How to make a workplace people WANT to work at?

Vancouver Start Up Week, September 2019

As giant tech companies move into Vancouver, local companies face an increasingly competitive market for talent. Merging ideas from marketing and employee engagement, Jalapeño will discuss how to make top talent want to work at your company. Everyone is familiar with the idea of a marketplace brand but not so much the idea of the workplace brand. Today the burden of business is not competition or profit, but the scarcity of resources, human resources. Everyone is invited to share their diverse experience in this interactive discussion on employer branding.

What attracts and keeps top talent?

Heuristics & You:

1. Representativeness: A father and son are in a horrible car crash that kills the dad. The son is rushed to the hospital; just as he’s about to go under the knife, the surgeon says, “I can’t operate — that boy is my son!”’ the confusion is that the idea of the surgeon in our heads is initially the stereotypical version of a surgeon (for many, a man) and the final words defy that typical case of the surgeon. The surgeon ends up not fulfilling the mental category of the surgeon despite it being perfectly reasonable. The surgeon is the mother. The representativeness heuristic is useful to shortcut our way through the world and occasionally it falls short like it did here.
2. Anchoring/Adjusting: Why negotiate by setting a high price when you’re trying to sell? Or why do you get lowballed on craigslist? People tend to judge the frequency or likelihood of an event by using a starting point called an anchor and then making adjustments up or down.
3. Availability: People tend to judge the magnitude of a thing or the likelihood of an event by the ease with which it comes from memory or that you can imagine it.

How do people see your brand? How does it feel to work for your company?

WHAT DOES AN EMPLOYER BRAND MEAN TO YOU?

“The perception of a company’s functional, economic and psychological benefits and the actual employee experience”

The first half of the definition is important because people outside your company can only perceive, not experience an employer. We choose to highlight this key difference between the recruitment and retention aspects of the Employer Brand.

What is the state of Marketing?

1. Empowered customers: Consumers have greater access to information about companies/products and expect it fast. Key principle here is Transparency. It matters on the internet landscape where inauthentic marketing either gets ignored or worse, quickly called out and spread through social media. You either participate openly in the conversations surrounding your business or the internet will do it despite you.
2. The marketing landscape is oversaturated. You need to stand out. How? Add real value and engage. For example, Jalapeño incorporated comments left on designated social media posts into our regular articles and shoutout to the commenter in the article.
3. Churn is costly. It’s a term from the SaaS world. The churn rate is the % of unsubscribes in a month. In many industries, it’s more expensive to acquire new clients than it is to keep current customers coming back. This reflects a shift in thinking of the traditional marketing funnel as a marketing cycle.

“There’s increased focus on nurturing current customers and fostering brand loyalty.”

Parallels between marketing and employer brand

How do these ideas map onto retention and attracting talent?

1. Empowered Employees: Potential employees will demand increased access to information about a company and position (a job description might not be enough). You will need a presence on Glassdoor which has a salary tool and reviews. Claim or make your company profile and engage in it.
2. Oversaturated job opportunities: In our hot market for talent, companies are putting more into their efforts to attract talent; add value and engage e.g. Hootsuite’s academy and certifications for digital marketing.
3. Churn is costly: In most industries, if not all, it’s much more expensive to recruit new talent than to keep them: The rate for replacing a mid-level management employee is about 150 percent of their annual salary. Entry-level employee replacement costs are anywhere from 30 percent to 50 percent and specialized employees can cost 400 percent of their salary to replace.

Benefits of having a strong employer brand

• More efficient recruiting
• Better retention
• Compete with the big guys (big salaries)
• Helps as a decision-making tool for employees
• Stronger product brand
• Higher cultural alignment

What is the common factor in all these benefits?

Keep Guessing!!

Values

• Values state what is important to you and as an individual. Values reflect who the person is, and therefore, reflect what individuals and organizations do.
• Values are the guiding star to achieve the vision of an organization
• Values are integrated into every employee-related process such as the hiring process, performance reviews, criteria for rewards and promotions and even dismissal policies

“Values are a picture of what things should, or will, look like. And as such, they are the essence of a company’s culture”

Why is it important to distinguish these values?

Core values — deeply ingrained principles that guide the organizational actions; they serve as cultural cornerstones — they are inherent and sacrosanct. They can never be compromised even for short-term gain. Often they are associated with the company’s founders

Aspirational values — values a company needs to succeed in the future, but currently does not have. Might be due to a change in the market. Must be careful not to overshadow core values with these.

Permission-to-play values — reflect a code of conduct and social behaviour for all employees. Many companies have similar of these values so they won’t help your organization stand out. I.e. transparency is common for many employers as to how people represent themselves, either as candidates or current employees — but you will find this very common in organizations.

Accidental Values — arise spontaneously without a prompt from leadership. They may arise because of a certain situation. They can help with inclusivity but hinder future opportunities. I.e. in a given situation you may find that all employees dress and act very similarly (they are all hip) so you might find that being trendy and eclectic is part of your value — however, this means that you might not hire certain people that don’t have that image but still might be a good organizational fit.

Why is it important to distinguish these values?

Your core values are going to be the essence of your culture — all of the processes, structures, initiatives, etc. are going to be tied to your core values — which normally date back from the organization’s founder and to the overall vision.

The core values are going to be the ones that help you stand out in the market for talent

E.g. Let’s say that a company values extremely hard work and dedication and this is manifested by employees working longer hours. Given the fad for work-life balance, the company decides to introduce that as one of their values. The problem when you use this as a core value (it’s really just an aspirational one) is that once you introduce it, but the processes stay the same, people are now confused because they don’t know whether the organization actually values balance or hard work.

What happens when you don’t live your values?

In businesses there are two maps:

1. Maps of what things really are (reality)
2. Maps of how things should be (values)

What happens when there is a mismatch between reality and values?

COGNITIVE DISSONANCE

• Leon Festinger — Cognitive dissonance is the discomfort we feel when our beliefs or attitudes go opposite of our behaviour or information presented in front of us. We always seek to level out our attitudes and behaviours so that they are aligned.

There are 3 ways a person can relieve the dissonance

1. Focus on more supportive beliefs that outweigh the dissonant behaviour — e.g. if I smoke knowing the harm of smoking, then I could go out and look for information that may align with my behaviour, such as a study that showed that the health risk involved in smoking is not as bad as it is portrayed
2. Reduce the importance of the conflicting beliefs — find out other behaviours that outweigh the conflicting one — e.g. I learned that my diet is terrible and it will certainly lead to weight gain. I have trouble finding the time to cook healthy meals because I am always on the road. Then, to reduce the conflict, I would justify my behaviour by highlighting other things I do, such as exercise and sports.
3. Change the conflicting behaviour, belief, or attitude to make the relationship between the two more congruent

Cognitive dissonance speaks more of an individual’s situation, and it doesn’t account to beliefs that were imposed by a third party — but this still can apply to the workforce

— e.g. let’s say that i’m torn between two job offers, one of which offers high pay and offers a high-paced, competitive workplace, while the other is a lower paid position which values autonomy and collaboration with your team, they also highly value the family, to which they offer remote days and the option to work from another country if you wanted to go visit family. Because I highly value family and work life balance, I choose the latter. Therefore, being in that position reflects my personal beliefs and attitudes, given that the values they espouse align with my own.

How do values play a part in employer brand?

1. The core values not only determine how consumers see you as a brand but also how potential and current employees see you as an employer.
2. In fact, your product brand and employer brand should be very distinct, where each of them elicits a different reaction.
3. Only 41% of employees feel they know what their company stands for — your employer brand and values must be aligned since you have to consistently present the organization internally and externally — easier to build credibility and allows to connect employee’s day-to-day with the company’s values.
4. They make your employer brand stand out of the competition — THEY HAVE TO BE AUTHENTIC

When you think of transforming your company, what does that look like to you?

Transform your company by putting your employees first

Transforming a company can be done in two very different ways:

1. You can transform your company by putting your efforts and resources in the innovation of your technology and product, and this is what almost all organizations do. When you think about this type of transformation, companies like Apple, Facebook and Tesla come to mind.
2. Another way to transform your company is by innovating the way you think about your employees. This is the more human approach to organizations, and though this approach might seem like common sense, this is rarely the case.

Innovating the way you think about your employees means putting them first. How often do we hear things like “put your customers first” and “go above and beyond for your customers, and they will come back.’’? Why is it that organizations and managers are so obsessed with putting our customers first? We probably think that if we treat them well and deliver whatever their need is we will retain customers and increase or at least retain profitability. We teach our employees to do this, but are we role models of this behaviour towards our employees?

“More often than not, our employees are the ones interacting with our customers or our product.”

The value of your company is created when your customers (or product) and employees meet, and this is known as the value zone

The value of your company is created when your customers (or product) and employees meet, and this is known as the value zone. It is in this interaction that employees create a unique experience with your customers (or product).

So think about it, employees are creating this unique value and experience. They are the reason your customers are satisfied, meaning that employees are creating an experience that helps organizations grow faster. We want to have an employee-centric mindset!

You can’t expect your employees to deliver to customers what they don’t experience themselves.

What happens when you put employees first?

• Well-treated employees deliver the best customer service, and this is supported by research! A group of Harvard researchers found that customer loyalty and employee treatment directly correlate with each other.
• Increased retention: Finding and keeping valuable employees is not easy no matter what the employment rate is!
• Happy employees lead to happy customers and a strong brand. Think about it; employees interact with customers directly and could say anything about the company’s culture, products and services. What employees say about your business is very important. Happy employees will always have something good to say, leading to happy customers and a strong brand. The opposite is true with unhappy employees.
• They will take initiative in solving problems. Every business experiences issues in its daily operations and when this happens, employers will need employees to help fix the problems. When you have a happy workforce, your employees will always take the initiative to solve problems (outside the scope — going above and beyond) before they get worse.
• Employees will have a high sense of ownership. We are hardwired to belong and when we feel like we own our role and belong to a company, we will go above and beyond to protect and grow the company.

How can we put our employees first?

How can we put our employees first?

• A recent study revealed that 87 percent of employers state that improving employee retention rates within the company is one of their top priorities.
• Developing a dynamic employer brand that really resonates with your top employees. Your employer branding allows you to speak directly to your best employees. It allows you to portray a sense of who you are as an employer, what makes you the best company to work for, what it’s like to work for your company and how you value your employees.

How to Build your brand

1. BUY-IN from BoD, partners, shareholders and management and for sure HR. DON’T move to next step if you have not completed this step successfully
2. Define your target talent:

• What are their characteristics?
• What makes them your “best”?
• What are their life goals and career aspirations?
• How do they look for jobs?
• What motivates them?
• What are their primary skills and attributes?
• Who/what influences their decisions?
• If you had to choose only some people of your employees to cloned forming your whole team, what would they look like?

3. Have an online presence with regards to Employer Brand: Take an innovative approach to share what it feels like to work at your company online. You have to be transparent about all the ups and downs of the potential role and it has be authentic.

Transparency in employer branding is crucial, especially because popular sites like Glassdoor provide a public forum for job candidates, employees, and alumni to speak candidly about their experiences with employers.

4) Identify your EVP: Employee Value Proposition

Gather answers to these questions: 1) How do your employees perceive your company’s mission? 2) What do they have to say about how their day-to-day work is influenced by your company’s values and vice versa? 3)What do you offer your employees that sets you apart as an employer?

Consider doing one or more of the following in order to learn what people inside and outside your organization think about it:

• Survey your employees regularly
• Conduct one-on-one research interviews with current and exiting employees
• Solicit anonymous onboarding and offboarding feedback

You don’t have to be competitive economically, you can be competitive psychologically and physically

5. Track Your Progress through different metrics such as turnover rate, absenteeism rate, number of resumes and referrals and etc.

Presenters

Luc Briede-Cooper is the Marketing and Business Development Specialist at Jalapeño. After his BSc. in Physics from the University of British Columbia, he joined Jalapeño. He’s since grown Jalapeño’s digital and event marketing efforts through his eye for detail, creativity and strategic planning. He conclusively explored market opportunities for the growing company. Luc is now a freelance copywriter and DJ tutor/coach.

Hernan Ochoa is a researcher and consultant at Jalapeno Employee Engagement where he helps companies, especially small to mid-sized, reach their full potential by maximizing employee engagement. Using research-based action, he works hard to align employees’ core motivators to the company’s vision and values to ensure that individuals are engaged, and thus, working to their fullest potential. Hernan is currently completing his master’s in Industrial-Organizational Psychology, where his thesis is focused on the gap between emerging technologies and artificial intelligence, and companies’ preparedness to take on these technologies. He would ultimately like to see what cultural factors in organizations can be leveraged in order to introduce new technology with the least amount of resistance. When he’s not doing consulting work, Hernan enjoys playing the guitar and going up to Whistler in the winter to hit up the slopes.

Gabriela Freitas is an Employee Engagement Consultant and Researcher at Jalapeno Employee Engagement, where she helps organizations reach their full potential, working closely with employees to maximize employee engagement. Passionate about people and organizational development, Gabriela works closely with employees, providing individual coaching and training in order to create an environment where they can thrive in. She has also been heavily involved in full-cycle recruitment and branding and has used her experience to help organizations strengthen their employer brand, recruitment processes, and change management processes. Gabriela holds a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from the University of British Columbia and is currently pursuing her Master’s in Organizational Psychology at Adler University, where she is focusing her research on the impact of supervisory empathy on employee engagement. Outside of work, Gabriela enjoys playing volleyball and tries to explore new places and cultures every chance she gets.