Employment brand: Are you walking the talk?

There are organizations that everyone knows, and large crowds want to work for, for example Google,  Southwest Airlines or Disney. These often are on the Top 100 lists to work for, but they get recognized beyond magazine reviews. Word of mouth combined with their savvy marketing guarantees an enviable position in the talent war; the luxury to select the best of the best. The most coveted companies to work for have perfected their employment branding.

Employment branding is more than just marketing the company to potential employees. The challenge is to convey an authentic message about a unique value proposition that includes both the external brand as well as what the company culture stands for. According the Brand for Talent blog, while 97 percent – to some extent – say their organizations have developed an employer brand, only 43 percent believe their corporate culture supports it.

It does not serve you well if you entice new employees in with lucrative messages, and then when the iron gates of new employee orientation slam shut, reality kicks in. If you want to get top talent to stay, your employment branding must be grounded in reality. If your company is fast paced and long work hours cannot be avoided, don’t lead your employment branding with a work/life balance message. If your company is mature and set in its ways, don’t try to pretend to be the flashy new kid on the block. It’s OK to tell that you are looking for change agents.

To build a true employment brand, more is needed than just marketing. Your own employees are your ambassadors, so their work experiences should match the employment brand you want to create. Review your policies, processes and internal communications to make sure they align with your brand. There are many ways to create a unique value proposition for employment. Design clarity around what those parameters are in your organization. The more emotional connection your employees have with your organization, the more they will vouch for it.

In the era of diversity, be clear who you are targeting. Make sure you are reaching all your audiences by selecting various methods of communication. Generational, gender, or ethnic groups may vary in their way of connecting with your messages.

Just like with external branding, building a strong employment brand will take time and consistency. The best will stand above the rest.

Want to move from B-talent to A-talent?

Let me warn you – moving from B-talent to A-talent is a bit like going on a diet. It SOUNDS easy – Eat less and exercise more – but it’s a pain to follow through. You will be more successful, if you consider it as a permanent change of lifestyle instead of an event. It’s not just going through the motions, but really starting to think differently about talent.

Set the baseline

First you have to answer the question: What does A-talent look like to you? If you don’t define this clearly, you will get what you ask for; anything. Competency definitions and clear job descriptions are the foundation of an A+ organization. Once you know what talent you need, do a thorough talent assessment. Who meets your performance, skill and culture fit standards and who doesn’t? The next hard question is this: of those who don’t meet the standards, who can be developed via training, coaching or reassignments? Brace yourself for finding some employees who may not be up to par and need to be managed out. For the rest, create a serious development plan to reach the level of performance that you aspire to.

Fill in gaps with A-talent

Most likely, your talent assessment reveals gaps that need to be filled with new talent. If you cannot fill the positions internally, it’s time to go for the top performers out in the market. This is the first test of your new hiring strategy. Using your new criteria, you only select those who meet your standards. Go for the best. This requires a competitive rewards package and an attractive employment brand. If you are still building your brand, your challenge is to be tuned into the personal priorities of the candidates you are competing for.

Make it sustainable

Once you have an existing arsenal of A-players, you can’t afford to erode it. Maintain a no-compromise selection process that brings in more top performers. Develop a performance management process that relies on frequent feedback and mature managers. Reward and promote best performers. Make sure you are market competitive. A-players are on constant lookout for more challenges. Train your managers on using developmental assignments and having career discussions. Create growth opportunities through expert and leadership pipelines.

Create a talent culture

Make talent development and high performance part of your everyday culture. People development should be a top-of-mind issue in managers’ decision making and goal setting. Mentoring, feedback and setting challenging goals should become a way of living. For A-talent it already is.

If you need help moving from B-talent to A-talent, contact Liisa Pursiheimo-Marcks at 512-484 8263, or liisa@forteconsulting.biz .

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Do you manage your organization culture, or does it manage you?

Toyota has recently been under fire due to its recalls and quality issues. It is drawing additional attention because the Toyota brand used to represent quality. What happened? Quality and industry experts suggest that Toyota management veered away from its own corporate culture based on respect for people and continuous improvement – the Toyota Way – and it’s now paying the price.

Organization culture is such a nebulous concept. The visible parts are quite obvious for the new comer, such as the dress code, how punctually meetings start, or how fast paced the work is. But the invisible norms and values you have to learn over time, e.g. how people work together, how they share information, and what the level of trust is between people and departments.

Every organization has a culture, whether it’s stated or not. Sometimes the articulated culture in printed brochures can be in conflict with the actual informal culture. When this happens, leadership efforts to manage the culture lose credibility. It’s fine to be aspirational in culture statements, but it’s not OK to be totally clueless.

These are the steps to manage organization culture:

1. Assess the current culture. Know the baseline. A combination of focus groups and surveys typically accomplish this task most efficiently.

2. Articulate the desired culture. This should have a connection with the organization’s vision, with respect to its past. The desired culture is often a mixture between realistic description of the actual culture and the description of the ideal culture the organization is striving for.

3. Weave the culture into everyday actions and decisions. Start with the selection and promotion criteria. Reinforce it in all training and development. When people are recognized, it is done based on cultural values. In any organization, employees note that resources are allocated to the most important priorities. Thus, resource allocation should also be true to the cultural values.

4. Measure the culture development. Do frequent checks on how your workforce perceives the culture. Annual surveys are a good yardstick to create trending data. At the launch, you may even measure the culture twice a year, as long as you are prepared to act on the survey feedback.

Equally as important as strengthening the culture is to be aware of actions and decisions that are counterproductive. Every time a decision is made where the cultural values were not used, it puts into question the organization culture. For example, if a company declares that work life balance is one of its core values but frequently recognizes employees who put in long hours, it contradicts its own values. Or, if a company who promotes a customer-focused culture cuts customer service resources before touching other departments, it may have to rethink its priorities.

Usually, compromises and tough times bring out the true colors. Those that are true to their values will have a guiding star for their decision making and will be able to make consistent decisions and strengthen their external brand as well as their employment brand.

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Copyright 2010 Liisa Pursiheimo-Marcks, all rights reserved.
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