The Importance of
the Employer Brand
in On-boarding
Amy Pike
With colleagues from the TMP Worldwide network
People in Business - the employer brand consultancy
Book
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INTRODUCTION
With recent downturns in the economy, many organizations have taken the time to focus on Employer Brand
development, the core of which is an effective Employee Value Proposition (EVP) – [Fig 1]. At People in Business, we develop compelling value propositions so as to help employers better position themselves to attract the best candidates. For candidate attraction, executing employer brand communication is a useful and effective way to attract talent to a company.
(Fig. 1)
As the economy and labor market turns around, research suggests that as much as 40% of employees will plan to leave their jobs. Hence the added importance for employers to also consider how to effectively deliver on their employer brand promise “internally”; to create positive employee experiences as part of their overall brand.
Today, many employer branding initiatives are predominantly focused on candidate attraction. Organizations are spending a lot of time and money on trying to attract and recruit the right people. While this is important to a company’s success, it really represents the smaller portion of overall effective employer brand management. [Fig 2] There is greater power in building and nurturing the employer brand internally, so it is critical that companies also invest here. When the candidates (new employees) first walk through the doors, what they experience should closely reflect the employer brand promises made to them during the recruitment process.
People in Business - the employer brand consultancy
EXTERNAL MESSAGE
INTERNAL CULTURE
(Fig.2)
TMP Worldwide believes that there is an imperative for organizations to get their on-boarding right: to connect the dots and create a compelling story; to leverage employee touch points, to successfully engage employees and to deliver the internal culture promised during recruitment. When employees personally identify with your EVP, they will be more inclined to deliver on your brand promise.
There is a broad range of employee touch points to focus on [Fig 3], from recruitment to performance and development to reward and recognition. An organization must actively manage all of them in order to effectively reinforce the desired value proposition and employer brand experience. For purposes of this paper, we focus on the first 3 months of the employee experience. This involves on-boarding, the working environment, communication and measurement.
(Fig.3)
ON-BOARDING
If seeking a new job is one of an individual’s most emotional experiences, say Libby Sartain and Mark Schumann in “Brand from the Inside”, the actual moment an employee joins your business is the time he or she is the most open to making an emotional connection. Therefore the ultimate opportunity to imprint the employer brand on a new employee is when he or she joins the organization. The employee has been wooed during the recruitment process, with promises of what to expect. So it’s imperative that there be a link between what is fed to candidates to attract them and what they experience when they arrive.
On-boarding starts when a candidate receives a job offer and walks into the office for the first time. It extends until that employee can perform well and is considered a fully functioning team member. Historically, this period would last three months, but today some companies—like Proctor & Gamble--have on-boarding programs that last for a year. During that time, there is a lot that can be done to ensure that the promise made to the candidate is being delivered to the new employee.
Day one is critical as the new hire is quickly assessing--“is this everything I expected and was promised?” Being as organized with on-boarding as you are with recruiting helps deliver on the employer brand promise, and sustains the momentum from the recruitment process. A good on-boarding process can help new people settle into the business and reach their potential quicker.
People in Business - the employer brand consultancy Let’s review the following best practice examples:
The MD Anderson Cancer Center is an example of a company that successfully reflects the promises made during the recruiting process during on-boarding. They use their company values as the link between external and internal employer branding.
MD Anderson is in the process of completely turning around their normal approach to orientation, beginning with the presentation that they used to offer in an auditorium for all new joiners. It was long and boring and frequently put
employees to sleep. Mickey Donnelly, Head of Employee Development at MD Anderson, changed the content, eliminating the boring elements and making the presentation truly reflective of the organization. Donnelly took MD Anderson’s three values: Caring, Integrity and Discovery and used it as the framework of the two hour presentation. In fact, the whole thirty-day orientation is now split into three modules: Caring, Integrity and Discovery.
MD Anderson also offers new employees the opportunity to take part in a customer service program that has the three company values at its heart. They created an animated patient who goes through the different stages of cancer care. At each point, the employee learns how to use the values to improve customer service.
(Source: Taken from the storyboard of the Customer Service Program at MD Anderson, allows you to see how behaviors in customer service flow from values)
MD Anderson engages their employees from the beginning of the on-boarding process, successfully setting expectations before that employee sits down at his or her new desk. The employer values at the heart of the organization are brought into every on-boarding experience and the recent decrease in first-year turnover proves that it has been a worthwhile effort.
Before they come to work at the company, Virgin Mobile sends candidates a recruitment pack, consisting of a DVD about the company, a tea bag and a chocolate bar to say "We want you to get to know us. Why not do it over a cup of tea? Ask your family and friends if we're right for you, too". This is not only distinctive from other companies but it also reflects the Virgin brand values of making work fun and innovative.
Lego delivers a brand signature at on-boarding in the form of personalized, mini-figure business cards for new Director level employees. They look like the new employee and are customized with each person’s contact details printed on the shirt. This signature is an effective way to make a big impression on a new employee and it helps to reinforce Lego’s desired brand value of “playful innovation”.
These examples all demonstrate how an employer brand can be effectively reinforced as part of the on-boarding process. If aspects of what you do for new employees in the first few months of work reflect what they were told about the company when you were recruiting them, the link between your internal and external employer brand is reinforced in a way that will make each individual employee remember why they chose to work there and realize why they want to stay.
THE WORKING ENVIRONMENT
During on-boarding, it is a quick win with new employees to make sure that they have a pleasant work environment: the heating or air conditioning is working, there is a space in the car park for their car, they have a desk with a computer that works. If done right, these factors might not warrant discussion. If these essential elements of the working environment are missing, it would surely be something an employee would talk and complain about and not forget quickly. Easy to get right, damaging if gotten wrong.
People in Business - the employer brand consultancy
but also reassure them that they made the right decision to work there. For example, if part of an employee value proposition is that to work at the company “Feels Like Family” but all the desks face away from each other, it doesn’t reflect what was promised when the company used that attribute to attract and recruit the new candidate. But if the new employee arrives at his or her desk for the first time and finds a gift-wrapped photo frame, it would reinforce the “Feels
Like Family” attribute by allowing the employee to personalize their work area with a photo of friends or family.
It would be distinctive from the experience they might have at another company.
COMMUNICATION
Within on-boarding, an important goal is to get your new employee on-boarded quickly and make him or her a great ambassador of your company. Effective communication of an organization’s EVP is the key.
It is imperative that all efforts align employee knowledge of the brand and that they are delivered in a manner that immerses the new employee into every element of the company, from the basic and tactical to the strategic and cultural. Some things to keep in mind when developing your communication and overall plan for on-boarding:
• Make sure your new employees have great first days and enjoy being in the company. They should feel that
they are part of your company from the moment they arrive on the first day. This must extend beyond how they are treated by HR to the practical elements of their daily work life.
• Share the company vision and values with new employees and be sure that it aligns with how the company
presented itself during the recruitment process.
• Make sure your employees can articulate the vision, values, brand, services and products to those outside
your company. They can be your greatest ambassadors, so give them the tools to share the right information.
• Don’t overwhelm new hires by cramming all of their on-boarding into the first few days or weeks on the job.
Consider spreading it out and providing on-the-job experiences that can build better context.
• Use the right tools. Print materials are still common today, including Welcome Guides/Packs and orientation
manuals, but increasingly organizations are effectively leveraging the Web. The more interactive of the two mediums, use the Web to more effectively focus on employee experiences:
- Intranet (personalized message, company organization, assessment, trainings, rules, values)
- Welcome email
- Web 2.0 – collaborative tools
- Communities and forums (wikiblogs)
- Social networks (getting to know the company via Facebook or other networks, learn about other
employees)
- Online newsletters (the company, the history of the company, products, vision, mission and values)
• Host events. It’s a good way to introduce your organization and have employees get to know the people and
Keeping good relationships and rewarding hard work is key at Deloitte. All employees who have started on the graduate scheme get to go to a Welcome Ball after their first 6 weeks in the company. The Welcome Balls offer everything from live bands and circus acts to an open bar. Deloitte works hard to keep their employees in touch with one another. The first Friday of each month they hire a bar and offer free drinks for all the Graduates within a programme. This gives employees a chance to keep in touch with peers with whom they may not work closely with on everyday projects. It also taps into the chosen culture of postgraduates who have just got their first job in a big city but who may have exhausted their funds whilst at University. A night to have fun and meet new people without spending too much money would be welcome.
• Provide coaching and mentorship. It’s easy for new hires to get frustrated and overwhelmed. Don’t lose them.
Ensure you are giving them an appropriate and safe outlet to vent, ask questions and be coached.
• Repetition and frequent communication
On-boarding at Hiscox is built around three big themes: information, networking and the Hiscox values. To most effectively demonstrate these themes, the Hiscox on-boarding process incorporates the following:
1. Hiscox believes that it is key to start on-boarding before an employee walks in the office. They have set up a website (www.extraordinarywelcome.co.uk) which they direct new employees to in their offer letters. This encourages new hires to bring themselves up to speed with the company before they join, and it educates them and keeps them interested when they may be tempted away by another company. It is also available to them when they start their new role, as a constant point of information.
(Source: Taken from the Hiscox onboarding website (www.extraordinarywelcome.co.uk), allows you to see how the values will help you to do well at Hiscox)
2. Every two to three months, Hiscox hosts a one-day, corporate Induction. Attended by either Robert Hiscox, the company’s Chairman or Bronek Masojada, the CEO. It is for all new employees. New hires get to meet Robert or Bronek and hear them speak about the Hiscox mission and values. This networking event is informal and
People in Business - the employer brand consultancy
3. Hiscox also hosts a “New Joiners” lunch. Approximately six months into their new job, each new employee is invited to a lunch and they are asked to bring a potential business idea. The lunches are attended by twelve new employees and six senior executives. The lunches show new employees that they are valued and recognized within the company and that senior leaders are investing time in them.
MEASUREMENT
Measurement is the only way to determine if you are delivering against brand expectations. Regular solicitations of employee input will enable you to see the opinions of both your biggest critics and your best advocates.
Surveys are very useful tools; use them not only to find out what you want to know but also to show your employees that you are listening to them. When measuring the employee experience for those who have joined recently, a New Joiners survey can help you to gain quantitative analysis of whether the experience has lived up to expectations. An example:
RBS does a New Joiners Survey for all employees six to eight weeks after they join the Group. The New Joiners survey seeks to understand why people join RBS, together with their initial experiences of joining. The New Joiners survey provides increased
understanding of employee engagement with the RBS brand and proposition. It gives insights into individual experiences and reasons why employees chose to join the Group. Not all New Joiners Surveys will be the same; this particular survey covers five core areas:
1. Before you joined: How the new employee heard about the role and his or her experience up to receiving a job
offer.
2. Your decision to join: Identifies the main reasons why the new recruit accepted the job offer.
3. Before you started: Relates to the information that the new recruit received prior to joining.
4. When you joined: Explores the information, training and tools the new recruit was provided to fulfill their new role
and how the role compares to what was described to them before they joined.
5. Your overall experience of joining: Defines the new recruit’s overall experience to date and how the company
is delivering against the reasons the new employee gave for joining the company.
Surveying is a good way to get essential information that organizations should have, to ensure that the employee promise is reflected in the Onboarding process.
CONCLUSION
Your employer brand proposition may be compelling and distinctive, but it is only as strong as the employee’s experience
of your brand promise. If you do not deliver what was communicated during the attraction process, a new hire may feel deceived or disengaged and think “this company is not who they say they are.” The moment of truth for employers and their new employees comes at on-boarding.
The key to an effective employer brand is credibility, continuity and legitimacy. Anything an organization communicates about itself needs to be consistent with the actual day-to-day work experience of its employees. By effectively addressing employer branding initiatives during the on-boarding process, organizations will experience higher levels of employee engagement and retention.
Effective on-boarding programs help to reinforce an employer brand by linking the pre-employment brand promise with what a new employee actually experiences on the job. Employees will quickly remember why they chose to work at a company and realize why they want to stay. But no employee will be blinded for long. If, after the on-boarding period, a truth different from the brand promise reveals itself, on-boarding efforts will have been in vain.
ABOUT PEOPLE IN BUSINESS
People in Business, creators of the employer brand concept, build distinctive employer brands that inspire exceptional performance. We help leadership teams create the shared sense of purpose and ambition that inspires people to perform at their very best. We help HR and marketing teams develop the kind of employer brand reputation and experience that will attract and retain the necessary talent, and ensure customer brand promises are widely understood and consistently delivered.
SOURCES
Employer Brand, Bringing the best of brand management to people at work by Richard Mosley and Simon Barrow The Virgin People Carrier
Brand from the Inside by Libby Sartain and Mark Schumann Onboarding by George Bradt
With thanks to the co-authors:
Vanessa Milewski – TMP Neo / Paris, France
Gabor Csorba – Ashcroft / Budapest, Hungary
Tracy Kapteyn – TMP Worldwide / Calgary, AB Canada
And:
Troels Wendelbo at Lego
Mickey Donnelly at MD Anderson Cancer Care Toby Hough at Deloitte
Phil Steele at Hiscox
Grieg Aitken at Royal Bank of Scotland Sam Unger at Virgin Management Ltd
Richard Mosley, Sophy Pern, Jenny Davenport and Simon Barrow at People in Business (London) Steven Z. Ehrlich at TMP Worldwide (New York)
