like to see HRs forming strong bonds with marketing together, to
have the same clear objective.
Why do you think employer
branding is important to HR and recruiting professionals?
Employer branding is essential – it
really is the heart, the origin, the real spirit of the organisation. It’s that
feeling that you get when, you know, ‘I love working here’, ‘I feel a part of
this organisation’. There are companies, organisations and brands that we’d
love to work for, and what is it about those organisations that make them so
special?
This course looks at some of those
leading brands, and gives delegates inspiration, ideas and tools to help them
evolve their own brand.
Your background was originally in
corporate branding – how did you get into employer branding? Where did your
interest stem from?
Well that’s interesting because
actually my career began in recruitment advertising. When I started I worked
for PA Advertising which was part of the PA Consulting Group, specialising in
recruitment advertising. I worked on the campaign for Smiths Industries that
was voted the Best Recruitment Campaign of 1990.
So I had a strong start in employer
branding. I’ve since worked in brand consultancies including Wolff Olins where
I really strengthened my brand skills, and then I started my own brand
consultancy, Verve Interactive, focusing on branding, and more recently we’ve
published the book ‘Create the Perfect Brand’.
‘Create the Perfect Brand’ was
nominated for one of the Chartered Management Institute E-Book of the Year
Awards – what did your book cover? Was it mostly corporate branding or did you
talk about recruitment branding as well?
The book is a holistic overview of
branding – it’s an accessible book. I wrote the book together with my wife
Julia Hitchens – we’ve both worked in London agencies, and we wanted to share
our knowledge and expertise in branding.
The book is meant to be accessible –
it’s aimed at everybody really, from entrepreneurs, business owners, HR,
executive level education, students of business studies too. We felt there was
a gap in the market for a book that was practical – that provides a practical
insight.
Much of the literature about branding
is quite academic, and it can be quite inaccessible to the layperson – we
wanted a book that made the subject something that you could apply to your own
situation.
From that, what would be your top
tip to give an employer regarding employer branding?
I think one of the most important
focuses of the course is about your values. You know, I really believe that
when you set up an organisation, if you know what you stand for – stand for
something with integrity and define the values of that organisation, because
they can be used as a measure of performance.
They can be used as a measure of
selecting and recruiting people. They can actually work as a standard that will
attract people to the organisation if they share those values.
Values become a moral compass that
enable people to behave in accordance with the brand – if people have an idea
and they universally share that idea of the brand at every level of employment
within an organisation, from accounts and finance, to people in delivery,
logistics, everybody in the organisation should be able to interpret their role
and their values of the organisation as they apply them, and see their part in
delivering the brand.
How would you filter the values
down from the top of the organisation to all employees?
That is a very important issues for
human resources – it’s not enough just to have this set of values; they need to
be translated so that everybody understands them and the situation that they’re
in.
So for instance, ‘how am I driving?’ –
we’ve seen that legend on the back of the lorries. It’s almost how that applies
to everybody really, whether we’re in a vehicle or not. How am I performing?
How should I behave?
That doesn’t have to be constrictive –
we’re not talking about policing people. We’re actually enabling them through
the values. A strongly, healthy brand will have personnel who feel empowered by
the values that they share and deliver for the organisation.
From your experience in working
with some of the big employers, are there many common mistakes you see being
made in developing an employer brand? What would you recommend to those people?
Yeah, I think it’s by not having a
clearly defined set of values, and if they do one of the classic mistakes is
they’re not sharing them with everybody.
There’s no point in having an academic
notion of the brand that only stays within the boardroom – you need to share
that, and that’s where a lot of organisations need help through the marketing
department, through the HR department. They need to communicate what the brand
is about and make it relevant to everybody that works in that organisation,
because ultimately they are the ones that deliver it to the customer – they’re
the most significant touchpoints.
So making sure retail and
communications and the HR departments all work together?
Yeah. It’s so crucial, particularly in
service organisations where there may not be a physical product, but the main
primary points of contact will be personnel – they are ultimately the ambassadors
for the brand.
OK. So you’re currently running
some training courses entitled ‘Brand Strategy and Human Resources’ – what was
the background and rationale for the course?
OK, well we really felt that there was
a need for some training that really brought the brand to life – the human
resources department. I’ve worked with a lot of organisations – startups,
existing brands, developing brands, and usually I’m dealing with the business
owners or the marketing department, and very seldom do I actually get to meet
the human resources department.
But again, human resources is a
strategic partner with marketing – they should be working together. By
attracting the right people into the organisation, if you share an
understanding of the brand and believe in those values then you’ve got the
strongest case for growing not just the employer brand but the brand itself.
So enhancing the productivity of
the organisation?
Yeah, absolutely.
What does the program cover? So
we talked about values a lot – are there any other topics?
Yeah, very much so. The course is
broken down into four sections – it begins with fundamentals of the brand, so
we examine what exactly is the employer brand, what are we talking about? Does
it live in a different area from the brand itself? What is it’s relationship to
it?
You know, the brand might be seen as
the consumer brand – the external communication of the brand, and the employer
brand the idea that’s shared amongst the people that work in the organisation.
The two shouldn’t be divorced from each other – one powers the other. They have
a very strong relationship – they are facets of the same thing, the brand.
Then in the second part of the course
we are looking at the strategy – the most important elements of the brand
strategy, and then through the afternoon we look at how you’re going to
implement those ideas through the culture of the organisation. When I say
culture – what’s your history? Where did this organisation begin? Is there a
founder? What is their unique story?
I think we all respond to powerful
stories – I think it’s just part of the human condition. If you’ve got a great
story to tell you’ll always command an audience. I think that when I’m working
for an organisation I want to know ‘who started this?’ Is there a pioneer
behind it? Somebody with a great story – somebody who I can actually believe in
and brings the whole thing to life.
So we look at the history of the brand,
and then we look at the bigger ethos. If you think of somebody like for
instance the Body Shop, and Dame Anita Roddick, how has she put against having
testing on the agenda? That was something that she firmly believed in, and she
put a lot of issues and an issues-led organisation through Fairtrade, and put
them into the customer mind in a way that other cosmetics companies had never
done before.
That’s the thing with a brand – you’ve
got the ability that by bringing out the personality of the organisation and
sharing what you really believe in, it gives you a significant advantage and
distinguishes you in the marketplace.
We look at the senses – you know, it’s
not just a visual thing branding. What do you sound like? What does the brand
feel like? If you’re going to start growing an organisation, you’re going to
take over offices, you’re going to perhaps invest in vehicles for delivery for
whatever – it’s not just the products. It’s all those other elements that are
central to the brand.
They’re very important choices, so when
you have a strong idea of the brand, how does that brand then roll out through
all of these different touchpoints? We’d be asking the delegates to consider
that too.
Then the final part of the course,
sustainability – having attracted a candidate guided by values, then we look at
how to induct them into the organisation. That’s an important point of sharing
ideas about the brand. They say that many people when they first join an
organisation are left wondering ‘where am I’. You know, ‘what is my
relationship to management?’ ‘Who am I responsible to?’ ‘Where do I go at
lunchtime?’ You know, orientation – basic stuff really, but it’s also very much
an important part of the employer brand. So you get to consider this notion of
the brand – how do you welcome somebody into that organisation and make them
feel welcome? The induction is a critical point.
Towards the end of the course we also
look at some ways to measure the metrics of how we can evaluate the performance
of the employer brand.
OK, so we’ve talked a little bit
about the employer brand and the corporate brand – how would you say they
differ?
The employer brand and the corporate
brand – I think it’s really important to understand that they are facets. You
have the brand, which I very much put in terms of the past, present and future.
The past is your reputation, the present is the experience that you provide,
and the future is the expectation about the brand, and that’s how we define it
and create the perfect brand.
Variously, other people see a brand as
being a promise, or will talk about it being the personality of an
organisation, and these all help in understanding what the brand is. At the
heart, this understanding of what the brand really is about and what it stands
for; through marketing you can really communicate those ideas to the customer
audience, the consumer audience.
Through HR and marketing, together, we
can grow this notion, build it, and communicate it to new people that join the
organisation and existing people – the employer brand and the customer brand
are really two facets of the brand itself.
Are there any recent trends and
developments that you’ve noticed in recruitment branding?
I think the trend that has really
emerged over the last few years has been the boom in social media, absolutely
no doubt.
You know, I began my career in
recruitment advertising, and very much the focus would have been through print
campaigns that typically would have appeared in the Sunday papers, and the
Sunday papers appointment section was quite a large part of the papers.
But now we’re seeing a move away from
this, and obviously that kind of recruitment advertising is incredibly
expensive. Social media has got this huge reach, and even the smallest of
organisations are empowered to do some very sophisticated marketing of their
brand using Twitter, LinkedIn, even using YouTube.
Throughout the last year that I’ve been
hosting the Brand Strategy and Human Resources seminars with Symposium, I’ve
asked the delegates how they’re running their recruit campaigns, and
increasingly it has been focused around LinkedIn, use of Twitter, and those are
really sort of the standout areas.
Of course, social media gives us other
tools too. There are services like Glass Door that give a more anonymous voice
to employees who can also share the truth of their situation in a brand, so it
works both ways too. The prospective candidate can look at other barometers of
opinion to get a truthful idea of the brand, and Twitter doesn’t just have to
be for appraisal from a corporate point of view – individual employees can use
it to voice their opinions.
So you have to be quite educated about
what is possible, and also what are the potential problems too. Choose
carefully who’s going to be empowered to use those channels as well. Today we
had a delegate who mentioned that they have a social media professional – that
is actually a role within their team. They’re in effect a PR specialist for the
organisation, and this is really important because you’re broadcasting at the
end of the day, so the person that’s in charge of that area really has to have
a very clear idea of the brand voice to be able to communicate on behalf of the
brand.
I think just recently with the troubles
of some high street brands – it was widely reported that the HR department or
some of the team have been using Twitter to express their own personal views,
so it’s a fair point. It’s a very important consideration – who is empowered to
use social media, and are they doing it effectively on behalf of the brand?
Lots of people are of the opinion
that the employer brand is transforming into the employee brand, because it’s
difficult to doctor what social media activities people take in their own time.
Do you think personal activities should be doctored?
No, I don’t think you can really police
that. I think that becomes very draconian. You know, people have their social
lives, and young people have their profiles from Instagram to Facebook – there
are multiple channels available to them, and it’s part of their growing up as
well.
The idea of snooping on people seems to
be, you know, quite contentious, but it’s also important to be careful about
what you choose to share with everybody and what becomes instantly accessible.
But it does give a very honest idea and an insight into the true nature of
people.
So there are definitely pros and cons –
you know, very powerful tools. I think it’s also very much a conversation
that’s evolving, because I think that as it matures and new people come into
more prominent positions in human resources marketing, and they themselves will
know that perhaps they’ve left quite a long dialogue online that’s readily
accessible, and we’ll be perhaps be less critical of other people’s information
about themselves that they’ve published in the past.
You know, I think it’s a very
interesting time.
I guess it brings you back to the
values of the organisation as well and employing people with similar values to
the company.
Yeah, yeah. Exactly – I mean, of course
it does give you an insight into whether those people truly believe in those
values and can help you choose people to join your organisation based on values,
or people that are able to act on or behave in a way that promotes the brand.
Well, thank you very much Paul.
I’d just like to say a big thank you for sharing your thoughts, and I’m sure
that some of the audience will be able to take away some really good tips and
start thinking about their organizational values.
Link to original interview with HR Review
Thank you.
Link to original interview with HR Review
