Employer Branding Review - numero 6

Employer Branding Review Anno 3 - Numero 06

Luglio 2012

Social Recruiting

Campus Recruiting

Placement Employer Branding Metrics

Al via la Prima Edizione del Brand Storytelling Awards

L’osservatorio di Corporate Storytelling e Anthea Communications lanciano il primo contest italiano rivolto ad aziende, agenzie di comunicazione e media, case di produzione, etc, che nel 2011 abbiano realizzato progetti o svolto attività di branding nelle quali sia stato predominante l’utilizzo dello storytelling come fattore guida.

Si contenderanno il premio progetti o attività di branding nelle quali sia stato predominante l’utilizzo dello storytelling come fattore guida

L’obiettivo dell’iniziativa è stimolare l’attenzione dell’industria della comunicazione e, in generale, delle aziende verso l’importanza dello storytelling quale fattore critico del successo di una strategia di branding, qualunque ne sia il suo oggetto prevalente (prodotto, corporate, employer).

Gli Awards sono stati suddivisi in tre categorie”:

1

Brand Storyteling Award per il Product Branding

2

Brand Storytelling Award per il Corporate Branding

3

Brand Storytelling Award per l’Employer Branding

Le iniziative che si candideranno al premio devono essere state realizzate nel periodo compreso tra il

1° gennaio ed il 31 Dicembre 2011.

I materiali relativi ai progetti oggetto della candidatura dovranno essere inviati entro e non oltre il 30 Novembre 2012.

Ogni progetto o attività svolta verrà giudicato in base a 4 criteri:

1. Innovazione

2. Struttura

Valutazione dell’idea creativa insita nella storia che si è deciso di raccontare.

Valutazione dell’architettura con cui si è realizzato il processo narrativo

3. Coerenza. Valutazione della

4. Engagement

pertinenza del contenuto narrativo con gli strumenti di comunicazione utilizzati

Valutazione del grado di coinvolgimento del target

A seguito della valutazione della Giuria saranno individuate 3

Nominations per ciascuna delle 3 categorie.

Queste verranno poi presentate nel corso del Forum previsto per Febbraio 2013 al termine del quale saranno decretati i vincitori per ogni categoria e consegnati i Brand Storytelling Awards.

www.brandstorytellingawards.it

Employer Branding Review Editore Anthea Consulting srl Diretto Responsabile Eugenio Amendola Coordinatore di Redazione Simona Benini Comitato di Redazione Eugenio Amendola (Anthea Consulting) Barbara Demi (Etline e Associati) Enzo Spaltro (Università delle Persone) Brett Minchington (Employer Brand International) Silvia Zanella (Adecco) Alberto Padula (Università Tor Vergata) Simona Benini Silvia Nardini A questo numero hanno collaborato: Eugenio Amendola, Brett Minchington, Patrick Tissngton, Nicola Turner, Simona Benini, www.ere.net.

Redazione Employer Branding Review Via Toscana, 25 40050 Monte San Pietro (BO) TEL: +39 051 6759832 EMAIL: redazione@employerbrandingreview.it La rivista è pubblicata su: www.employerbrandingreview.com Progetto grafico Vitoria Muzi vickmouse@gmail.com Registrazione Tribunale di Bologna N° 8076 del 24 Aprile 2010

Editoriale In questo numero cercheremo di capire come si possa adottare una strategia di employer branding considerando le criticità dell’attuale economia globale.

Abbiamo più volte scritto, nel corso di questa nostra avventura editoriale, quanto sia importante avere consapevolezza del valore strategico dell’employer branding. Grazie al contributo di Minchington, di Itiat ma anche di Sullivan (riproponendo un articolo scritto qualche anno fa dall’archivio di ere.com) andremo a sottolineare, ulteriormente, questo aspetto guardando soprattutto a ciò che le aziende devono fare perché possano preservare al meglio e/o consolidare il proprio employer brand durante i periodi di crisi.

Una maggiore attenzione, quindi, alla formazione, alla leadership ed all’engagement (non semplice recruiting a breve) che, come affermano gli autori, rappresentano alcuni degli aspetti di maggiore criticità necessari per affrontare l’attuale recessione mantenendo mantenere inalterato il valore del proprio employer brand.

Ma anche, perché no, all’uso dei nuovi social media, in particolare Pinterest, che stanno emergendo velocemente e che sembra stiamo diventando straordinari tools per comunicare l’employer brand in chiave innovativa.

Affronteremo, inoltre, un tema sicuramente non nuovo ma di grande interesse che sta crescendo, sempre di più, soprattutto nelle Università. Parleremo di placement ma anche di campus recruiting. Due facce, come indica l’ottimo articolo di Simona Benini, di una stessa medaglia. Lo faremo raccontando la 1° edizione del Global Placement & Campus Recruiting Forum, tenutosi il 5 Luglio a Roma presso la sede di P&G. Il convegno ha visto in rassegna alcune delle best practice sul tema sia italiane che straniere. Dalle iniziative innovative messe in campo da Vodafone al rigore delle strategie di college recruiting adottate dalla Deloitte & Touche LLP e Tax LLP USA fino all’efficiente modello di placement messo a punto dal Politecnico di Milano e alla creatività con cui la Aston Business School della Aston University è riuscita a gestire l’employability” della propria popolazione di studenti.

Buona lettura

Eugenio Amendola Direttore Responsabile

e.amedola@antheaconsulting.it

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Employer Branding Review

Indice Numero 6 LUGLIO 2012

Editoriale (a cura di Eugenio Amendola) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 03

Scenari e Nuove tendenze Catturare l’attenzione dei Job Seekers con le immagini.

L’uso di Pinterest nelle attività di employer branding. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 05 (di Eugenio Amendola)

Some of the useful strategies and concepts organisation can apply in recessionary times to streghten its employer branding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 08 (di Anthony Itiat)

Where to next! 12 ways to optimise your employer brand strategy in the coming year . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14 (di Brett Minchington MBA)

Articles reprinted with permission of ERE Media, www.ere.net

Employment Branding: the Only Long-Term Recruiting Strategy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

(di John Sullivan)

Do You Have Ineffective HR Metrics? 25 Reasons Why You Might. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 (di John Sullivan)

Speciale Placement & Campus Recruiting Placement e Campus Recruiting. Due facce della stessa medaglia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 (di Simona Benini)

Creating employable graduates by connecting students with employers . . . . . . . . 34 (di Patrick Tissington e Nicola Turner, Aston University)

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Scenari e Nuove Tendenze

Catturare l’attenzione dei Job Seekers con le immagini. L’uso di Pinterest nelle attività di employer branding La maggior parte dei recruiters non riesce a comprendere il valore di alcuni social network (Pinterest, Instagram, etc) che si stanno affermando con grande forza nell’ormai complesso mondo del social web.

Eugenio Amendola Direttore Employer Branding Review

Ancora più difficile è riuscire ad inquadrarli come possibili strumenti di recruiting o meglio come strumenti di engagement per lo sviluppo di azioni efficaci di employer branding.

Tale miopia è giustificata dal fatto che questi nuovi social network non sono stati progettati principalmente per supportare le tradizionali attività di recruiting impedendone di vedere il suo valore strategico.

Quindi se si vuole innovare anche nel recruiting e se si vuole iniziare a sperimentare nuovi strumenti per promuovere il proprio employer brand vale la pena di impegnarsi un po’ di più cercando di capire come funzionino e quali vantaggi questo nuovi social media possano produrre realmente.

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Iniziare per primi a sperimentare strumenti di questo tipo potrebbe già portare alcuni vantaggi, in termini di rafforzamento del proprio employer brand, grazie al ruolo assunto di first mover e/o al semplice fatto che si venga percepiti come impresa innovativa.

Si potrebbe pensare inizialmente che sia strano utilizzare questi siti il cui contenuto è fatto prevalentemente di immagini. Ma questo è un approccio completamente sbagliato se consideriamo che una foto o un video spesso valgono più di 1000 parole. Semplicemente perché sono in grado di trasferire meglio le emozioni che possono scaturire da un’immagine o un video con i quali è possibile sintetizzare il proprio ambiente di lavoro in un’attraente esperienza visiva.

Employer Branding Review

blicare foto e immagini che descrivano il loro ambiente di lavoro contribuendo al processo di employer brand building.

In realtà le aziende hanno già avuto modo di sperimentare con successo l’efficacia di strumenti di questo genere con YouTube. Per anni è stato uno dei principali volani promozionali dell’employer brand per finalità di recruiting.

Ma chi sono questi nuovi social network? Come usarli al meglio e soprattutto quali reali vantaggi possono portare?

Stiamo parlando principalmente di Pinterest la cui crescita è stata esponenziale negli ultimi mesi. Il primo ha già in attivo, solo negli USA, circa 12milioni di utenti registrati di cui l’87% è composto da donne e tra queste la maggior parte ha tra i 18 e i 34 anni. In UK sono circa 200mila e prevalgono i maschi.

Pinterest permette agli utenti di inserire immagini di proprio interesse (pin a picture), che corrisponde al post che si fa su Facebook o Twitter. Ma mente su questi ultimi si postano commenti o dichiarazioni testuali su Pinterest si postano (pin) immagini.

Ciascun utente può quindi inserire sulla propria bacheca o board tutte le immagini che vuole e che possano, in qualche modo, raccontare i momenti della propria vita. Nel caso di un’azienda, ad esempio, i suoi dipendenti possono essere incentivati dai recruiters a pub-

Pinterest infatti offre enormi opportunità per quelle aziende che desiderano far crescere la propria rete soprattutto in un’ottica di engagement e di sviluppo di relazioni di lungo periodo (TRM). I recruiters possono fare ricerche mirate di potenziali candidati usando parole chiavi oppure argomenti contenuti nei post lasciati dagli utenti o nelle descrizioni che solitamente vengono fatte a seguito della pubblicazione di foto e immagini.

In questo senso Pinterest può rappresentare un valido strumento per lo sviluppo di azioni di employer branding nel lungo periodo perché permette di essere trovati da potenziali candidati, sia attivi che passivi, grazie ai vantaggi che si possono ottenere sulle attività di SEO (Search Engine Optimization) che come si sa tendono a indicizzare il proprio web site o le proprie offerte di lavoro ed in generale aiutano a rendere migliore il posizionamento del proprio employer brand sui motori di ricerca.

Ma per ottenere questi enormi vantaggi è necessario sfruttare al meglio tutte le potenzialità che Pinterest offre e cioè: 1. Scegliere key words in maniera accurata. Se ad un’immagine o video che mostra o racconta, ad esempio, un aspetto interessante del proprio ambiente di lavoro, associo una descrizione usando non solo il nome dell’azienda ma anche parole che descrivono specifiche posizioni aperte, le possibilità di essere trovati aumentano.

2. Creare link ai job posting o al career web site. Nel momento in cui si pubblica una foto o un’immagine (pin)

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su Pinterest si può aggiungere un link che permette di accedere direttamente o all’offerta di lavoro oppure alla sezione career del proprio web site.

3. Aprire schede tematiche o pin boards. Pinterest permette di aprire schede su specifici temi che possono essere facilmente condivise da altri dipendenti di un’azienda. Ad esempio si può aprire una scheda (pin board) sul tema del clima aziendale di uno specifico reparto o settore e successivamente aggiungere a questa scheda la partecipazione dei dipendenti di quel reparto. In questo modo le immagini e foto inserite da ciascuno vanno a costruire gradualmente un mosaico con il quale si tende a raccontare un pezzo di storia aziendale. Il vantaggio è quello di avere un gruppo di persone che, accomunati dagli stessi interessi per l’azienda, non fanno altro che raccontare attraverso le immagini la loro storia e così facendo tendono a promuovere ulteriormente il brand della stessa (brand ambassador) migliorandone la percezione da parte di chi è in cerca di lavoro.

4. Ovviamente per aumentare la visibilità in rete sarà necessario una maggiore personalizzazione delle pin board create individuando specifiche key words o delle immagini allineate con la il reparto o settore che si vuole mettere in evidenza o ancora identificando hashtag che consentono al contento descrittivo e alle immagini di beneficiare della viralità garantita da Twitter. Per chi volesse rendere più palese le ragioni del recruiting è possibile anche pubblicare uno screen shot della job description con un link diretto al proprio web site.

5. Aumentare la viralità con il “repin”.

Allo stesso modo come si può fare un re-twitt (RT) su Twitter è possibile fare lo stesso su Pinterest, con la differenza che

in questo caso si va a diffondere ulteriormente non un commento o articolo ma un’immagine o una foto.

6. Integrazione con gli altri social media (Facebook e Twitter. E’ evidente che ogni foto o immagine pubblicata su Pinterest può essere pubblicata anche su Facebook come il link relativo può essere inserito all’interno di un tweet.

Questo produce un inevitabile spinta alla diffusione in rete grazie al processo virale che ne consegue.

7. Pubblicare QR Code. Una dei vantaggi di Pinterest è la forte integrazione non solo con gli altri social media, come visto prima, ma anche con altri device ed in particolare il mobile. La pubblicazione del QR Code e cioè quel particolare codice associato ad un web site rende più facile e comodo per l’utente/job seeker il collegamento diretto tra il proprio smartphone e il sito dell’azienda.

te fare la differenze in termini di attrattività in linea con i gusti del target.

Quindi l’approccio giusto per chi si appresta ad usare Pinterest è:

La grande opportunità di questo social network sta anche nella sua capacità di andare a “scovare” quelle persone che non sono attive nella ricerca del lavoro (candidati passivi) e allo stesso tempo sono anche innovatori e creativi visto che sono stati i primi ad utilizzarlo.

• avere una prospettiva finalizzata all’engagement piuttosto che al recruiting diretto;

In generale questo riguarda un po’ tutti i social media che nascono non necessariamente come recruiting tools ma come strumenti per la condivisione sociale di informazioni, immagini, foto ed esperienze.

Questo significa che quando si decide di usarli per finalità di recruiting o di employer branding bisogna saperli usare bene pena la possibilità di non godere dei possibili vantaggi di cui abbiamo parlato prima.

8. Allineare le immagini con il target e con i temi principali di Pinterest.

Negli Usa la % delle donne che usano Pinterest è prevalente rispetto agli uomini. Questo può essere un’opportunità per pubblicare immagini più in linea con questo specifico target al fine di aumentare la propria attrattività e rendere più evidente la propria politica sulla diversity. Ma è anche possibile rendere più appealing le proprie immagini se queste sono in grado di evocare i temi principali maggiormente presenti su Pinterest. Ad esempio i viaggi sono uno degli argomenti più gettonati. Gli utenti di Pinterest amano pubblicare prevalentemente foto delle proprie esperienze di viaggio. Pubblicare quindi immagini che mostrano la location aziendale (soprattutto se è gradevole e confortevole) o aree di lavoro curate in modo particolare nel design o ancora strutture adibite alle attività sportive, etc può sicuramen-

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• avere molta pazienza nell’ottenere risultati i quali si faranno vedere solo gradualmente e nel lungo periodo; • non puntare sulla quantità ma sulla qualità dei risultati; • usarle il social network principalmente per “raccontare una storia” attraverso la quale trasferire quei “passaggi” salienti in grado di sintetizzare al meglio l’immagine della propria realtà ed, in particolare, del proprio ambiente di lavoro; • avere coraggio nell’iniziare ad usarlo ma con un approccio creativo che richiede un processo fatto di tentativi ed errori.

Scenari e Nuove Tendenze

Employer Branding Review

Some of the useful strategies and concepts organisation can apply in recessionary times to streghten its employer branding Anthony Itiat Founder / Independent strategy analyst at Employer Branding Focus Ireland

What organisations need in order to survive the turbulent times are tactical skills that will help everyone at every level to do their job effectively.

In addition to this, organisations need to adopt a democratic leadership style in which every managers and leaders are participative, supportive, considerate, and humanistic in their management of people.

Furthermore, recession does not necessarily have to mean reduced engagement – in fact it can mean that engagement rises if employees see that it is tough outside and that all of them inside the company are standing together.

It is evident that during economic downturn organisations rely on their employees as a key asset in order to keep their business doors open, and the recent global recession has created interest and concern for many organisations to question how they can keep their reputation. The solution to this question is for organisation to realise that human capital is the soul of the company, and following this context, human resources is important to companies, thus, companies must do all they can to retain all “good and productive” employees.

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EMPLOYMENT VALUE PROPOSITION An employment value proposition (EVP) is a value benefit an employee obtains through employment experience.

A strong EVP builds and reinforces the public image of the organisation’s vision, culture, work practices, management style and growth opportunities.

It builds the perception that people are motivated, proud and happy to work and willing to go the extra mile for the company.

Employer Branding Review

Employment Value Proposition helps to attract, motivate and retain the most valuable assets of a company – its employees. Employment branding and EVP are not just or mainly about attracting new talent but also about engaging, motivating, and retaining existing talent. People expect to achieve certain ideals from their job, employers, and careers. These workplace values, concepts, and ideas that people hold dear have a direct impact on people’s satisfaction with their job. This is very significance to organisations willing to survive the wavy economy if a strong EVP can provide what people expects from work despite economic crisis.

To enhance employment brand in recessionary times, organisations need to create a unique EVP and communicate well to it existing and potential employees – these are the keys to retaining and attracting talent in a recession. Hereto, it is important for an organisation to have a strong EVP in the current economic climate for several reasons.

• R etaining the right people and getting the most from them: a strong EVP will help organisation retains those employees who will ultimately deliver for the customer by living the brand and displaying their real engagement and loyalty. This also means higher performance levels and lower turnover rates for organisation – crucial in recessionary times • I mproving organisation external image – a strong EVP will help to build and reinforce the public image of organisation’s vision, culture, work practices, management style and growth opportunity which in turn will help to support corporate and consumer brands (important at a time when competition for consum-

er loyalty is being sorely tested) • A ttracting the right talent – even if organisation is not currently recruiting, organisation may well be before too long and a strong, positive EVP will ensure that organisation has remained front of mind for that pool of job – seeking talent who are aligned with organisation and believe in its vision, values, commitment to its employees and customers, ensuring those organisation do recruit are a “good fit”.

The importance of EVP stems not from the continuing shortage of talent but also from the realisation that value is created not so much by organisations themselves, but by the talented people within them.

ENGAGEMENT Engagement reflects alignment of each employee’s very personal goals and drives job satisfaction with organisation’s strategy and contribution requirements. It is imperative to note that individuals do not leave companies – they leave poor managers. Organisational mismanagement contributes to negative moral. Managers can assist with performance and motivate employees by taking time to build relationships through personal interaction, giving objective and constructive feedback to employees in order for them to understand that their work matters.

Engaged workers perform better and give extra discretionary effort. But keeping high levels of engagement in uncertain times is tricky. Positive psychology research has suggested that part of the answer lies in psychological and social processes. This research outlines nine ways in which psychological and social

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processes can be used at work by employers namely: • Create a positive culture • Affirm the best • Turn strengths into talent • Help team play to individual strengths • Adjust roles • Increase flow • Build rewards • Understand goal seeking The concept of SWOT analysis has shed light into how organisations can use this analysis to scan the environments it is operating. The merit of this analysis is that, it collects data from external and internal environments which enables organisation to formulate strategies that address critical aspects of its operation. Data from SWOT analysis of the environment identify new technologies, market trends, new competitors, and employee morale trends. This data is a feedback and is important input from the frontline staff - this feedback as high morale signifies that employee morale is working hard and winning the market place. Integrating employee feedback into the SWOT process is the true success of any business because employees are engaged in their activities. The use of SWOT analysis to proof the point of how this concept can contribute to employee engagement, employee retention, and employee motivation was used by How Ritz-Carlton Hotel. The luxury brand hotel uses hard data on employee and customer engagement to create its image and ambience – and to drive measurable result.

Employee engagement shows that engaged employees perform better and

are less likely to quit, they are more satisfied with their job. When people are engaged to deliver what the business needs, it is ready for an upturn. When the economy recovers, employees will vote with their feet if they are unhappy with the way organisation treated them in difficult times.

LEADERSHIP People manage organisation, and are managers or leaders who play diverse roles in organisation. The role managers or leaders play in an organisation is propelled by their goal set by their organisations, the end being profit making and the means being the meth-

ods employed to achieve the end. This profit making establishes the purpose for which organisations exist. Sartain and Schumann define employer branding as how a business builds and packages its identity, from its origins and values, what it promises to emotionally connects employees so that they in turn deliver what a business promises to customers. A strong leadership role is paramount to cement the meaning of employer branding in recessionary times.

Emotional intelligence is what leaders should have in order to be able to manage people. Emotional intelligence is about four things namely: self - awareness and recognising the inner feelings,

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self - management, social awareness or empathy for other’s feelings, managing relationships by guiding, motivating, working with, and living with others.

Hard times call for tough leaders; leaders need to have self – belief, resilience, focus, drive, control, resolve, nerves of steel, independence, competitiveness and chill ability. Leaders who focus on strategy, people and values are likely to fail when confronted with a world that we are now experiencing. Leaders in turbulent times should simultaneously focus on strategy, people and value if they are to be successful. Research conducted at Kemmy Business School, University of Limerick in collaboration

Employer Branding Review

with CIPD Ireland and Edinburg Napier Business School highlights the types of leadership challenges associated with increasing complexity, turbulence and uncertainty. Three themes emerged: authenticity, resilience, and trust. Authenticity involves showing passion for the business, it purpose and its people.

Without passion, there is a tendency to become complacent and routine. These behaviours do not inspire a team approach, nor do they motivate people to achieve. When leaders demonstrate a genuine passion for their people and contributions, people are likely to feel more valued and be willing to take more risks to perform. Resilience provides leaders with the ability to recover quickly from challenging hardships and misfortune. Resilience allows leaders to let go and to allow others to contribute to the process. It opens the door the door to hearing the views of others and can lead to enhanced strategic thinking. Trust involves telling the truth and revealing feelings. People deserve and need plenty of information about what is happening, why a particular course of action is necessary for their organisation to pursue, and what are the steps. Telling the truth involves admitting in some cases that the leader does not have all the answers. It gives faith in the face of uncertainty, it gives employees hope.

TRAINING A report prepared by Delloite and Haskin and Sell in conjunction with IFF Research Ltd, defines training as the process of acquiring the knowledge and skills related to work requirements by formal, structured or guided means.

Training is the main source of delivering skills to people who is seen as the floating device, agent of contributory factors to organisation success in wavy eco-

nomic times. Training would make employees feel comfortable in the workplace and have the opportunity to excel, connect, and achieve their career goals particularly in recessionary times. Training is related to organisational culture.

Training is the ritual that can reinforce the perception of how things are done just like personal procedures.

The relationship between satisfaction with workplace training and overall job satisfaction are: • S atisfaction with training and development is a major factor in decision regarding peoples career • T raining increases skills and abilities to a job • T raining gives employees the opportunity to learn new skills which is the most important factor in job satisfaction. Employer branding is an emerging discipline with its roots in classical marketing and brand management principles. To support this view, it is imperative that in recessionary times training needs should focus on customer centricity which has to do with sales. The meaning of customer centricity to a chiropractor is attracting unlimited numbers of new patients to his practice. The only way to achieve this particularly in recessionary times is for organisations to teach employees – facing customer, implement it by creating office systems, procedures, marketing strategies that congruently communicate customer centricity. This will establish the psychological contract in terms of an exchange relationship between individual employee and the organisation. In recessionary times, organisations can train and develop the existing employees on

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how to use software that can help provide basic customer – centric employee solutions on sales. I have no doubt that, in time to come or not too long, many companies will understand the importance of hiring and training customer – centric employees and have the budget for what’s necessary, because coaching and training will be more suited to better solving customer engagement.

ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE AND CLIMATE Employer branding is the organisational climate and culture created by management for successful business performance through its employee engagement, retention, and motivation schemes. The definition of organisational climate is the way in which an organisational member perceives and characterise their environment in an attitudinal and value based manner. This is the important and influential aspect of satisfaction and retention.

To reinforce organisational culture and climate in an unstable economy and to cement the meaning of employer branding to employees in recessionary times, organisation needs to create a climate for service. Climate for service refers to the sense that people who work for and / or come into contact with organisation have with regard to the service quality emphasis of the organisation. This is a perspective of Gestalt psychology of a ‘whole’ in that a climate for service in which organisation provides in recessionary times is the experience from organisation for creating a warm and friendly atmosphere.

Likewise employee experience from organisation for creating the climate for

service to customers, which in turn influence the climate for service that customers would experience.

MOTIVATION Intrinsic motivation states that employee must feel good about the job they do. In order to do a job well and in order for motivation to be high employee must love it. Similarly, Mcgregor theory Y, believes that employed workers of all kinds view work as natural, as something that they want to commit to in a responsible way and, that given the right condition, all people at work will contribute their best to the way organisation is run. This runs in parallel with Herzberg theory of the difference between hygienic and motivating factor. Hertzberg directly investigated the question ‘What do people want from their jobs’? This famous study revealed what they felt very good about were things such as achievement, recognition, the work itself and responsibility.

According to Herzberg, these are satisfiers. These being said, it is important for organisation to understand that, employees are stakeholders in the enterprise. Their interest in the conditions of employment and work are as real as those of stockholders and managers.

Given the economic downturn that organisations are experiencing and organisations drives to survive the critical period by motivating employees to work for them, introducing a total rewards will boost motivation and enhance productivity. Total rewards are all the tools available to the employer that may be used to attract, motivate and retain employees.

These include everything the employee perceives to be of value resulting from the employment relationship, which include the following five elements namely: compensation, benefit, career, and work environment.

COMMUNICATION It is important for organisation to communicate the tough time to employees after considering implementation of some basic strategies to sustain it competitive advantage. In my opinion it reveals the fact that organisation is engaging in some groundwork that will remedy the difficult time, and letting employees to know the heart of the organisation by means of communication in recessional times is a way of adding hope to employees, because during this time everybody is thinking about job loss.

Communication is the process through which organisation is created, and in this case, in communicating the tough time to employees, the focus should be on the content which embraces corporate vision and mission statement as rightly put by (Jane Weightman, 1994) that content is the subject matter, and the subject matter can embrace the corporate vision to employees once again. Organisation can use all the channels of communication for its internal communication. That includes team briefing, notices, reports, memos, face to face, and emails to reach employees because organisational communication in recessionary times is about renewing the focus of recommended direction to follow in order to survive the downturn. In communicating the focus to employees, organisations should be honest with employees and also let them know how the organisation is doing so that employees understand the true financial picture. A recent research

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on improving employee engagement through communication, show that effective communication is linked to employee engagement and they also offer seven useful tips on how organisations can improve employee engagement through communication namely: • I nternal communication needs to be timely, clear, consistent, and, most of all, honest • T here is no one “one size to communicating difficult messages • C ontextualise corporate communication at a local level • B e clear about when face – to – face communication needs to be used • A lthough your focus has to be on dealing with the most affected people initially, do not forget about your “survivors” who are the future of your organisation • T he focus for communication should be on all stakeholders receiving the same message at the same time • K ey messages need to be around organisation direction, strategy and employee involvement along the journey

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Employer Branding Review

Where to next!

12 ways to optimise your employer brand strategy in the coming year I am continuously amazed at just how far the art and science of employer branding has evolved since I started writing on the topic more than seven years ago. With the world’s economy currently in a state of flux, how effectively companies attract and retain talent will become the number one (in many it already is!) concern for CEO’s. This is where the field of employer branding can make its greatest contribution to management.

Brett Minchington MBA Chairman/CEO at Employer Brand International. Founder at www.employerbrandingonline.com

Over the past five years I have been fortunate to share my employer branding knowledge, experience and networks with leaders across all industry sectors in more than forty five cities in twenty six countries including Denmark, Belgium, Russia, Turkey, New Zealand, Australia, Dubai, Singapore, USA, Spain, Italy, UK, Netherlands, and most recently the Ukraine.

I meet a lot of people from different cultural and educational backgrounds, some with no formal education at all. Whilst the world is such a diverse place it is also similar in many ways. I have never come across anyone who would disagree that their employment experience should not involve as a minimum: fair pay, interesting work, a friendly working environment, respect and career development. You would think that meeting these needs would be a simple challenge for most companies. However in reality, so many companies get it wrong! The downside for many employees is they do get to live the life they strive for and for companies the downside is usually poor productivity and reduced profits. For some it’s also game over – too many realise too late that at the heart of every great company, there are great people!

During my travels I also have taken the opportunity to spend time with leaders in the regions who are driving the employer branding agenda inside their companies to witness first hand just how challenging and complex attracting and retaining talent has become. It is as if the market is moving at one (fast!) speed and companies at another (slow!).

In September 2011 at Employer Brand International (EBI) we published a major Employer Branding Global Survey report which highlighted key trends in employer branding in advanced and developing economies. We published a similar report in 2009 and it was interesting to see the developments in employer branding over the past two years. Following the Global Financial Crisis in September 2008, the world of work has undergone significant changes. There are six million less jobs in the USA and unemployment continues to remain high (though there was some improvement in the last quarter of 2011) despite a number of government initiatives to stimulate the economy.

Along with political unrest in countries such as Syria, Egypt and some Middle Eastern countries there has been a global ‘Occupy’ uprising which had its roots in the USA. Around the world many citizens are fed up with the wealth being concentrated in a small percentage (or the 1% as it has been defined!).

Despite multiple European bank and country bailouts and downgrading of credit ratings in countries such as France there are serious ongoing concerns about the future of the Euro, the solvency of a number of European countries and the ongoing

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risk of the market overheating in China and India. Welcome to the new normal!

when developing or evolving their employer brand strategy.

All of these trends will have an impact on the world in which we live and how we spend our time with family, work colleagues and ourselves. Each provides challenges and opportunities to companies and industries in how they attract and retain talent. The 2012/2013 fiscal year may just be the year of broader acceptance of the role (and value) of employees in delivering company (and country) wealth.

Consider the bigger picture

Here are my top twelve areas for companies to focus on in 2012/2013

Understand it is difficult to optimise the benefits of your strategy in isolation from other key functions required for managing a successful business. The employer branding ecosystem detailed in Figure 1 outlines the scope of what is involved in building a strong employer brand and considers the diversity of stakeholders and functions which need to be engaged in your strategy. In most cases adopting a strategic approach to employer branding will require a lead-

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ership mindset and engagement to realign other business strategies e.g. talent management, recruiting, communication, etc with your employer brand strategy. This will ensure key areas of your business are focused in the same direction to create value whilst minimising inefficiencies and redundancies created by teams working in silos.

ACTION: Undertake a stakeholder analysis and align your strategy with the diversity of stakeholder needs.

Figure 1: Employer Branding Eco-system

Employer Branding Review

Involve marketers in your employer brand strategy Marketers need to realise it’s time to take more of an interest in employer branding and its role in building brand strength that impacts shareholder value. It will require an understanding from leaders that a company has one brand and managing the different, interconnected parts e.g. employer brand, consumer brand, corporate brand can no longer be managed independently given the speed at which the dynamics of the workplace are evolving.

Most of the job descriptions for Employer Brand Directors and Managers published in 2011/2012 were seeking to recruit a person with a background in marketing or branding, not human resources. If this is not a clear message to marketers to get more involved in employer branding I don’t know what is!

ACTION: Conduct a round table meeting between HR, marketing and communications to discuss how a joined up approach can benefit the organisation’s brand equity and discuss any barriers which need to be addressed.

Learn how to leverage the pockets of talent excellence in the global labour pool more effectively Great talent exists everywhere amongst the seven billion people on our planet. If the talent doesn’t exist to deliver the skill or capability required to deliver the service it is likely your business model is wrong. A key issue for companies is that we are entering the most critical phase of talent scarcity ever experienced, where the number of people leaving the workforce due to the ageing population in many economies

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such as Japan, Italy, Russia, etc out numbers those entering the workforce. Combined with the rate of change driven by innovation, competition and technology, the race to wealth creation will be met with a mismatch within borders of the talent required to meet growth targets.

Online networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn will become more effective at matching people with jobs around the world that can be performed virtually or require specialist skills for short periods. This will create many opportunities for talented people who live in countries such as India and China and do not have the means or support to relocate to where the jobs are.

ACTION: Build a community presence on social networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn and engage the audience in discussion and mine the data to assess the potential to en-

gage members in volunteer or paid work. Philips has done this very well with their Linkedin communities of more than 100,000 members.

Invest in strategic thinking capabilities of emerging leaders Strategic thinking is one of the most under developed skills in the workplace.

Most Universities don’t train the skill until the Masters course level leading to a large proportion of graduates who are entering the workforce with extensive textbook knowledge but unprepared to address the challenges of today’s workplace. Failure to recruit and train talent to think strategically will ensure company growth is likely to remain stagnant and lead to a virtuous cycle of recruitment, disengagement and regrettable turnover.

There are numerous resources on the internet to assist employees developed knowledge and capabilities in strategic thinking and how it can be applied to assist company productivity.

ACTION: Develop a strategic thinking training module for new starters and existing employees. This may be in the form of an application which can be accessed from a mobile device where the majority of learning is likely to occur in the future.

Support accelerated skill and capability development It is well reported in the media and I’ve experienced firsthand in travelling to emerging markets that the education systems around the world are not

preparing the next generation of workers adequately for the skill and capability demands of employers competing in environment where today’s source of competitive advantage is increasingly linked to the quality of employed talent and/or access to talent. Even at a school level it is becoming increasingly challenging to maintain engagement of students when they have access to the world’s knowledge through their computers or mobile devices. I’m really concerned about the ability of companies to keep my twelve year old son (and his global network of connections around his age) challenged beyond 11am on a Monday on his first day!

This generation that will hit the workforce in 2018 is agile, intelligent, and global in their thinking, connected, entrepreneurial and inpatient. Companies need to start planning in 2012/2013 the systems, processes and policies that need to be developed, adapted or dumped to remain attractive to tomorrow’s talent pipeline.

At a recent University lecture I was amazed when I asked students about their participation in social media networks for personal or business use. Very few were active in social media and were unsure of the personal and business benefits it could bring them.

Are we teaching an out of date curriculum in Universities or the wrong combination of skills required to build leaders fit to lead companies over the next decade? This debate will continue to build momentum in 2012/2013.

ACTION: Develop an accelerated capability development program that is linked to the employee’s career development plan and supported by their immediate manager and managers

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from across the business.

Focus on systems integration across borders I’m still amazed by the number of leaders I meet on my travels from companies I know have a global employer brand strategy and when I mention it to them, they have no idea it even existed.

The traditional head office, top down strategy requires a different approach if companies are to engage leaders and employees outside their home country.

A large number of today’s global companies are in the early stages of global integration of policies, systems and processes which impact on the employer brand. Compounding this is the lack of, or complexity of technology to support this process. It appears we are still sometime away from using mobile devices effectively to promote the employer brand and/or leverage for recruitment.

ACTION: Conduct an analysis of the key areas of your strategy (e.g. career development, recruitment advertising templates, etc) which need to be integrated across regions.

Integrate formal and informal learning and enable mobile access After thirteen years of University (two in a teaching capacity) I have found the best learnings come from ‘on the ground’ experiences when combined with formal learning. Too much learning still occurs in a training group environment which lacks relevance to individual employees and has little impact on behavioural change.

Employer Branding Review

I’ve been fortunate to travel to more than forty-five cities around the world over the past four years. Prior to this I completed a MBA and earlier a Degree in Marketing and International Business.

The travel has allowed me to connect the textbook dots and develop a much richer perspective on the complexity of the world we live by moving outside the culture and environment I grew up in Australia.

Too many University programs are taught by academics that haven’t seen outside their University walls. Learning is a lifelong skill that is developed and enhanced through transfer of knowledge and experiences over time. There is too much focus on formal learning in today’s workplaces. A lifetime of learning already exists on the internet, the challenge is how to personalise it and have it find you rather than you find it!

The iPad and numerous other tablets on the market provide an excellent opportunity to build employee capabilities without the cost of formal, face to face group training.

I predict most of tomorrows learning which contributes to wealth creation will be informal. Consider the impact on wealth creation inside and outside their borders when larger parts of regional India and China gain access to the internet and hundreds of millions of people move further along the developing economy curve that has occurred countries such as the USA, UK, Japan and Australia over the past one hundred years. The growth in China over the past thirty years suggests it will only take another twenty years to reach a similar developed level of these developed nations. In China the relocation of people from rural into urban areas has been described as having to build a city the

size of Los Angeles each year to accommodate them.

Considering the young population in countries such as India as Turkey it would not be unusual for some to predict that this will be where the growth in the global economy will come from over the next thirty years.

ACTION: Plan for leaders responsible for the global employer brand strategy to visit regions where the company has operations to conduct faceface meetings with regional staff and to build engagement with the global strategy. Support leaders who will be away from the office for extended periods of time. Assess technological needs to facilitate employees or contractors working outside the office.

Focus on the experience and engagement will follow It is well reported that employee engagement is in decline in many companies, moreso following the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) in 2008 when companies were laying off thousands of workers, freezing wages and focusing on cost cutting at the expense of investment in employee engagement and development initiatives. However this may not be such a bad outcome as it appears from recent reports that engagement programs are no longer having the impact they once did or were promised when sold by consultants eager to meet their monthly budget forecasts.

Even though many companies have returned to profit at the same level or higher than 2008, the growth in jobs hasn’t kept up at the same pace as it previously did in the recovery following previous recessions. Many companies have returned to profitability and are hoarding cash due to the uncertainty in the global economy or

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returning it to shareholders who have had lower returns over the past few years. The game has changed and with record levels of unemployment in many parts of the world along with high numbers of youth unemployment, companies are in the midst of a transition to a new landscape where the focus is on doing more with less. This new paradigm is going to need new approaches to talent acquisition and development; it can no longer be undertaken as an operational function. It needs a strategic approach and commitment from Executives to invest in the future sustainability of their company.

Over the past year we’ve seen just how quick the speed at which social media has changed the way companies have changed their approach to managing the candidate and customer experience. Early adopter firms like Sodexo, Starbucks and Coca-Cola are now leveraging the benefits of investing in building social media capabilities early on. They realised that social media was not a fad and would become part of the global landscape providing benefits for the employer brand and consumer brands.

American ‘big box’ retailer ‘Best Buy’ has recently found out just how much influence and reach social media has and how companies can no longer control brand messages to market they once did.

Still the best is yet to come with internet penetration rate growth increasing significantly in regions such as Latin America, Africa and the Middle East. It will no longer be a ‘nice to have’ component of your employer brand strategy, an online positive candidate and customer experience will be a must!

ACTION: Conduct an analysis on the

employee lifecycle and make changes necessary to ensure an integrated brand experience across the lifecycle.

‘are busy’ and those that appear to have all the time in the world at their disposal.

The first category is on a never ending search for the next best thing. The latter’s

Leverage technology to enable employees to work smarter There are two types of leaders, those that have no time and always say they

thinking is guided by models, frameworks and experiences. There is enough information online to build knowledge and capabilities for those with access to the internet than you could ever realisti-

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cally consume in your lifetime (or that of your entire workforce!).

Train and coach your employees to source original content that is relevant to their stage of development. I believe for many of today’s employees and tomorrow’s talent pipeline the iPad or the ever increasing number of tablets hitting the market is likely to be recognised

Employer Branding Review

as the best personal and career development invention since the personal computer. A screenshot of employee’s iPad can provide useful insights into how employees are using the technological tools at their disposal to work smarter.

Buy employees a mobile device - the benefits to your employer brand far outweigh the cost of providing mobile devices to every employee. It will become the norm for companies in industries such as health care, hospitality or any occupations which require ‘real time’ contact and feedback with employees and customers.

The access and ability of technology to assist employees and companies to better understand the data created by social interactions throughout the organisation via communication channels such as the company intranet, email, public social media sites (e.g. Facebook, twitter, etc) and company ‘behind the firewall social sites - e.g. HP’s Watercooler, IBM’s Beehive” will create smarter workplaces and provide a higher level of confidence in data in much the same way we have grown more confident in the searches we conduct on Google on a regular basis. This evolution will create the early forms of ‘social business’ where interactions between employees and other employees, customers and other stakeholders will be enhanced by the support of reliable analytics about information about people and products.

ACTION: Review your communication systems and assess how they can be improved with greater access through mobile technology.

Encourage employees to grow their global network and online profile

Leaders should aim for the social media ‘triple 1000’ (1000 friends on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, or the top 3 in their region) social media footprint on the world’s largest networks. If built strategically this market reach will provide you with an opportunity to connect globally with others in a manner that will benefit you both and your company.

You need a game plan to build value in your network; it won’t happen by chance so be prepared to invest time in building your online global network and online profile. It will have long run payoffs. A simple tweet can open up new markets for you that can have long run financial benefits for you and your company. I speak from experience here!

ACTION: Grow your network strategically as part of your daily routine when checking emails at the start of each day.

Don’t obsess with metrics Most of you will be familiar with the quote by management guru Peter Drucker, “What can’t be measured can’t be managed.” It set off a trend by leaders to measure everything in business within an inch of its life!

In the process it caused disengagement, loss of brand equity and a generation of leaders who wouldn’t (or couldn’t) make a decision without first consulting the data. The other famous quote, “Your past performance is a predictor of your future performance,” resulted in companies employing candidates who had tertiary qualifications and/or previous employment in a well known brand, leaving the unqualified hi-potentials on the sidelines.

Many of the new employees became

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disengaged as they were the wrong fit for the role and a hindrance to growth at their new company whereas many of the latter went out and started their own business and are now contracting services to the companies that overlooked them in the first place.

ACTION: Identify those metrics which impact most on the company’s productivity and performance and make employees accountable to these.

Identify and release your brand ambassadors Understand your brand is made up of the sum of the intangible and tangible assets of your company. As tangible assets become increasingly cheaper due to competitive forces, the true competitive advantage of a company resides more in its intangible assets such as its people, intellectual property, brand, reputation and experience. Your most effective brand ambassador is not necessarily your CEO or members of your Executive.

Your best ambassadors are likely to come from your Employer Brand team in the future. I have been impressed by the impact leaders responsible for the management or their employer brand have had on conference audiences they have presented to around the world. In 2011/2012 I had had the pleasure of getting to see firsthand the impact of ambassadorship by leaders such as Michael Holm (IBM), Stephen Fogarty (Adidas), Heather Polivka (United Health Group), Linda Halse, (Australian Wine Research Institute), Birgitte Brix Andersen (Vestas), Kerry Noone (Computer Science Corporation), René Herremans (Ahold),

Karen Nelson-Field (University of South Australia), Els van de Water (Microsoft) and Fabio Dioguardi (Ferrero).

These leaders have invested heavily in building their own employer brand capabilities and are leading what can be an arduous task of influencing and convincing Executives of the benefits of employer branding to support investments. We are fortunate to have them as highly respected members of Employer Brand International’s advisory team.

ACTION: Assess and appoint employees to act as brand ambassadors and provide them with the time to fulfil responsibilities such as speaking at or attending conferences, visiting university campuses or blogging about company initiatives.

And some final thoughts Think about the impact on the communities you operate in!

Many of the world’s top companies have had to reconsider and change their approach to business in countries where previously they exploited access to low wages and conducted business with little concern for the environment in the pursuit of wealth.

The company values listed on their corporate website had little relevance to how they conducted business, leading to cynicism amongst employees, suppliers, partners and other stakeholders. In an ever increasingly open and transparent global landscape, companies will start to take the threat seriously of the negative (and financial!) impact on their brand by continuing unethical work practices that have allowed them to increase operating margins at the expense of upholding human rights or damage to the environment.

Over the past two years Chevron have taken positive steps to communicate that it is serious about investing in the development of communities it operates in. In late 2010 they launched the, ‘We agree’ campaign and have invested millions in getting the message out globally that they are serious about making a difference in the world’s communities in their pursuit of wealth creation. Whilst Chevron still has many doubters about their motives they at least have not shied away from publicly stating their intentions and openness to be held accountable for their actions. In 2012 more companies will start to seriously consider the long term benefits of adopting an employer branding 3.0 approach to its business. My thinking behind what I defined employer branding 3.0 in 2010 is that instead of acting solely in the interest of shareholders, to ensure sustainability in the future companies would act in the best interests of its people, communities and environment whilst striving to improve the lives of those it comes into contact with in the pursuit of profit.

We are already seeing an employer branding 3.0 approach driving corporate strategy. For example Unilever’s corporate purpose states, “that to succeed requires “the highest standards of corporate behaviour towards everyone we work with, the communities we touch, and the environment on which we have an impact.”

We’re also seeing it evident in the financial sector, Australia’s largest bank, the Commonwealth Bank states in its 2011 Sustainability Report, ‘We’re working to build a more sustainable future in everything we do – from working with our customers, developing our people, supporting our local communities to strategic corporate decision-making.’

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In the near future I believe citizens will become less forgiving in the future and a company’s responsibility to societies and the environment will be a base level requirement for a stake in the game. The growth of the world’s population and acceleration of development in emerging economies such as China, India and Brazil at much faster rates than the USA, UK and Japan experienced during their phase of development to advanced economies would suggest that not too long into the future, the key concerns will be our ability to feed the world and provide access to energy and clean water without destroying the planet in the process.

We are hedging our bets that technological innovation and talent will drive solutions to these global issues.

However it would appear we are a long way from the globally coordinated approach required to meet these challenges head on. That’s why the current situation to restore economic stability to the euro zone is as important as it establishes a benchmark for how countries deal with issues affecting others outside its borders. The world’s attempt (and first test!) at global collaboration by trying to reach agreement on strategies to tackle climate change was seen by many as a failure.

It would seem we still have alot to action in the coming year! We should embrace the opportunities that lie ahead!

Brett Minchington MBA is Chairman/CEO of Employer Brand International, a global authority, strategist and corporate advisor on employer branding www.brettminchington.com.

His latest book Employer Brand Leadership-A Global Perspective is available at www.collectivelearningaustralia.com

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Employment Branding: the Only Long-Term Recruiting Strategy

John Sullivan Professor of management at San Francisco State University

Employer Branding Review

Almost every action and process in recruiting is designed for shortterm gain. Despite talk about being strategic, most recruiters and recruiting managers alike respond only to requisitions, placing ads, visiting job boards, attending job fairs, and mining social networking sites in an effort to fill today’s job openings.

There is lots of talk but little effort placed on building out truly long-term recruiting tools and strategies designed to impact the business.

If all the talk were true, nearly every recruiting function on the planet would have dedicated resources to employment branding, the only long-term recruiting strategy that is designed to bring in a steady flow of high-quality applicants over a period of many years.

Employment branding stands alone as the only approach corporate recruiting managers can leverage to guarantee an end to their talent shortage problem. Unfortunately, most corporate recruiting managers spend less than 5% of their budgets on this powerful long-term solution. In direct contrast, firms that have taken the time to invest in building a great employment brand like Google and Southwest Airlines have not only dominated their industries, but they have also turned the common talent shortage problem into a more desirable talent “sorting” problem. If you’re tired of constantly fighting fires and of being continually bashed year in and year out by your managers for failing to produce a high volume of high-quality candidates, it’s time to shift your focus to the only solution that can reduce your job stress and make you a hero.

The Many Benefits of Employment Branding I have found that the primary reason why corporate recruiting managers under appreciate and under utilize a corporate branding strategy is because they have done a poor job in making the business case for investing in their firm’s employment brand. You can’t make a compelling business case unless you first know the possible benefits of the branding strategy. Over the years, I’ve advised dozens of firms on building a compelling employment brand (including a Fortune #1 Best Place to Work winner) and, as a result, I’ve identified the many benefits that a successful employment-branding program can provide. When demonstrated, these benefits can help sway even the most cynical nonbelievers: • A Long-Term Impact. Once you have successfully built your employment brand, you can expect the positive impacts on recruiting to continue for at least five years baring any major PR issues surrounding your company.

• An Increased Volume of Unsolicited Candidates. You will significantly increase

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the number of applicants that your firm receives each year. In some cases, applications will increase by 500%.

• H igher Quality Candidates. Not only will you get more applicants, but the quality of your candidates will improve dramatically to the point where you will start getting applications from individuals who never would have considered your firm in the past. A great employment brand that highlights your firm’s focus on innovation is necessary in order to attract game-changers, managers, and innovators who demand it!

• H igher Offer-Acceptance Rates. As your employment image becomes better known and more powerful, your offer acceptance rates will improve dramatically.

• I ncreased Employee Referrals. The percentage of hires from employee referrals will increase as a result of your employees’ increased pride and knowledge about what makes their firm superior to others. Increasing the number of referrals has added benefits in that it increases employee ownership in the recruiting process, while simultaneously reducing recruiters’ workloads.

• I mproved Employee-Retention Rates. A compelling employment brand increases retention rates among your current employees because they will better know why working at your firm is a superior opportunity. In addition, their pride in your firm will grow as colleagues and friends routinely ask them, “Do those things

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Employer Branding Review

really happen at your firm?” Unfortunately, the positive impact will be somewhat tempered by the fact that more firms will target your employees because of your strong employment image.

• I ncreased Employee Motivation. Employee motivation will be easier to maintain because of your employees’ increased pride in the firm and the better management practices that are required to maintain an employer-of-choice status.

• I mproved College Recruiting. Because college students are highly brand conscious, employment branding is especially effective for intern recruiting and college hiring.

• A Stronger Corporate Culture. Because one of the goals of employment branding is to develop a consistent message about what it’s like to work at your firm, employment branding can help strengthen your corporate culture. This consistent message can reinforce corporate values and guide behaviors while a consensus develops across the enterprise among managers and employees with regards to what it means to be a part of the organization.

• D ecreased Corporate Negatives. Effective branding programs identify and counter negative comments about your firm. This effort can decrease both the number and the severity of the negative comments that appear in the media and online.

• A mmunition for Employees and Managers. Most employment-branding efforts include elements that gather and centralize information on your firm’s best practices and its compelling stories. As a result of this effort, it is much easier to provide every employee with an arsenal of information and stories they can share with colleagues in the media about what makes working for the organization the best possible opportunity.

• I ncreased Manager Satisfaction. The resulting higher quality of candidates and higher offer-acceptance rate means that hiring managers will have to devote less time to interviews, and they will be more satisfied with the recruiting function.

• I ncreased Media Exposure. As a result of winning awards, being placed on “best places to work” lists, and having managers give presentations at industry events, the amount of media exposure that your firm will receive will increase dramatically. Having the media brag about your firm’s excellent people-management practices adds a level of external credibility that no recruitment ad can provide.

As a result of this initial exposure, the number of times that reporters and benchmarking individuals will call your firm for future stories will also increase.

• A Competitive Advantage. Because employment branding efforts include extensive metrics and side-by-side comparisons with talent competitors, you ensure that your talent-management approaches are differentiated and continually superior. This superiority over competitors not only impresses senior managers, but it also improves your chances of winning over candidates who also apply for positions at your competitors.

• Increased Shareholder Value. The Russell Investment Group has demonstrated

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that being listed on Fortune‘s Best Places to Work list and the resulting improved employer image can positively impact a firm’s stock price. Google, for example, has noted in its SEC filing the important role that recruiting and retention play in its continued business growth.

• S upport for the Product Brand. An employment brand can support the corporate brand and your related product brands because many consumers mentally make the link between attracting quality employees and producing a quality product.

Additional Branding Benefits Some additional benefits of an employment-branding program might include: • I ncreased knowledge and competitive intelligence, as more employees from top competitors join your organization.

• T he increased focus on excellence in people-management programs brought about by the branding effort will result in the continuous improvement of those practices.

• G etting talked about in the press reinforces the stories you have already spread to your employees.

• T he increased notoriety might also have a positive side effect on the business by making it easier to attract strategic partners who are willing to link with your firm.

• E mployment branding works not just for large corporations but also for smaller firms and for government agencies as well.

• A great employment brand makes it easier to attract top recruiters and branding experts.

• T he high impact and ROI of the employment-branding program will help build HR’s image as a bottom-line contributor.

Final Thoughts If you are part of recruiting management at an organization that has been facing continuous talent shortages, it’s time to get out of that rut and focus your resources on the areas that can have the highest business impact. Almost universally, that means shifting your recruiting talent, time, and budget towards the programs that will have the most impact, starting with employment branding (other high-impact programs include employer referrals, professional event recruiting, prioritizing jobs, bringing back key former employees (boomerangs), and making your corporate careers page compelling). Yes, I know it’s hard to find the time to step back from fighting fires but, at some point, you have to realize that you can’t just talk about being strategic. You have to act strategically by investing in the only long-term recruiting strategy that’s available.

Article reprinted with permission of ERE Media, www.ere.net

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Employer Branding Review

Do You Have Ineffective HR Metrics?

25 Reasons Why You Might Recruiting, talent management, and HR professionals in general have been using metrics for many years now. More often than not, the story HR metrics tell is irrelevant or disappointing.

Over the past three decades, I’ve compiled a long list of common metrics mistakes that you can use to assess your measurement efforts and improve your efforts to get the attention of your management and senior leadership.

25 Most Damaging Metric Errors Following are 25 of the most damaging mistakes you can make when usingmetrics to assess or defend your performance presented in five categories.

If you want your efforts to be as effective as they can be, you cannot make a single one.

Factors That Make a Metric Less Compelling Not tied to business goals — executives have a narrow agenda, so don’t

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John Sullivan Professor of management at San Francisco State University

forget to tie each reported HR metric directly to a business goal or problem (business problem not HR problem).

Not demonstrating revenue impact — no business goal is more “top of mind” with executives than increasing revenue. Although it is admittedly difficult, calculate the dollar business impact on revenue of the area covered by the metric (i.e. revenue decrease as a result of vacant positions). Work with the CFO’s office to ensure that the calculations are credible.

They don’t drive executive action — pretest each metric reported to executives to ensure that they are pow-

erful enough to cause managers and executives to want to take action immediately. Non-compelling metrics get only a “so what” or “that’s interesting” reaction from executives.

Not forward-looking — almost all HR metrics are historical. Unfortunately, executives care more about the future, so focus on metrics that are forwardlooking and that alert managers about upcoming problems and opportunities (e.g. key employee turnover will likely increase 8% next quarter).

Not tying rewards to metrics — merely collecting and reporting metrics can have a powerful impact on behavior.

However, by failing to reward managers and HR professionals for producing superior metrics results, you are missing a powerful opportunity to further drive behavior and decision-making. Whatever you measure and reward gets done faster and better.

Errors in Selecting Metrics Developing metrics independently — the CFO’s office is the undisputed king of metrics. So never begin a metric effort without directly involving the CFO to ensure upfront that each metric is useful, credible and relevant. You can avoid many metric selection errors by allowing senior executives to pick the metrics they want to see.

Voting on metrics — it is quite common but a major mistake to select your individual metrics based on a vote by the staff. Because everyone does not have equal knowledge or power, you need to weigh the inputs and the opinions of the individuals who provide advice.

Too many metrics — rather than developing metrics for every whim, limit metrics to one for every major HR

goal and major people management problem or opportunity. Only report the handful that directly impact items on executives’ current agenda. That usually means the cost of poor hiring, weak retention, and a lack of leaders, and never cost per hire or training hours per employee. Mixing powerful metrics with low-impact ones can cause the best to be missed.

Focusing on tactical metrics — tactical or transactional metrics help you improve the operational aspects of a specific function or program. In contrast, strategic metrics highlight areas or opportunities that directly impact a major business goal. It’s a mistake not to use the 80/20 rule and spend 80% of your time and resources on the 20% of your metrics that are truly strategic.

Omitting quality measures — a common mistake in HR that does not occur in other business functions is the omission of metrics that cover quality.

For example, listing the number of hires without a comparable statistic for the quality of those hires (i.e. on-the-job performance of new hires). Listing the number of training hours provided but failing to note the quality of training (i.e. the change in performance after training) is a common but serious omission.

Not supplementing with “why” metrics — most metrics serve a single purpose in that they tell you “what happened.” In order to fix a problem, you also need to know the causes or “why” something is happening. As a result, for critical strategic metrics you need to gather supplemental data that reveals the causes (i.e. turnover numbers can be supplemented with exit interview data on why people quit).

Metrics are too complicated —

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don’t provide metrics that are too complicated for the average executive to understand within a minute. If necessary, continually refine your metrics until they are easy to understand.

Follow-the-leader errors — a common error is to “over benchmark” to the point where the metrics that you select are merely a reflection of the metrics that every other firm is using. Unfortunately, because there is little connection between common metrics and effective metrics, copying can result in metrics that do not fit your organization and its problems.

Relying 100% on canned metrics — although many HR software packages, metrics providers, and consultants provide an excellent set of metrics, it is a mistake to rely 100% on them.

It may be necessary to supplement them with a few high-value metrics and measures that fit your organizational needs and problems.

Errors in Reporting and Presenting Metrics Not embedded in financial reports — strategic metrics can have no impact if they are never seen or read. Separate metrics reports are seldom read, so you must fight to have your most important strategic metrics embedded into standard financial reports that all managers receive. For example, having the costs of employee turnover read alongside the cost of inventory turnover can be very powerful.

No indication that action is required — including metrics that require no action with those that do can lead to a lack of focus. Labeling individual metrics with action colors can help executives focus on the metrics that require action. Also report your metrics so that

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the ones that demand executive attention or action appear first.

No comparison numbers — recording a single number by itself might have little meaning, while including a benchmark comparison number might instantly excite them (e.g. our turnover is 9% but it was 4% last year and the industry average is 2%). Include a “failure, passing, and excellent score” for each metric. Other powerful comparison numbers might include the percentage change and the best and the worst within the firm and industry.

Failing to provide “more information” options — electronic metric reports are far superior to paper reports because you can provide the user with more information options. If an individual manager needs more detailed information, localized information, a formula, or a definition, it can be provided easily using a drop-down menu. This makes metrics easily scannable while at the same time providing any level of detail or depth that the reader requires.

Data or calculations are not judged to be credible — many HR metrics are ignored, discounted, or disregarded by executives because they doubt the accuracy of the metric or the supporting data. This can be caused by an overall lack of credibility but it can be exacerbated if you fail to provide in your background materials the source and reliability statistics for the data. Providing key formulas and definitions can also help minimize confusion.

Reporting metrics that don’t change — routinely reporting metrics that don’t vary much over time, that represent no major change, or that don’t require action actually waste executive time. Either omit them until they show

a change or put them last in your report.

Errors Related to Enhanced Decision-making Not designed for decision-making — the primary purpose of metrics is to improve the quality of people management decision-making. However, when you provide only stand-alone, year-end historical metrics, you are not supporting better decision-making because the actual problem might not have occurred at the very end of the year. By supplementing this static year-end metric with an alert or “heads up” warning system, managers can be made aware of the problem when it is actually occurring.

Not providing action guidance — even when your metrics have the desired effect of causing managers to want to take action, they may still hesitate or even take the wrong action. In order to avoid this problem, you need to provide decision-makers with guidance as to the most and least impactful actions that are available to them.

Errors Related to Data Collection and Metric Calculations Failing to use sampling techniques — gathering data on every employee or instance is expensive and time-consuming. It is a major error to not use scientific sampling to get almost as accurate results faster and cheaper by using scientific sampling techniques.

Failing to weigh high-priority items — is quite common for HR to consider every occurrence to be of equal importance. However in many cases, some occurrences simply have more of a business impact than others. For example, when calculating turnover, the

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loss of a top performer or someone in a leadership position has a much greater business impact than the loss of an average employee. As a result, it is a major error not to more heavily weigh the data or opinions from high-impact items (i.e. from top performers, mission-critical positions, revenue-generating positions, regrettable turnover, high-margin business units, etc.).

Outside data is not integrated — almost all HR metrics come from databases owned by HR. Unfortunately, HR metrics would become more powerful if they were supplemented with data and information from other business databases (i.e. performance, productivity, quality control, business plans and forecasts, etc.). In some cases, external data including economic databases (i.e. local growth and population shift statistics) and industry benchmarks could supplement HR metrics with dramatic results.

Final Thoughts HR professionals commonly ask why the single highest variable cost item in most corporations (i.e. employee-related costs) seems to gain so little senior management attention. Even though we know that the language and currency of business is based on dollars, data, and metrics, HR still garners much less than its deserved share of credibility, respect, and resources. My research and experience indicates that HR’s failure to effectively use metrics is largely to blame. I challenge you to use this checklist to assess your current metrics and see if your process doesn’t fail on more than half of them. If you find that your current metrics have failed miserably, you’ll know what is needed to change the situation.

Article reprinted with permission of ERE Media, www.ere.net

Speciale Placement & Campus Recruiting

Placement e Campus Recruiting.

Due facce della stessa medaglia.

Il 5 luglio 2012 si è svolta, nella sede di Roma della Procter & Gamble, la prima edizione del Global Placement & Campus Recruiting Forum.

L’intento è quello di riunire le best practice, italiane e straniere, nel Campus Recruiting (se vediamo la medaglia dal punto di vista delle aziende) e nel Placement (se la stessa medaglia è vista dal lato delle università).

Simona Benini Chief Editor di EBR

Ci dà il benvenuto Patrizia Cangialosi, Human Resources Manager di P&G, che racconta brevemente le strategie aziendali nel Campus Recruiting, sottolineando come l’azienda sia da sempre interessata ad assumere neolaureati, preferibilmente provenienti dalla laurea triennale (n.d.r. ma allora esiste qualche azienda che crede nella laurea di primo ciclo!?!). Patrizia ci spiega come il Campus Recruiting non sia, in P&G, una funzione specifica dell’area HR, bensì una competenza diffusa su tutta l’organizzazione. In questo modo diventa possibile coinvolgere nel vivo delle attività non solo gli specialisti HR, ma anche i manager di linea. Specialisti HR e manager di linea vengono, poi, suddivisi per gruppi di progetto (Campus Team), che fanno riferimento a degli atenei specifici. Seguendo questa strategia si rie-

sce ad avere una maggiore aderenza al territorio e una migliore comprensione delle esigenze locali di reclutamento e placement.

E’ ora la volta di Eugenio Amendola, Managing Director di Anthea Consulting, la società organizzatrice di questo e di altri eventi in tema di Employer Branding e Recruiting (Social Recruiting Forum e Employer Branding Summit).

Eugenio mostra i risultati di una indagine fatta su un campione di 174 aziende italiane, di medio grandi dimensioni.

Il dato che colpisce è come, nonostante la congiuntura sfavorevole, l’investimento verso il Campus Recruiting non sia affatto diminuito (il 28% delle aziende dichiara addirittura di aver aumentato i propri investimenti nel CR).

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Quello che è, invece, più preoccupante, è il numero di laureati che le aziende hanno pianificato di inserire nel 2013 (il 50% delle aziende intervistate pensa di inserire meno di dieci laureati, il 30% tra i 10 e i 50, mentre solo il 12% pensa di inserire oltre i 50 dipendenti).

Tra le università con le quali le aziende hanno maggiori rapporti vi sono, senza sorpresa, la Bocconi e il Politecnico di Milano. La Sapienza di Roma, l’Alma Mater Studiorum di Bologna, l’Università di Torvergata, l’Università Cattolica di Milano e il Politecnico di Torino si posizionano quasi a pari merito, con una percentuale intorno al 20-25% di aziende che dichiarano di avere rapporti con loro per il reclutamento.

L’indagine si sofferma, poi, su un aspetto considerato essenziale nelle

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politiche di reclutamento, ovvero la misurazione dei benefici ottenuti (metrics).

La domanda è, infatti, come le aziende misurino gli effetti del Campus Recruiting? Quello che emerge è come la tendenza stia cambiando e non siano più i dati quantitativi a dominare (numero di assunzioni fatte e numero di candidature ricevute), ma anche i dati qualitativi (qualità delle candidature).

Ma chi sono i testimonial preferiti dalle aziende per le presentazioni on campus? Per la maggior parte gli HR manager e, solo in minima parte, i manager di linea. Durante la giornata questo tema verrà più volte ripreso sottolineando, invece, come sia importante, per creare un effetto di rispecchiamento nell’audience, utilizzare manager di linea, magari attingendo tra quelli che sono ex studenti dell’università ospite.

Sempre parlando di presentazioni, i mezzi più utilizzati sono la proiezione di slides ppt (86%), le testimonianze (61%), i video (47%) e solo nel 5% i games o le simulazioni. Proprio queste ultime, per anticipare un’altra tematica della giornata, vengono invece considerate come un mezzo molto potente per coinvolgere fasce di popolazioni giovani, come quella degli studenti universitari.

Un ulteriore accenno Amendola lo fa all’Employee Referall Program, ovvero all’opportunità di utilizzare i propri dipendenti per promuovere l’EVP dell’azienda. Questa modalità, ci assicura, è in grado di portare a risultati importanti a fronte di un budget ridotto (ROI molto elevato). Un’ultima considerazione è dedicata alle Job Fair: in questo campo la posizione di Amendola è nota da tempo, e condivisa da molti (almeno nelle intenzioni) e riguarda l’opportunità per le aziende di partecipare soltanto qua-

lora si abbiano reali intenzioni di reclutamento. In caso contrario, la partecipazione potrebbe creare un pericoloso effetto boomerang sull’ Employer Brand dell’azienda.

La parola passa a Laura Grasso, responsabile Employer Branding di Vodafone Italia, azienda che assorbe circa cento laureati e sessanta stagisti l’anno.

Vodafone è molto attenta all’opinione dei laureati e basa buona parte delle proprie strategie di Employer Branding e Campus Recruiting sui feedback ricevuti. E’ per questo motivo che, ogni anno, commissiona una ricerca ad hoc su un campione di 400 studenti. Non si tratta, quindi, di una survey di posizionamento, ma di un’analisi approfondita su come l’azienda è vista dal proprio target di riferimento.

Ma chi è il target di riferimento di Vodafone? Sono quei laureati, ci dice Laura, con una spiccata passione per i clienti e per le nuove tecnologie, e dalla mentalità internazionale.

L’azienda, continua la Grasso, non è particolarmente interessata al voto di laurea, bensì alla velocità di raggiungimento del titolo e alle eventuali esperienze all’estero. Uno dei motti dei selezionatori Vodafone è, inoltre, quello di essere alla ricerca di laureati “in grado di raccontare una bella storia”, con buona pace di chi si ostina a pensare che solo le competenze tecniche e professionali siano importanti per la ricerca del lavoro.

Resta il fatto che, ricevendo circa 40.000 cv all’anno, lo screening delle candidature per arrivare ad un colloquio, deve necessariamente essere piuttosto severo.

Rispetto al processo di selezione, è la cura dei particolari a caratterizzarlo, soprattutto per quanto riguarda l’uti-

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lizzo delle ICT in quanto, ovviamente, facenti parte del core business aziendale. I selezionatori utilizzano, ad esempio, supporti mobile (vedi tablet) durante i colloqui e i candidati possono candidarsi non solo sul web ma anche attraverso apposite mobile application.

Tutto il processo è, poi, attentamente monitorato grazie ai feedback richiesti ai candidati sul trattamento ricevuto durante tutta la selezione (che impressioni hanno avuto sull’azienda, come è stata la tempistica, come si sono svolti i colloqui ecc). L’azienda, pur consapevole che un esito negativo del colloquio, potrebbe inficiare le opinione espresse dai laureati, le tiene in grande considerazione e le utilizza per migliorare le proprio performance.

Laura ci porta poi un bell’esempio di Campus Recruiting che riguarda l’esperienza di Vodafone con il Politecnico di Milano. I manager aziendali, assieme ai professori del noto ateneo milanese, hanno creato dei business case da proporre agli studenti. Caratteristica principale di questi business case è che, essendo inseriti nell’offerta didattica dell’Università, rilasciano dei crediti formativi validi per il conseguimento del titolo accademico. Questo “dettaglio” è molto importante in un sistema come il nostro, in cui i crediti formativi sono diventati un’importante “merce di scambio” tra studenti e università.

Per quanto riguarda l’inserimento vero e proprio in azienda, Vodafone offre due programmi specifici per i giovani. Il primo riguarda i ragazzi prima della laurea e prevede stage, tesi di laurea in azienda, skill seminar (su come fare il cv e prepararsi ai colloqui) e in-company project.

Il secondo riguarda i laureati e pre-

vede un percorso di inserimento professionale all’insegna della mobilità e dell’interfunzionalità, così suddiviso: dopo un periodo di formazione iniziale (una settimana), il neoassunto trascorre quattro settimane nei call centre e nei negozi Vodafone per “toccare con mano” il lavoro e avere un contatto diretto con i clienti; viene poi inserito, per i successivi cinque mesi, in una funzione aziendale (o anche in una sede), diverse da quelle finali per conoscere meglio l’azienda; successivamente sarà poi assegnato, per altri cinque mesi, ad un’altra funzione/sede, prima di approdare al proprio “ruolo finale”, dove resterà per un anno e mezzo. A questo punto, alle persone ad alto potenziale e desiderose di fare esperienze all’estero, Vodafone propone un periodo di due anni in una sede straniera (Columbus Program).

Come si evince da tutti questi passaggi il programma prevede numerosi momenti di cambiamento (sia di ruolo, sia di location) e lascia intendere che oltre alle sopracitate caratteristiche (passione per i clienti e la tecnologia), l’azienda cerchi anche laureati flessibili e disposti a mettersi in gioco su tutti i fronti. D’altro canto, offre opportunità molto stimolanti di apprendimento on the job.

Dopo Vodafone tocca a Deloitte & Touche LLP e Deloitte Tax LLP USA presentare le proprie politiche di Employer Branding, forte del fatto che l’azienda americana ha vinto, nel 2011, il premio ERE Recruiting Excellence Award come miglior programma di Campus Recruiting. Presenzia Scott Mc Quillan, National Campus Recruiting Leader, che festeggia proprio oggi i suoi 14 anni in azienda.

Scott inizia presentandoci alcuni impressionanti numeri: Deloitte USA ha 57.000 dipendenti e ogni anno assume

circa 7.000 persone. Il Campus Recruiting è quindi, per Deloitte, molto importante. Basti pensare che circa l’85% delle assunzioni viene da questo canale e che ci sono circa 200 professionisti che, in azienda, si occupano di questo.

Prima che l’azienda cominciasse ad investire in quest’area di business, i contatti con le Università erano molto frammentati e non c’era una precisa suddivisione dei ruoli; nel 2006 si è invece deciso di mettere a punto una strategia di Campus Recruiting condivisa da tutta l’azienda, da quel momento tutti i dipendenti che si occupano di reclutamento utilizzano lo stesso tipo di approccio verso l’esterno.

Scendiamo ora nel programma di reclutamento vero e proprio: la prima caratteristica a colpirmi è che Deloitte comincia a “reclutare talenti” fin dalle scuole superiori, attraverso incontri, formali e informali, con le scolaresche. In questi incontri viene spiegata la figura del consulente e del revisore contabile, attraverso simulazioni e giochi di ruolo.

Questa attività prende il nome di Early Program e coinvolge circa 6.500 ragazzi l’anno e mira a creare curiosità e aspettative, tra i più giovani, rispetto ad una figura professionale che non può vantare la stessa fama e notorietà di figure più classiche (come quella del medico o dell’avvocato per fare due esempi eclatanti).

Un’altra caratteristica, che può aver contribuito a rendere Deloitte il miglior esempio americano di Campus Recruiting, è il circolo virtuoso che l’azienda è stata in grado di sviluppare a partire proprio dal reclutamento.

Lo stretto contatto con il mondo accademico permette, infatti, a Deloitte di conoscere i più recenti sviluppi in mate-

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ria economica e manageriale, attraverso il coinvolgimento dei docenti universitari come trainer nei numerosi corsi di formazione che la società organizza per i propri consulenti. Tale ulteriore scambio ha, inoltre, permesso a Deloitte di incrementare il proprio parco clienti proprio rispetto alle Università, molte delle quali si servono della società come consulente in materia contabile.

In questo modo l’azienda è spronata a considerare il Campus Recruiting non come uno spreco di tempo e di denaro, ma come un’attività ad alto valore aggiunto, che richiama le attenzioni e il supporto dei vertici aziendali.

Continua la mattinata Patrick Tissington della Aston Business School (Aston University – UK).

Patrick presenta un progetto di placement che l’università porta avanti da anni con molta soddisfazione, infatti Aston è famosa nel Regno Unito, per l’occupabilità dei proprio laureati, molto più elevata di quelle di Cambrige e Oxford.

Per raggiungere questo invidiabile primato, nel 1972 la Aston University ha deciso di aggiungere, al classico percorso di studi, un anno interamente dedicato al placement (prolungando l’ottenimento della laurea da tre a quattro anni).

In pratica i primi due anni sono dedicati allo studio, il terzo anno è dedicato al placement e il quarto anno è, nuovamente, dedicato allo studio e alla tesi di laurea.

Ma che cosa avviene durante questo anno extra? I ragazzi compiono delle esperienze di lavoro vere e proprie in aziende disposte ad ospitarli e a formarli. Per fare ciò si passa da un vero e proprio processo di selezione, teso a creare

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la migliore combinazione possibile tra richieste dei candidati ed esigenze delle aziende.

Naturalmente per i ragazzi non è un passaggio semplice, in quanto hanno da poco cominciato l’università e si ritrovano proiettati nel mondo del lavoro.

Da qui nasce l’idea dei mentor, persone con una certa esperienza lavorativa (almeno 4 anni), che li aiutano ad inserirsi e a ricavare il meglio dall’esperienza fatta.

I mentor sono ex studenti dell’Università (50% dei casi), recruiters oppure manager o consulenti che semplicemente amano aiutare le nuove generazioni ad inserirsi nel mercato del lavoro.

Prima di partire con il placement vero e proprio, a mentor e studenti, viene offerto un programma di formazione ad hoc. Agli studenti viene spiegato come avviene il processo di selezione e anche come comportarsi una volta entrati in azienda (vengono forniti piccoli consigli su come vestirsi, cosa dire e non dire, ma anche come scrivere una mail o rispondere ad una telefonata). I mentor vengono invece formati su come supportare al meglio gli studenti a loro assegnati.

In un secondo tempo si fa il matching vero e proprio, cercando di far coincidere gli interessi professionali degli studenti con le aree di esperienza dei mentor. Infine vengono organizzate delle serate di incontro in cui le due parti in gioco si incontrano e si conoscono in un ambiente informale e rilassato. Da questi incontri nasce una sorta di piano di lavoro in cui viene deciso quando e come risentirsi. L’Università chiede ai mentor, che sono volontari e non percepiscono neanche un rimborso spese, di dedicare al programma almeno sei ore, anche se alla fine il tempo dedicato è sempre molto di più.

Essere mentor è anche un modo per entrare in contatto con professionisti operanti nei settori più svariati e sviluppare business. Per l’università è,poi, un modo per stringere i legami con le aziende e far conoscere i propri programmi di ricerca cercando sponsor o partner. Anche nel caso di Aston, come in quello di Deloitte, ciò che colpisce è, quindi, il circolo virtuoso che viene a svilupparsi dietro al programma di placement. La strategia win-win rimane, come ripetuto in molti manuali organizzativi, la migliore, peccato che resti ancora residuale rispetto all’approccio classico di mors tua, vita mea.

La giornata continua con la presentazione di Federico Colombo, responsabile del Career Service del Politecnico di Milano, sicuramente un’eccellenza nel panorama italiano.

Federico, che da sette anni ricopre questo incarico, ha un passato in azienda ed è proprio questa sua caratteristica che lo ha reso il candidato ideale per gestire il Career Service.

Il fatto che Colombo provenga dal settore privato è qualche cosa che si evince non solo dalla sua presentazione ma, in generale, da tutta la sua persona e, in particolare, dal modo in cui parla di studenti e aziende: prodotto da piazzare i primi, clienti da soddisfare le seconde.

Per questo motivo per lui sono molto importanti i numeri di laureati che ogni anno l’università è in grado di “produrre”. Per quanto riguarda il Politecnico parliamo di circa 4.500 laureati l’anno suddivisi su due Facoltà (Ingegneria e Architettura e Design) e 33 corsi di laurea. Se prendiamo in considerazione un singolo corso di laurea, per esempio ingegneria elettrica, dobbiamo pensare che questo “produce” in un anno solo 25

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laureati che, suddivisi su quattro sessioni di laurea l’anno, fanno circa 6 laureati a sessione. Quello che un career service efficiente deve fare, secondo Colombo, è condurre rapidamente l’azienda interessata, verso questi sei potenziali candidati.

La modalità di incontro è, poi, del tutto irrilevante: che si tratti di speed date, conferenze, job fair, colloqui individuali... quello che conta è che il processo di incontro sia veloce.

Il Politecnico vanta, ad oggi, 25/30 annunci di lavoro al giorno ed ha convenzioni con 150 tra le più grandi aziende che operano sul territorio italiano ed internazionale e il tutto è autofinanziato. Il risultato è quindi che, soddisfacendo le esigenze delle aziende, finisco indirettamente per offrire un servizio di eccellenza agli studenti.

Quello che viene da pensare è che cosa succederebbe qualora utilizzassimo lo stesso approccio in un ateneo generalista, l’Università di Bologna o la Sapienza di Roma ad esempio, piuttosto che in un Politecnico che prepara prevalentemente profili molto appetibili per il mercato del lavoro, come sono gli ingegneri. In tal un metodo di lavoro teso a soddisfare primariamente le esigenze delle aziende e, solo in modo indiretto, i bisogno dei laureati (Federico ci dice che al Career Service non è entrato in questi anni neanche un cv) potrebbe non essere sufficiente.

Si dovrebbe pensare, utilizzando il vocabolario di Colombo, a “confezionare meglio il prodotto” offrendo, ad esempio, percorsi di consulenza orientativa, bilanci di competenze, laboratori sulle tecniche attive per la ricerca del lavoro e così via, facendo quindi orientamento.

Resta comunque il fatto che, per

garantire agli studenti un servizio di placement efficace dobbiamo, in primo luogo, offrire alle aziende servizi rapidi ed efficienti, magari in un’ottica “consulenziale”, aiutandole a decidere quali strumenti utilizzare e con quali tempistiche per raggiungere il più velocemente i propri obiettivi.

Conclude la giornata la tavola rotonda moderata da Francesco Longo, chief editor di Your Employer Guide, un emagazine che pubblica profili aziendali e storie di dipendenti che “ce l’hanno fatta”, per trasferire esperienze a chi sta cercando lavoro.

Partecipano Alberto Padula docente di Economia all’Università di Torvergata e alla LUMSA, e autore di un libro sul marketing interno, dal titolo “Marketing Interno” -edito da Hoepli- e Patrizia Cangialosi, HR manager, di P&G. Il primo argomento trattato riguarda il rapporto, in Italia, tra Università e Azienda. Il prof. Padula ammette che la distanza tra i due mondi è notevole e che, realtà purtroppo nota, non sempre i docenti che si occupano di materie economico/aziendali conoscono le aziende. E’, invece, importante fare sì che le aziende entrino a lezione anche attraverso testimonianze e, soprattutto, simulazioni o business case. Si passa poi a parlare dell’interessante connubio tra reclutamento e Piccole Medie Imprese, realtà tipica del nostro tessuto industriale, che però non possiede gli strumenti per fare Campus Recruiting. Diverso è se queste aziende di piccole dimensioni decidono di entrare all’Università attraverso le associazioni di categoria, come ad esempio Confindustria.

Il secondo argomento riguarda la strutturazione delle presentazioni aziendali nelle università. Qui c’è un in-

teressante giro di tavolo tra alcune delle aziende presenti al convegno: P&G ci dice di coinvolgere, durante le presentazioni, gli ex studenti dell’Università ospite, mentre i manager delle HR si occupano solamente di fare una breve introduzione aziendale. L’azienda è, poi, particolarmente attenta a portare testimonianze interessanti per la generation Y, in particolare riguardanti la work life balance: persone in telelavoro o in location free, per far capire quanto sia importante il raggiungimento del risultato e non quanto tempo si passi in ufficio.

Anche Jhonson&Jhonson porta suoi dipendenti, ex studenti dell’Università coinvolta, per creare un maggiore rispecchiamento tra il pubblico e spiegare nei dettagli in che cosa consista il lavoro.

KPMG coinvolge manager, senior manager e partner affinché sia chi, in prima persona, fa consulenza a spiegare questo mestiere difficile, ma anche avvincente.

L’ultimo argomento trattato riguarda la definizione di talento. Emerge anche in questo contesto la necessità di ribadire la relatività del concetto di talento, che non può essere oggettivizzato attraverso criteri standard, come ad esempio l’età anagrafica o il voto di laurea. P&G si conferma d’accordo e afferma di leggere il cv anche in maniera trasversale, per estrapolare non solo il voto di laurea ma anche le esperienze di vita. Pensando ai molti studenti in cerca di lavoro che ho incontrato in questi anni (non tutti con un curriculum immacolato), mi permetto di commentare che questa pratica non sempre è molto diffusa, probabilmente per la notevole mole di lavoro che comporta. Patrizia risponde che i data base per la gestione dei cv, aiutano molto in questo compito permettendo analisi

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non solo di tipo quantitativo, ma anche qualitativo (ricerca di termini specifici e così via) e che comunque uno screening iniziale va sempre fatto.

Si conclude così un’intensa giornata di lavoro con l’invito a rivedersi nell’autunno del prossimo anno per condividere esperienze, ma anche idee e suggestioni.

Speciale Placement & Campus Recruiting

Employer Branding Review

Creating employable graduates by connecting students with employers.

Patrick Tissington Aston University

Nicola Turner Aston University

When Patrick (first author) first applied for a PhD studentship, one of the potential supervisors who interviewed him pointed out that Patrick, as a mature student with experience in business and the military might not be a suitable fit for that particular supervisor. The academic said “I have been in full time education since the age of 5.

I really don’t understand the workplace issue you want to research.

I suggest you find someone else.” Admittedly this was a psychology department and not a business school but the point is relevant to the challenge faced by universities with current emphasis on universities providing graduates with skills they can use at work.

The academic in question is a brilliant researcher and excellent teacher of his own subject (cognitive psychology) but could never be expected to work out what students needed to know in

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their jobs outside of university. Not all academics have this profile, but even in business schools – especially those with a reputation for research - it is still the exception to find lecturers with signifi-

cant work experience outside university.

And with good reason. We expect our academics to be specialists in their own subject that requires focus. In short, this lecturer in common with the vast majority of university academics would never be the sole person to help young people prepare for the world of work.

We write this paper to explore the key issues facing Universities as they are challenged in these difficult economic times for relevance. Whilst a University education should provide far more than merely “work ready” young people, increasingly this is something universities in the UK are being measured on – not least by the students and their families.

We write from a UK perspective but our students come from over 100 countries, which means we are in a global market and the issues we face are similar to those in many other countries. Our core message is that graduates need to have gained experience and skills relevant to the workplace in order to be able to compete for jobs. The context is a jobs market which is as competitive today than at any time in history. And there are more graduates chasing this small (and shrinking) pool of jobs.

We have adopted the following definition of employability:

“A set of achievements – skills, understandings and personal attributes – that makes graduates more likely to gain employment and be successful in their chosen occupations, which benefits themselves, the workforce, the community and the economy.”

(Yorke, 2006)

This seems straightforward; but in fact universities have been struggling to understand what these “skills, understandings and personal attributes” are and since there is no common language to agree what this includes, nor consensus amongst employers, it has not been possible to implement a definitive way of ensuring they are learned at university. The result is that universities have been subject to criticism by employers that graduates required remedial training before they were of value to the organisation. For example, a study commissioned by the charity Young Enterprise polled firms including HSBC, Santander, KPMG and Procter & Gamble, and found widespread concern over the quality of potential recruits. Asked to identify which skills were lacking in their new recruits, one told researchers that there were “too many to list” and added: “Commercial awareness, written and spoken English to a high enough level, technical skills, interpersonal skills, you name it”. This lack of confidence in basic literacy and numeracy skills among graduate recruits was also reported by one in four employers in an unrelated report, published by recruitment company Adecco, however this set of employers believed newcomers to the world of work are most lacking in interpersonal and computer skills.

It seems that arriving at a consensus amongst employers on key employability skills may be difficult - and this is even before variations in company sizes and locations are considered. Research conducted in the UK in 2011 suggests that smaller companies based outside the capital appear to prioritise different employability attributes to the large, London based recruiters. The research indicates that only 1.5% of 450 small, regional companies believed a degree

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result to be the most important thing when recruiting a graduate, whereas 74% looked for “positive attitude and employability skills” (Graduate Network, 2011). This is in direct contrast to the large companies surveyed last year who almost exclusively seek a good degree grade (in the UK an “upper second”) above all other measures in their new recruits (High Fliers, 2012).

We believe that work on defining the skill set required by employers might never come to a clearly defined group of skills, because every profession is different and even within professions, businesses are looking for different skills.

Our approach has been pragmatic and is based on ensuring our business degree courses are designed closely with professional bodies such accounting, HR, marketing. We also ensure that where we can, industry has input on course design - for example senior executives from IBM acted as external validation to the design of an update to the curriculum of the Business and IT degree. Outside of this, we have long recognised the vital role played by the one year work experience which is structured and core to the degree and takes place in the third year of all business degrees at Aston. So much so that we have the ambition to have structured industrial work experience incorporated into all degrees by 2020. This is a challenging target – especially to degrees outside of business. One way we aim to achieve this is through the rolling out of a recent innovation – the Professional Mentoring Scheme. This is where second year students are paired (1 to 1) with business people. Students learn from experienced business managers key skills such as networking, how to present their experience and what the

Employer Branding Review

world of work is like. It is usually the first time students have any contact with business and helps students understand what work is like – and therefore how to go about gaining the a place on the highly competitive industrial placements. Mentors show the students their own workplace, meet colleagues and network. Students who were mentored have found it easier to gain their placements and are better prepared for the transition from university to work.

As the students move through their academic journey at Aston it is widely acknowledged that they should undertake a parallel journey developing their employability skills; the Careers Service works in partnership with the business school to maximise the opportunities and support available. This ranges from the Professional Mentoring Scheme early in the second year, through to an extensive placement preparation programme later in year two. The industrial placement itself requires extensive preparation in terms of knowledge of workplace norms of behaviour and understanding the expectations of their placement managers. The provision consolidates in the final year with oneto-one careers guidance sessions, employer networking and skills workshops that aim to make sense of the work experience with an emphasis on translating the learning into benefits and language that future employers will value.

It isn’t possible to determine which of these produce the most important uplift in our graduates’ ability to be productive sooner, but we do know that Aston graduates are some of the most employable in Europe with 88.7% employed in Graduate jobs within a year of graduation. Our indicators suggest strongly those who believe the degree

certificate alone is an entrée to a great job are usually disappointed. Students who engage with the very large range of support on offer will get better jobs, quicker and employers will be happier with them. These are surely the ultimate measures of success.

References Daily Telegraph (2011) British graduates not fit to start work. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ education/educationnews/8819425/Britishgraduates-not-fit-to-start-work-say-majorityof-bosses.html Graduate Network (2011) National Employer Survey, April 2011. Unpublished report conducted by Graduate Advantage on behalf of the Graduate Network.

High Fliers (2012) The graduate market in 2012.

Retrieved on 25 July 2012 from http://www. highfliers.co.uk/download/GMReport12.pdf Yorke, M. (2006). Employability in higher education: what it is – what it is not. York: The Higher Education Academy. Retrieved 26 July 2012 from www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/York/ documents/ourwork/tla/employability/id116_ employability_in_higher_education_336.pdf Yorke, M. (2010) Employability: aligning the message, the medium and academic values.

Journal of Teaching and Learning for Graduate Employability. 1 (1), pp2-12.

About the authors: Patrick Tissington is Associate Dean at Aston Business School and lectures undergraduate and postgraduate courses in organisational behaviour and leadership. He also works as an Executive Coach and delivers a variety of development courses for managers.

Nicola Turner is Director of Employability at Aston University and is responsible for developing and managing activities that enhance Aston’s strong reputation for graduate employability. This includes leading the Careers Service, Industrial Placements Team and Graduate Advantage Internships.

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CONDIVIDI IL CAMBIAMENTO

PUNTO SUL LAVORO MILANO 27 NOVEMBRE, 2012

PALAZZO MEZZANOTTE, PIAZZA AFFARI

Il Forum delle Risorse Umane è l’appuntamento italiano annuale dell’HR management. Un’occasione unica per incontrare, conoscere e confrontarsi con i vertici delle principali aziende, associazioni di categoria, business school, istituzioni, sindacati. Un punto di incontro preferenziale per condividere la visione del people management e per scoprire come le organizzazioni valorizzano le persone. www.forumHR.it

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