Forget Engagement and Strive for FUNCTIONALL

The last Employee Engagement conference I attended had speakers from both Human Resources and Communications at Fortune 500 companies presenting case studies of their latest Internal Branding efforts. Based on their similarities, I deduced that the trend in Employee Communications is "I Am [insert company name]"

They must have all read the same 3-step engagement doctrine which lists the path to engagement as movement from UNDERSTANDING ("I understand how to impact the brand and the company") to DELIVERY ("I am the brand") and thought that it was as simple as fill-in-the-blank.

But, since it is the last day of February and trendwatching.com's February Brief was about FUNCTIONALL, let's brainstorm together on how we can implement cheap and/or simple ideas that keep employees committed to their employer and enhance the culture and brand.

1. Move From Message Controller to Brand Curator.

The first step is to realize that whoever you are in the organization, your role must shift from message controller to message curator. You will now facilitate the conversations, not invent them.

If you're scared already, then either you know that the talk won't be pretty or you don't know what their saying, in which case, back up a step.

-1. Conduct Focus Groups.

Even if times are bad and layoffs were deep and employees are scared, mad or sad, talk to them. They are still on your payroll and expected to contribute to the success of the organization. Ask them how they are doing that, and how derive satisfaction from doing that? Then help them tell the stories.

2. Give them some toys.

For less than $300 each, you can buy digital camcorders that tap into everyone's creativity and responsibility into bringing the brand to life. Help them through editing and enhancing but keep it real. That's what NY Utility Con Edison did - and the results are authentic movies that appear on the CE Eye channel- a popular internal video news channel. Check out this one called "Finding the Ring."

3. Tune into WII FM (What's In It For Me.)

Ok- this is only for the brave. Help your employees build and promote their personal brand. Give them professional assistance in updating their resumes, LinkedIn profiles, and articulating the value that they bring to their current role. This is a radical way to become part of the dialogue thats happening without you. I contend that this will come back to you both in brand equity and the ability to utilize and deploy the right talent at the right time for every new challenge that arises.

At BRANDEMiX, we believe that companies are made up of moving parts called employees, and the easier it is for all of us to function as one, the more successful we all we be.

Let me know how it goes with your efforts in FUNCTIONALL. I want to hear your stories.

What's Your Budget for Failure?

The year was 1994 and something called a job board was being
launched- specifically CareerMosaic, named after the web browser credited for
popularizing an old thing called the Internet.

In a meeting with top executives, Bernard Hodes, a brilliant marketeer and the CEO of the agency that bore his name, shared his rationale for creating the pricing structure for his new category of recruitment advertising.

"We’ll price the postings as a $100 add-on with any newspaper ad” he said. (At the time a 1” by 3” classified ad in the NY Times on Sunday was probably about $1,500.) He continued, “Who doesn't have an extra $100 to experiment on a new media?”

Unknowingly, he was establishing a precedent for what is today a $6+ billion business. (Factoid- CareerMosaic was eventually sold to headhunter.net which was eventually bought by CareerBuilder, as of today one of the 2 giant oaks still standing.)

However, equally important was his underlying reminder that everyone has a budget for failure- aka experimentation ... a lottery ticket fund that smart people can sometimes leverage into big payouts.

I call this a budget for failure because that way if the outlay fails to generate a positive return on its investment, at least you can take solace from having known it in advance.

For me, it is the amount of money I set aside for a potential bad hire- someone who doesn’t meet my exact requirements but has a kernel of an idea that might take me new places.

It's important because the BRANDEMiX brand is a culture of ideas and execution.

Also included in my failure budget is an amount I can spend on something I’ve already tried that didn't work out. That’s also important to our brand since one of our brand pillars is “solutions that leverage technology.” In the fast changing digital world, though experience is a great teacher, it is not necessarily a great predictor of future outcomes.

Lastly, my budget for failure includes spending time and effort (time is a dollarized investment, effort is not), on new business pitches that are outside of our core capabilities. At BRANDEMiX, we are a culture of continuous learning and we often learn from succeeding at new challenges.

In case you haven’t yet drawn the connection, my budget for failure is also part of my plan for success. Without funding for my failures, I am unable to succeed at delivering my brand.

Who’s Steering Your Corporate Ship?

A leader is a tone-setter, responsible for bringing people together and setting a model of attitude and behavior. It’s the reason social movements form around charismatic luminaries, and the greatest football teams always have headstrong quarterbacks. Without a CEO who lives and embodies the brand, customers will not buy into it.

So if a CEO is the figurehead of a company’s brand, who is the figurehead of a company’s employer brand? You might guess HR or Marketing, when in fact it is again, the CEO.

Whether you subscribe to BRANDEMiX “1 brand” theory of corporate strategy or not, any branding initiative, regardless of target audience, needs to be inspired by the CEO. Employees will not rally around a brand unless a company’s culture and personality are defined at the top.

Without top down inspiration, the brand can flounder like a ship lost a sea.

So what’s HR’s role? First Mate.

HR must take the captain’s orders and radiate the brand out to the labor market and to the internal employees. Just as marketers have insight and knowledge about communicating to consumers, HR should understand better than any department how to talk to jobseekers and employees.

Figuring out the brand is the easy part – you already have it – communicating it is the creative part. It takes a constantly evolving understanding of the people you’re talking to.

As HR people do we spend enough time understanding the attitudes and behaviors of jobseekers, and more importantly our own employees? When’s the last time you did employee focus groups? Have you surveyed jobseekers? More importantly, how have you implemented any findings into the usual course of your communications? Answering these questions needs to be HR’s responsibility as part of the CEO’s marching orders for the brand.

Marketers have always relied on their ad agencies for this insight and expertise in communicating with consumers. Now HR has a secret weapon too.