Building a Better Brand based of people

Your company brand is based as you know on several factors, your services, products, price, value you give your clients etc...

But the back-bone of your brand is often forgotten about, even though it stares you right in your face each day - Your people!

There are some amazing companies out there (product or service wise) and yet they have high turnover and are a toxic place to work, full of politics and fake values...

The connection between HR and the business has always been a challenge, I was once told by a CEO, “We’re not a charity” and “Don’t focus too much on the soft stuff”...

But it’s the “soft stuff” which takes great companies to the next level! Labor?costs, can account for as much as 70% of total business?costs, include employee wages, benefits, payroll or other related taxes.... Ain’t nothing soft about that!

And these are costs you have to pay, but the cost of turnover can be in the millions for large organizations...

To truly build an outstanding brand it has to be around both product and people. Happy people enjoy what they do and are highly productive, they live and breathe your company brand every single day, even off the clock! As opposed to those employees who just can’t wait to clock off at 5 every day!

Your 3 main factors for building a people brand and an overall engaged workforce are;

• Your vision?
• Your values
• Your managers?

Company vision isn’t something static! It doesn’t just get put on the wall of an executive office and collect dust, it has to be living and breathing, it has to be woven into the hearts and minds of everyone. All employees need to know what it is and why it is important! They also need to know (and this is key) how they connect this vision with what they do and how their job adds value to the overall vision of the organization!

Your values are equally important as vision and they need to be embedded into the hearts of people at their level. Not force fed down their throats. Your staff need to connect these values with who they are, and what is important to them currently in their own lives. They need to be talked about before people join, as part of your overall company brand, showing the world who you are as a business! Your values drive the company “way of doing things”, your culture! You know, I have asked employees in every firm I have worked to tell me the company Values or Vision/Mission, many times even Directors in the company couldn't tell me! People will not follow leaders who don't know these 2 things; Where they are going and Why they are going that direction! (Vision & Values)...

Your managers are the glue! They hold all this together! They live and breathe the vision and values! They do this every day! They are responsible for keeping everyone on track. They sell the vision and values in candidate interviews, they embed these from the first day someone joins their team to the day they leave! If people fail to follow or comprehend these values they help them learn why these are important. They drive these living policies every single day! (And it saddens me when these managers can't even tell me our simple values or have no vision - "You shouldn't be a leader"...)

It is when you bring these components together that the brand of your company becomes a powerful magnet both to market talent and to existing and future clients!

Investing time and money into these areas both internally and externally are critical. You need a strong HR team that can work closely with your executive management team and gain full support from marketing. You need to empower HR top down, not have them try to fight bottom up!! (We are not your bloody admin team!!)

If you don’t have a HR team who can support and deliver on this, hire a HR brand manager! Someone who can drive this from top to bottom and in and outside the entire organization! Have then report into the executive team to protect then from “political nonsense”. Too many HR people know these are important but they are too scared to rock this political machine in fear of losing their jobs! (HR stop being Yes men/women, take a stand for what is right and if management don't listen, leave and find a company who believes in HR and people!)

The Employee Brand Manager oversees all the company's employment branding strategies. They also plan, establish and oversee the company's social media presence on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and other social media sites. Additional duties include setting up and managing an online marketing program to promote job openings and career opportunities at the company. They are charged with expanding the company's online presence on different employment sites, developing creative ways to draw prospective employees to the company's website and identifying new recruitment opportunities through social media etc.

One area we also need them to focus on is how to continually embed the brand in the managers and employees. This could be done as part of new manager training, refresher training for managers, making sure managers have goals that align to their people, not just goals around the business numerical data... Other areas will be on not just the current workforce but the past workforce too, building a strong brand of company alumni in the market that can say they were proud to work for your organization!

These are challenging times but they are also exciting times, opportunities to take your company to the next level! A brand of People and Product together is a powerful thing, it can be unstoppable! Done right your clients will love you (even more) and you employees will love their jobs even on those dark & tough days!

Contact me directly if you want advice on any of these areas :)