HERE’S SOME OF WHAT YOU MISSED !

Employer Branding SA concluded on a wonderfully attended two day Masterclass held on the 15th and 16th of March, where the focus was on marrying the internal employer brand with the external brand.

The most inspiring part of this Masterclass for me was the character traits emanating from the employer brand leaders/champions around the table. This clearly depicted the future of our emerging SA brand leaders and I would like to share some of our findings with you:

  • Hearing about the sense of purpose, the drive to succeed and the respect given for the positive changes that had already made
  • Showing great pleasure at the enormous encouragement given by management – exhorting brand leaders to be curious, have fun and be creative – evidenced by the flexible tools provided for the job (tablets, laptops, mobile phones, etc.) enabling them to work everywhere; to be trusted not to abuse such sensitive work practice
  • Being part of a growing organisation where brand leaders are energised through the amount of development (rather than maintenance) work involved
  • Being permitted to set one’s own targets with the performance being measured based on what the brand leaders themselves have personally set. This drives huge motivation and it teaches leaders to be entrepreneurs. With talent being the competitive advantage and colleagues not necessarily acknowledging this opinion, one delegate enjoyed ‘ruffling feathers’, challenging her colleagues and staying amply motivated to see projects through to the very end.

I could not help but notice how in touch these individuals were with their unique set of Employer Value Propositions which were, in essence, one of the key reasons for conducting this Masterclass.

With a great group of attendees across the various industry sectors, we conducted a very productive session where plenty of knowledge-sharing took place, inspired by both Celeste, who work-shopped the outside focus on Employer Branding, and Nikki who addressed the dire importance of internalising one’s brand strategy.

FROM AN EXTERNAL PERSPECTIVE

Our delegation walked away with a thorough understanding of the intricacies involved – and often overlooked – when candidates attempted to engage with organisations to gather insights and/or apply for job opportunities i.e. the candidate journey.

Proactivity in building one’s employer brand reputation should begin before companies go out to market seeking to fill their scarce skills.

The big differentiator nowadays is for companies to build talent networks and nurture these relationships, constantly ‘drip-feeding’ the facts via company news, developments, accolades etc.

By doing so, informed talent have been provided with a clear picture and understanding of what a particular company’s value proposition is all about prior to making an informed decision. There was consensus that while automation is an essential enabler, the human touch is still key to differentiating oneself when handholding candidates through their journey.

Additionally, the swing towards direct candidate nurturing and hiring is providing companies with a quicker turnaround, stronger ties and more room for negotiations. Acceptance that, while each generation and skills set need to be addressed uniquely, automation is still fundamentally important to recruit and fast-track your recruitment process, eg: utilising Skype on mobile.

THE EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE JOURNEY

The employee experience journey and the life-cycle to follow were similarly “fleshed out” with delegates highlighting some really exceptional standout and personalised interventions, eg:

  • providing visible leadership through the CEO addressing newly on-boarded individuals
  • maintaining an ongoing analysis of how companies structure their engagement with employees right from onboarding through to departure or retirement. This journey needs to be personalised in that each and every individual (culture, generation, skills set, age etc.) has their own expectation, career path and life cycle that they are following.

With internal referrals being a top source for talent, both locally and globally, the need to empower employees to adopt the role of brand ambassadors through the controlled usage of social media marketing was highlighted.

Practical tips in “marrying” and connecting the internal and external brand were well covered over the two days, with delegates agreeing that they were very excited to take such implementable strategies and ideas into their respective organisations.

And to get started!

FOR MORE…

We invite you to view what some of our attendees had to say from our last Inside & Out Employer Branding Masterclass