Employer Branding Unfiltered: S1 Ep.7 – Sedef Buyukatamen

part about our role is we get to do some really cool stuff that’s right the downside about our role is we do kind of have to be in love with Our Brands because if we don’t love Our Brands being able to innovate and be creative and solve all the problems that come before us on the dayto day becomes incredibly difficult to do so hard so hard it’s like the salesperson who’s selling a product they can’t stand like it’s exct it’s going to come through people see that you don’t really like see that but why [Music] [Applause] [Music] yeah all right folks we are back for another episode I’m very excited for our uh for our guest joining us today she is is uh probably one of the coolest conference people I’ve met and just stayed in touch with uh you’ll see why as we as we have conversations but uh sadf buchaman welcome to employer branding unfiltered it’s good to see you Frank thank you thank you very much it’s wonderful to be here John you know I always love taking opportunities to chat with you whether it’s recorded or not and some of those conversations I wish were recorded because they’re so good [ __ ] we should have captured this but uh yes so how are you where are you in the world today I am just outside of DC in lovely Alexandria Virginia in my home office which in retrospect now I really should have decorated the back wall better but here I am look it’s unfiltered for a reason right we don’t need the Sheen and the over production this is just us Raw and Uncut so so that’s good no I love Alexandria especially in the fall um obviously the uh cherry blossoms down in DC beautiful beautiful a lot of history there too but um but uh but yes so look employer branding unlimited I I had to have you on the show because you have done this work in several sectors uh and and you know a talent Pro uh in your own right but um yeah what what are you up to what are you working on right now uh so right now I’m at new tanx a lovely Global firm in the tech agency and I lead employer brand um on the global scale we’re just over 6,000 people so we’re still under that 10,000 uh worldwide Sweet Spot which I love and I’ve got a team of two and we are um well we we’ve gone through a recent change this year we were originally just supporting uh recruiting and Performing that Talent attraction aspect of our world of employer brand this March we got sort of a team promotion if you will and we now report to um the chief of staff to our head of people and we support the entire HR organization which is fantastic it’s been really fun getting my uh fingers back into internal Communications and change management Communications and things like that that you don’t often get when you’re focused on the talent attraction oh wow look at you coming up in the world right employer brand getting pulled from obscurity into the big Spotlight that’s awesome no that’s good that’s good um I can imagine that makes life a lot easier when you’re trying to work cross functionally uh getting the buyin uh the resources and support you need as well on some level there’s so many cooks in the kitchen it can feel a little bit complicated but I think as Employer brand professionals we’re so used to sitting at an intersection between departments and teams and really translating and negotiating a lot of the time but it it’s sort of organically part of the job it’s been wonderful though uh working with teams like benefits and people development uh to launch some programs and right now we’re actually working on developing our employer brand guidelines in partnership with our company guidelines and giving our team not like a a strict set of rules but more a platform that they can innovate from that’s consistent which really excited by that’s so necessary absolutely we’re going to dig into all that in just a minute but um before we do I I have to ask the obligatory question that all of our guests answer the first one is when did you fall in love with employer branding you know my very first job was camp counselor and I understood then the importance of rallying to a common cause especially when you have a bunch of seven or eighty olds running around wanting to do what they want to do and you’ve got to keep track of them um but my professional career started in college recruiting for management consulting firm so I was recruiting business analysts and strategy Consultants from the Ivy League schools for the most part and you know there was sort of a A playbook to each University when you went to Harvard you had to say these things when you went to Yale you had to say these things for all of them you had to have shrimp at the presentation and things like that and it started to clue me in that there was a concept of personas even though I didn’t necessarily have a word for it at that time and it wasn’t until I was working at Cisco and I had moved from University to intern program manager because we were understanding very quickly we had like 1500 interns all over the world who were having completely different experiences based on which team or which country they landed in and it was having a negative effect on our ability to you know convert them and so I sort of kept complaining about it enough that I created a position of intern program manager and it was the first time I was speaking internally um to folks and building communities around common themes and ideas that we wanted to make sure they took away and just providing that sort of Baseline employee experience and I built a set of templates from there for our recruiting teams that they could use on campus and info sessions because why not um it was sort of how it evolved and at the time there wasn’t really a term for employer branding and it was just sort of coming out and so I had this weird sort of University employer brand slash intern experience manager sort of job happening and I loved it I cannot tell you being able to put out something as simple as like a game ification competition to our interns across the world and having them respond with such great content and then go what do I do with this content it can’t just sit inside we’ve got to use it to attract more and the authenticity of having our employee voice sort of speak to our culture it just I don’t know it rang all the bells for me and I’ve never looked back like I’ve pulled University recruiting into my role back and forth since then but I have hung on to employer brand because that is really the essence of it I laugh with my friends sometimes and I’m like okay I guess I do propaganda to some extent but if it’s not real then people join and they quit and I get in trouble so that’s not the same to me and you know it’s really about saying this is who we are and if you’re interested come check us out if you’re not that’s cool too but you know you should know this is who we are ahead of time and so I kind of feel like I’m doing good work in terms of giving people options but who knows I love well I mean you you’ve done it at a very high level and uh you know they keep seeking you out so clearly you’re doing it right you’re doing it well I’m doing something yeah no but I I I love the I love the journey there because it’s very similar I think the common thread for all of us that do this work is that none of us went to college for it we went no there’s no University curriculum for what we do and right so but opportunity presents itself we have uh not only a desire and interest in in people but we have capabilities whether it’s creative whether it’s marketing whether it’s you know Talent acquisition or whatever the take is and then we somehow apply that to the need and then a role gets created it’s it’s like that’s the origin story for I think most of us in this work um but I like hearing that yours even precedes like the professional work and doing you know uh camp counselor work like wrangling eight-year-olds which can I think can apply to some of the work we do today still yeah uh but coalescing them around this idea and then taking them through that vision and direction I I love that um you know speaking of that um you know doing this work requires a lot of uh political Savvy uh I’ll say uh which you know fitting that you’re in DC the the the navigation of bureaucracy um you know um priorities Egos and personalities how have you navigated you know through those different layers of you know in some cases barriers to to success and changing them into proponents of success how have you managed that throughout your career in the space you come across it in so many different ways um at each company is unique that is one thing I will say like having worked at these different types of organizations has shown me there’s a lot of similarities in sort of corporate life but every company’s culture is just as unique as they are and their product and their offering and so I’ve needed different things along the way at some organizations I’ve needed sort of a senior mentor to say please just get out of her way um and that could be someone related to HR recruiting or not um it really depends on the organization in other organizations and I’m sure every employer brand practitioner who is listening to this is going to smile when I say this sometimes you run right into marketing and brand who you think should be your biggest supporters and partners some of them think that they should be doing this instead of you some of them think that it’s unnecessary uh what you’re doing and you know they’re much more important so please go away and they’ll do they’ll do your stuff in six months stop asking when I get around to it yes yeah exactly and so or sometimes you were you know the marketing department super happy you’re here but then you run smack into a creative director or Worse an HR leader who thinks they know how to do your job even though they have no experience in it and it’s a balancing act sometimes you know sometimes because you do want to listen to those HR practitioners and creative directors and marketing people because they own different aspect of what will become your employer brand but they’re missing different pieces of it so I try I try to approach with Grace and hear everyone out but I also myself am not a very politically corre I’m very transparent sort of speak speak as you find kind of person so I have to balance that with my own desire to can we just make a decision and move on um but I will say it is very rare that I’ve run up against any of these obstacles that I haven’t been away haven’t been able to find a way to either bring them on board because that’s the best way to go about if you can bring that obstacle on board they suddenly become your biggest Advocate that’s my first track if I can’t then there is a little bit of ask for forgiveness instead of permission that I will execute um you know I’ll give you an example if this helps there was one organization that I worked at for close to two years and uh for 15 months um the head of corporate Communications refused to give me a company description you know just like a one paragraph how do we describe this company it was on various different versions were out there in the ethos and every time I used one I got my hand smacked and so I would ask can I have what you’ve approved we’re working on it we’re working on it we’re waiting for approvals and finally in you know I didn’t wait 15 months I just started asking for forgiveness I would take the hits basically um and it became obvious after my senior level Mentor left the organization that there were no more hits I could take so at some point you do have to say I’m sorry but yeah yeah that individual was let go shortly after I left the organization and they did a total revamp in the comms Department I’m not saying I had anything to do with it but I feel a little bit Vindicated well I mean the universe works in mysterious ways so don’t don’t ask how the gift came just enjoy the gift just accept the gift just accept it that you hit I I I love this because I think for the newly initiated employer brand practitioner and there are many coming into the space now uh thank God cuz we’re getting tired I’m tired um I’m tired those who are coming in who have big ideas and visions of how to articulate a company’s culture and employer brand and so forth is one thing but that’s like half the game right yeah getting the buyin the budget the uh support uh the calendar space like all of these things right when you have to work cross functionally with functions that historically have been the mouthpiece of the organization and here you are in HR like who the [ __ ] are you why are you here and you know what qualifications do you have for this go play right right no marketing background you didn’t so so I understand that on on the surface but you know there’s the the navigating the politics but then I I love what you said about sometimes you got to go Guerilla like you know and ask for forgiveness after you’ve done something to move the ball um you know and showcase what’s possible which then you know a lot of times that’s how we advance the work we do is just going out doing some really dope [ __ ] and then everybody in the organization is like what is that who did it and I want it well it reminds me of this quote so I I worked at Cisco during the time when John Chambers was the CEO and while we had very different beliefs from a political standpoint that man was one of the best leaders I ever worked layers under but there was a quote that he had that always stuck with me and it was something around the lines of you will never become the market leader by following market trends you become the market leader by listening to your customer and anticipating their needs and giving them things that they didn’t even know that they should ask for and I think there’s a Steve Jobs version of this quote as well too and I I it logically makes so much sense to me how would I become number one playing someone else’s game when in fact my audience needs a different game so I’m going to change the game Al together and I’m going to win on my terms and do I win every time absolutely not nobody does but I do move it forward and I think that’s the most important thing and I think that’s our job to do that’s gold that’s golden right there yeah and and unfortunately I mean look you’ve worked at some really cool companies uh I I’ll I’ll leave those nameless or people can stalk your LinkedIn should they choose to but you know I I think back to when we met and you were at one of the largest gaming companies in the world and you know on on the outside looking in tremendous consumer brand right people would line up I’m sure just off the strength of and the Allure of the consumer brand but the working environment the culture those things aren’t necessarily synonymous with the consumer brand as you well know and and and being I think being Savvy enough to get Executives who think the culture is one thing because of the strength of the consumer brand but then you’re like no no here’s what they’re saying that they live through every day and it is not what you think it is we need to be honest about that and getting I think Executives comfortable with that is really hard it how do you approach it is you know they’re used to facing you know boards and stakeholders and earnings calls and reporters who are really looking for the holes in whatever model or strategy they put forward so I I forgive my senior leaders for their sort of risk adverse approach but at the same time you know it’s interesting the role that we play I’m not here to create culture I can’t pretend our culture is something that it’s not I can make recommendations to you on where some gaps are based on the Persona that you’re looking to bring in and really engage but often people look to me and say well what should we be doing and I well here’s my recommendation but ultimately that’s not my job and you know when you’re speaking with Executives often my advice is if we have a gap we have to get in front of it because if we don’t tell our story somebody else will with less information and accuracy at the same time there’s a misnomer when you when you hear titles like recruitment marketing or Talent attraction I’m not looking to attract everybody if I look to attract everybody you wouldn’t need me I looking to attract a very thin line of people who I think are going to be right for this particular environment and to your point when I was working at the um gaming company I had not only corporate but also you know 10 Design Studios and you can imagine the difference in life at corporate versus a gaming design studio is not the same so what do you pull forward as you know here’s our umbrella set of values versus here’s what you can get at this particular organization you can’t go blasting that especially the cing company everybody in their brother thinks they know how to you know build the game better but do they want to work in this environment to these deadlines with these sorts of opportunities for growth and these sorts of compensations this is what we have on offer so our job is to really find the individuals needles in the hay stack who are interested in that because the reverse is we attract everybody we say yeah we’re the best come on everybody’s got a home here we’re for everyone and then people get hired and leave and that’s a huge cost to organization so that’s right in a sense I approach it with I’m saving you time money and frustration by targeting the messaging upfront to the people that are going to stick here as opposed to wasting your money on advertising and then wasting your money on overhead turnover costs absolutely yeah I mean the best employer brands are I think your best uh attrition reduction or mitigation strategies possible because you give you’re giving people the right information upfront so they can make an informed decision but I want to go back to something you said as well my job is not to create culture and I think that that is phenomenally stated uh a lot of times we get um tasked with uh espousing the culture that I think uh people aspirationally or leaders aspirationally want it to be not necessarily aligned with reality so we have to walk that fine line of not um selling a false narrative in bait and switch because it does nothing for your attrition rates uh that you want it to but the other side of that is you know I hear a lot of uh you know my clients today will ask things like you know or tell me things like we we want to be the employer of choice and I’m like but that’s not something a brand can do for you let’s first of of all let’s define who you want to be an employer of choice for it’s not everybody to your point but then also that’s an that’s an outcome uh a downstream effect of having really strong uh cultural uh cohesion connectivity Clarity uh process procedure like all of those things that make you an employer of choice based on the outcome not because we have a great brand it’s not just us you know we have to be are if we want to be fun and exciting and Innovative selling that culture and our Enterprise brand is not we’re never going to get there we’re never going to get there because that has to work in harmony so in order to be that like famous employer of choice your consumer brand also has to be cool and sexy and work in parallel with your employer brand and that’s right I don’t think people think that through you know I think I was at a conference I was at TA week a few weeks ago maybe a month ago now and uh it was James Ellis I think at one point he said um your your head of ta recognizes that they love you and you have to be there but they absolutely hate you they don’t know how you work they don’t know what you do it they don’t really want to get too involved in it and I laughed so hard when he said that because I mean it’s just facts really like it’s life I have never the double-edged sword of sort of spitting up this organic career care path that we’re we found ourselves on is nobody knows really what we do and they don’t really want to get into it I could geek out like with you for hours about you know the cool stuff that we’re able to do but they’re not interested and you know they hire that employer brand person because they’re going to fix the problem the employer brand person is going to fix the problem with our culture and often I walk into that and which is why I become a little bit careful when I interview with folks because I try lay out this is an investment that you’re making and you should have already or in parallel lets make an investment in your employee experience and culture in order for this to really hit home but when they’re not willing to invest in the employee experience but they do want to hand you a whole lot of money to amplify it we get a little bit of a disconnect and it’s sort of like well um I could talk about the fact that we don’t have 401k matching but is that really what you want to do how about you don’t give me money for advertising this year and you don’t hire an employer brand person you put that money into your actual employee experience and then let’s talk again in a couple years yeah you know that’s never going to happen but it’s just sort of you know logic says they they hire us to sort of be the employer of choice but that’s all they do they don’t do anything for their employees and that’s what I try to educate and be a part of and that’s also why I love having my team sit at where we do right now because yes we’re creating comms plans and we’re creating activations but at the same time we’re also having the opportunity in to influence where the priorities are from where we sit that’s as far as we can go we can provide you want to attract these people here’s what they’re finding in the market as sort of an experience here’s what they’re going to compare us to Let’s invest in that and so you know it it is a tight rope so section we really do and and and I uh I’m I’m getting flashbacks now of when I was uh internal uh at a very large uh Pharma company and you know you’re spot on we get to do some of the coolest [ __ ] in the company and that can that can give you a very high profile because we can get me meetings with anybody and everybody at any level anywhere in the world and our very own managers might not be able to do that you know I I I I vividly remember being told I was oversaturated and at one point I’m like what does that mean my J like very corporate saturated I’m going to put that on my LinkedIn as actually employer brand leader who is often oversaturated oversaturated but it can create some some negative perception or you know who are you why why do you get to but that’s the job and it comes from a lack of knowledge or understanding about the work that we do and I think that is a big thing so I would love to get your take on you know sort of the education level right this this work has been going on for I’d say a good 15 years let’s say from its infancy um and really I’d say the past 12 13 maybe from a structured uh role perspective but when I hear somebody saying get your thoughts on this when you hear somebody say we need an EVP right and it’s you’re your immediate reaction is is absolutely right we need sadf we need an EVP and you’re like what do you say to that first reaction well we do need an EVP uh clear articulated EVP I absolutely agree how do you like to how would you like to go about doing that here’s my recommendation start by surveying a top percentage of your employees and then bringing that messaging back to various focus groups and then sharing it with executive leadership and then we can polish that into but that is you know Point number one is where I lose them almost always like surveys you want to survey oury employ it but we already have engagement surveys So Def can’t use have the pulse survey you know we’ve got a lot of surveys that go out if this is too much well I mean I could talk to 10 people but you know that’s not going to give you any and I’ve been so surprised at how many organizations I’ve worked at where they are willing to hire an external agency who will just make it up out of the ether and pay them tens of thousands of dollars versus taking okay if you don’t want me to do the survey here’s pH cre or various different firms that actually understand how to do this no we don’t work with that agency we’re going to just use our regular agency and come I’ve even seen some firm start at the top by asking our Executives like what is the culture that you want and then bringing it to the employees saying does that resonate with you while not ideal it’s at least some dialogue going up and down um but you know I’ve always said culture is somewhat curated somewhat organic and I’m looking for like a 7030 like I want it 70% organic 30% curated and what I mean by curated is not made up but hey these are things we really want you to talk about so can you answer these specific questions as opposed to just the organic voice that comes from the employee and letting them sort of hit on that and you know I when I interview with comms people especially internal comms folks I always ask them that question how much is curated versus organic and it’s shocking what you hear back sometimes they can’t answer um but sometimes they’re like you know 70% curated we don’t really let our employees do much of like the external Stu like boy really great you got the budget for those Studio Productions but is that really going to move the needle for you really thrilled you got the billion it requires to get a global great place to work thing but like does anybody care I walked into the Aldi the other day they had a great place to work sign on the door I was like great great it’s it’s fasc like I mean we we know this because we work with these organizations let’s be honest a lot of them are pay to play right so so it it almost cheapens it in that regard but we have so many leaders who look at those badges as that is is the the thing that people will want to come and work for us or work with us for and it’s like no like you can ask 99% of your candidates don’t choose you because you have that badge from that organization on there it’s usually their friend who works there has more influence than that badge 100% yeah and it’s and it’s you know fascinating because even when we explain the process of EVP development I I’ve started to even you know go back to like Square One just okay you need an EVP why and if I want to hear their brilliant their reasoning for why they think they need an EVP because to your point we’re probably going to hear some business challenge that has nothing to do with EVP or brand and everything to do with uh you know talent management or L&D or business uh excuse me benefits um all the things that we don’t have control over and so so I I really want to hear first and foremost what business challenge do you think EVP is going to solve for you and then we can have an honest conversation I can tell you either save your money or invest it elsewhere because this won’t do that here’s what this can do though uh and that’s that’s a I think a more honest conversation versus just to your point some agencies will just whatever you want well you know and I think it becomes that lack of Education again much like employer brand they’ve now glommed on to this idea of EVP yeah yeah do you want an EVP or do you want a tagline I think you want a tagline oh like nine times out of 10 you just want a tagline I get that you know it’s fine we all want a tagline but if it’s not something you’re going to hold your entire organization accountable to when making Investments when making decisions when prioritizing projects that you’re going to commit headcount to then it is just a tagline and should be taken with that level of seriousness oh man that’s another point of therapy for me yes the tagline like but but where’s the tagline this is just the EVP research there’s no taglines yet relax yeah yeah that’s I think that educational factor is is huge and I and and it’s I’m still baffled and you know why there is not a sort of single source of Truth when it comes to EVP employer branding work and recruitment marketing right very distinct tools to achieve very distinct outcomes but complimentary to each other but there’s no curiculum there’s no University for this um there’s no requirements to understand this in HR you know Sherm certifications MBA programs nothing so you know we’re hearing this need come from seite we need an EVP okay um but then what do you want to do all right well we need to hire because we’re ramping up for you know for this new product that’s coming out okay so you want you need a recruitment marketing strategy is what I’m hearing yeah you you don’t need us okay so so what do you do to take your leadership through that sort of differentiation between the tools that are available to them that you can bring honestly for me it’s it’s I I I feel like I start almost every meeting with like three slides of here’s what employer brand is um and here’s what I do even though met people millions of times like let me just remind you here and um yeah then it tends to be really that’s good similar to what you said what what are the outcomes we’re hoping to achieve well we want a higher X number of people and we want to stabilize retention it’s one of these two things or often both that’s right and it’s it’s sort of like okay well if that’s the case it looks like from the data that I have if it if you’re looking for retention it looks like people are leaving because you need to invest more in X Y and Z that’s not something I can help you with but I can point you to other companies who are doing this if you want to see some best practices in the market if you’re looking to hire people then it is that sort of candidate experience recruitment marketing and I sort of spell out to them the areas that we’re going to have to influence I never overestimate the areas that we’re going to have to influence but I always walk away with like 30% of what I’ve asked for and it’s sort of like okay we can do recruitment marketing but we’re not going to change our candidate experience in anyway and I’m G to have to get in front of that and create this Pipeline and that Pipeline and this pipeline but it is always shocking to me that you can work with your recruiting and hiring teams on sort of that recruitment marketing plan what do you need where do you need it and still you get bad candidate experiences because folks are sitting in pipelines too long or the role that you were describing has suddenly changed because in India that particular manager does it a different way so the disconnects become apparent and so I always follow up with sort of a and here’s what we did we were able to drive this traffic it doesn’t look like we influen tires it does look like we influence tires depending upon sort of the data sets you’re getting and have with your tool stack I try to pull out as much of that as possible and share with them okay here’s what we did highly successful hit these goals that you asked for still had some issues on this other end where we didn’t make the investment and suggest we work more there but that’s really all I’ve been able to do it’s not perfect but you know it’s just sort of spell out here’s what I can give you but here’s what it’s going to take to get there I have been in situations and I think we all have admittedly where are like they yeah yeah you to death like yeah go ahead do it yeah go ahead do it but then nobody knows about it or nobody supports it and when actually the pedal comes to the metal and you need either cash or an approval all of a sudden it’s you know we can’t do that and it happens you know it happens so you know you have to sort of parcel out each project I never look at anything like okay one project one deliverable it’s a series of quick wins that gets me to that goal and I report on as we go and parcel it out that way because there’s so much change in every organization I’ve worked at I have your teammates now who are like okay what’s our fiscal year plan I’m like I don’t know because I’m still waiting for XYZ to develop their strategic priorities and until they do I’m not carving anything into stone and that could change in the next quarter so you just have to be open to adapting to that and it can look like you know you haven’t plotted out a concrete strategy it’s a why would I plot out a concrete strategy for a business that I know is going to change next quarter I’m going to be agile with them and give them what they need while working to some larger goals that I may or may not be talking about with them but I know where they are that’s absolutely folks these are gems you’re receiving right now I hope you know this because the the the points that are so Salient especially right now right if we if we look at uh the economic uncertainties the geopolitical uncertainties um the the the shift and balance of power uh between employer and employee like there’s so much happening in the world right now that we have to still brand through and and we’ve seen you and I we’ve seen many different cycles of Labor and politics and Leadership and world events and all these things that we have to constantly be on you know head on a swivel for because that can impact messaging at the drop of a dime right pandemic being probably the best example I was just going to say this last five years looking at like the the balance of power between it being a talent Market to it being an employer market and back and forth again and watching also how hybrid work has changed Dynamics like I don’t know if you’ve seen this but in the last couple of years I’ve seen people who like genuinely get the work done but never really get promoted because they’re not you know hand shaky and network like some types now all of a sudden those people are getting promoted because in a work from home environment you actually have to deliver the work and no one really cares if you know 50 people or not you have to do the work and so I am seeing some really good stuff come from this but the ongoing uncertainty sort of has me like okay let’s just plan three months let’s plan three months because how many s have we seen I know I’ve seen like brilliant marketing uh recruitment marketing campaigns that go out and really grab your interest and then you go look at the company and they’re not actually hiring because you know hiring freeze came two weeks before the campaign hit and it’s sort like yes okay well we pay for all this stuff so we’re just going to keep it out there and so throw it out there yeah yeah that’s a really good planned as best I can but I I plan for change more than anything else what I hope to do that’s so that no that’s so smart and and look you take all the externality out of it and you say we could have a different CEO or chro next week and their whole vision changes the whole you know ethos of the company so absolutely whatever we’ve now just spent six eight 12 months on might be out the window right and we’ve seen that and even support for our work goes with that so yeah yeah and you can’t cry about it the best you can do in those scenarios is take the best ideas put them in your pocket and save them for when the organization is ready for them and plan for the change you have before you right now you know our organization right now is doing a lot of really heavy lifting to build a headcount planning model that hasn’t been there in the past you know I joined new tanic the same reason a lot of people did is because they’re in that sort of evolution from startup to Enterprise and so you get to build something really real but you also have to accept in that process some days are going to be high some quarters are going to be low and that’s right sometimes your work is going to be incredibly necessary and high priority and sometimes it’s not and as Leaders change that changes as well too so I’ve you know looked at my journey here at nanic even as we’ve gone through when I first joined I think we were hiring like three times as many more people as what we’re hiring right now and I’ve always just tried to look at how can we continue when hiring gets slowed down all right how can my team continue to add value where can we help here where can we amp up what we’re doing here because it’s a little bit self-preservation but it’s also you know you’ve got to stay motivated and focused on task you we’ve talked about this before the fun part about our role is we get to do some really cool stuff that’s right the downside about our role is we do kind of have to be in love with Our Brands because if we don’t love Our Brands being able to innovate and be creative and solve all the problems that come before us on the dayto day becomes incredibly difficult to do so hard so hard it’s like the salesperson who’s selling a product they can’t stand like it’s exactly it’s gon to come through people are going to see that you don’t really like do that but why right you know we are we’re corporate but we’re creative and we’re HR but we’re creative you know people always sort of shake their head it’s like oh have you dealt with creative teams in the past yes I am part of a creative I am said creative team yes what do you mean by that yeah what’s the problem I love Creative team like why would you want to be in a non-creative team yeah look I think that there’s a um there is that that clash between Commerce and creativity right that we that we often get caught up in the mix of because we can be so impassionate about the brand that we have spent months if not in some cases I know folks who spent a year and a half almost two years trying to get a brand across the line you become connected to it because you’ve invested time to understand the people behind the brand and then when you try to get it across the line you’re being met by resistance from you nothing personal but lack of prioritization um you know sub objectivity people who’ve never done your job a day in their life having an opinion on how it should be done which you know we we’ve all dealt with that um but but I I love the the the notion that we have to um you know we have to be constantly looking at how we’re delivering value um because it’s not always going to be obvious right some everybody assigns our value towards Talent attraction but what do you do when you’re on a hiring freeze I.E pandemic or right and I think for for most of us who knew what it was we’re like this is the time to actually double down on your employer brand because people need you the most now right you might not have a job for them but there’s other ways that you can showcase your connection to your people and who better to do that than employer brand exactly but not a lot of people had that foresight or Vision they just you know so that that’s one element then you have things like Dei and the ever shifting Sands of that that landscape right and so 2020 to 202 3ish first half of the year everybody’s gung ho you got commitments left and right you’ve got uh High Investments you’ve got roles being created teams and all of these things and then uh seemingly overnight I saw it probably for about an 8mon run but uh now it’s uh to say those letters together in the same sequences contentious they’re all rebranding themselves yeah that’s I read this article I think it was New York Times or Washington Post you can gauge the liberal media that I follow here but um there was an article Jud there was an article about how de and I is going through another re uh Evolution um and how the Civil Rights Movement actually had morphed into what we see today as Dei which is now morphing into more of an idea of less diversity more belonging and you know I get it you know I get that you know that article for me was really eye opening because it had never in my mind connected the Civil Rights Movement with Dei initiatives I don’t know why but it just you know it was just that was one thing where you protest and this is another thing where you go to work and you do different you make different decisions and making that connection had was important for me for pieces to fall into place and I do think you know we are at a another weird time in evolutionaries path for Dei but I also think so much of this is you know I don’t think organizations companies know what to do with hearing consumer voices um they either take them too seriously or they don’t take them seriously enough and they’re working in this world where they’re kind of trying to figure it out and for employer brand it’s almost an opportunity for us to educate our partners in marketing and some of these you should be listening to but you shouldn’t be listening to all of them you don’t know where all of this noise is coming from and the thing that I found interesting that that article had highlighted is while thei as a title seems to be disappearing from investor reports and whatnot it’s still a line item on almost all of our CEOs salary bonus targets so there’s still a financial motivation to make it happen it just needs a Rebrand that’s okay that I’m willing to get behind when I get worried is when it falls off of CEO compensation bonus plan when it’s not long when it’s no longer something that they’re being measured on to make their money then I think it falls off all of our radars at that point I send up a flare but yeah for the time being I think we are going through a period of rebranding and you know I think that there have been some de Andi teams that I’ve worked with who’ve been incredibly effective in influencing the employee experience at other organizations it’s been a bit more window dressing so maybe we need this shakeup to really what we were talking about with employer brand demonstrate the value and an impact a a strong diversity inclusion belonging whatever you want to call it department is your employee engagement team it’s not just about engaging with certain categories of employees it’s about engaging your employees building a community and that’s why I consider de and I a close partner of mine because they’re building community and I’m amplifying what they’re doing and so we have to be in lock step preach pre look that’s that’s the that is the the thing like it should never have been I understand why it was uh sort of a a siloed functional relationship between de Andi and and employer brand right I I get that but I think you know probably about four years ago I was like this this work is going to merge like it has to because to your point one is shaping culture and the other one’s amplifying it they need to to talk to each other to to to get the message straight and then imagine how much more effective the shaping part could be if you had a bullhorn Messenger to to Showcase what you’re doing versus just an email or part of a newsletter or piece in a town hall like what if we could do some really cool [ __ ] to showcase the structural change that you’re bringing through your through your initiatives it’s like I’m really psyched that you have like 15 employee resource groups and you pay for lunch for them to get together once a month but yeah do you ever go talk to them at product launches or before PR announcements for the company do you ever engage with them to get their point of view if that’s not happening you’re doing window miss you know it’s you know it’s about building Community with each other and understanding you know we keep hearing all these lovely sort of like our product is better with more diverse eyes on it okay are you actually like using your diverse employees not just to build the product but to also vet and test the product and the communications then you’re getting the most out of your diverse Community I mean we’re in the United un States of America no other country in the world is as diverse as we are that’s a fact we’re leaders because of it and you know every time we embrace our diversity is when we really succeed as a as a company when we come together you know I did some work in volunteering uh for Disaster Recovery organizations go team rubican um and I will tell you the best side of humanity is the day after a hurricane everybody’s out there supporting each other being there for each other not caring who you voted for what color you are it’s just oh my god do you need help few weeks down the road yeah it gets a little bit dicey but that next day that’s the best of who we are and that is what inspires me around supporting and amplifying the work of Dei organizations that I partner with because they are able to bring out the best of the organization if we get it right and if our leaders are top in then you really have something that’s a value ad but like I said if you’re just paying for lunch and a few stickers and swag for different groups to get together every few months yeah why bother I do yeah why bother and that’s exactly it because guaranteed prospective candidates who are looking at your organization and seeing what you’re putting up front as the indicator of your commitment they can see through it when it’s when it’s just photo oped right when when you see the same person on every single page that’s referencing diversity or there’s an equal balance of men women and people of color in every picture you know that only happens in the US when I’m Marketing in India I’ve got to have everybody be brown you’re not going by cast level in that regard like I have equal ratio of the brahen Clon no no it’s it’s not sort of like so yes it’s my job to sort of authentically put our employee population out there and when I’m showing my Silicon Valley population it does look like it’s sort of Studio which is why I lean more towards authentic pictures and videos that are homegrown as opposed to the studio stuff but you also have to be comfortable with allowing a few pictures of all brown people or if it’s the UK you get more diversity there but maybe in Germany It Isn’t So that’s right think about your audience and what their expectations are we’re looking at a gen Z who has been inundated with advertising since birth and whatever they’re calling themselves after gen Z I think it’s gen Alpha with every generation the game changes a little bit their [ __ ] meter is really really high they’re not buying the hi I’m sedf and I love my job they want to know why you love your job and they’re not going to know it by a studio produced video so let trust your employees you know make sure you’re investing in them trust them give them enable them to amplify their experience that is sort of my reason deontre I’m sort of like please let me find ways to enable my employees because yes we’ll do a certain measure of produced content that’s our job we’ve got to have a few things of course but the really moving thing for candidates and for employees is letting their voice come through and and see that authentic piece I love this off my soap box now oh no no no please remain there because I’m about to to step on mine right next to yours it’s um you know I’m working through I I was just on a call and talking to uh very very senior person at uh a very well-known organization who who is responsible for not only talent but also um de Andi and talent uh Talent attraction and talent management all in one which I’m like oh that’s phenomenal right you’re not busy at all God bless you um and I feel for it but um but the a job that is a job but I was like but I think you also have three of the most important organizations to be connected under one leader because there’s such a consistent through line and I was sharing my thoughts on like how my views on De and I have evolved to more of this how do we Center Humanity uh in a more uh honest and transparent way than being so focused on hyperfocused on the identity which will always Force division right and I’m not saying you don’t recognize people’s identities because that’s that’s critical but when you get to a a company you’re joining an organization who is hiring you to believe wholeheartedly in what their vision is and what they need to get done so how do I take me and move you into this concept of we within the opes of our organization and how do we showcase how we make you feel like we instead of me by yourself right and and I think from a branding perspective if we can tap into how we get people to go from me to we Faster by showcasing the ways that we live that yeah then we have done our job otherwise you know the to your to your point the message of you know everybody come one come all everybody’s welcome and be exactly who you want to be and I’m like all right until you get in that room and everybody’s looking at you like so is anybody going to tell him like we don’t we don’t wear that here or you know this is how we operate here and yeah well we saw you know the Fang companies for since their Inception you know bring everything you are come live on campus if you want to never leave we want you and then the ction yeah be fine and it and then 2016 election happened and suddenly employees started expressing their full beliefs and you know some of them were unpalatable to some and some of them were you know exclusionary to others and so all of a sudden we were seeing things like Google walkouts and Facebook and this that and the other and I’m just sitting on the sidelines chuckling because you never wanted them to their whole self to work you just wanted them working you know Google’s a great example that Mountain View campus is a thing of beauty the they put in that to just with the restaurants and the community you know never want to leave employees living in their car because why everything else is here and it only cost them a couple million in overhead to do something like that but the productivity that they got from it was astounding now they’re trying to send people home and get them to have a life because they’re too involved with burn out and I’m just sat back going you didn’t think about this long term did you or did you I don’t I don’t know but you know ultimately especially after the pandemic people have realized that work is not their entire lives anymore what I don’t want to do is sort of sell that message come be part of the cult you know it we are not the circle it’s that’s not what we’re going to do here but if we can put the what’s in it for you working here like for example with new tanic you can come be part of an Enterprise in development so you can help build the foundation in those ground floors that’s not going to appeal to everyone but for the person who it is going to appeal to you’re giving them that you’re going to be able to build things correctly you know you worked at all those companies it was kind of crappy the product now you get to do it better here like that’s the underlying cell that we have here and again not for everyone but it does have to be a part of the narrative that we tell and you know that what’s in it for me once answered and here are the types of people that you get to do it with and I have yet to come up with an appropriate tagline for we’re really nice people but that is the secondary nanic cell it’s sort of like you get to build something with some really nice people really nice people and that’s what we have on offer now for some people they’re looking for something that is at that startup phase where they’re still rolling up their sleeves and you know building a product from the ether we have some of that but that’s not our primary some people really do want an established corporate where it’s like dude I need all that stuff taken care of so I can focus on getting my work done totally fine absolutely just like with me my entire career when I’ve looked at job descriptions where it’s asked me to administrate an existing program I’ve been not for me but if they sell the job as come build something from nothing ooo I get all excited all my Bells start ringing so there it is you kind of have to again go back to who you’re trying to attract and what motivates them and if the what’s in it for me for those individuals can be put forward to them then they’ll take a second look at your company they’ll may take a third look and if they continue liking what they see they might apply Fair points Fair points would you say that um and and I often take um some might say a cynical view but uh nice nice uh disclaimer here for this question when we look at I’m very reductionist sometimes but when we look at uh the labor and employer relationship it hasn’t changed much right in hundreds of years by the way um since the colonial model of western western work um what it’s evolved to is we’ve gotten to a point where the exploitation doesn’t feel as overt right we’re being honest because you can the easiest display is the gap between executive level pay and Frontline pay right whereas we all say without Frontline this business doesn’t exist but you don’t pay them the same way so fine and I and I’ll and I’ll Ron with that but from an employer brand perspective our job becomes to make that to at least give some indication where hey this is going to be like this is going to suck right but here are all the things that you get as benefits from doing this thing that really sucks and what better place to do it than here right like what if what if that was the message if you if this is what you do honestly I you know I think in that direction though yeah I hope so we are headed in that direction you know we um my first year at nanic we ran an Outreach campaign and it was sort of you know don’t apply for this job and it was sort of Crossing out the word don’t and then writing you know other things in and we did it because it was cheeky and funny and sort of along the lines of our internal sort of culture speak but it was you know an interesting way to Garner attention even from like our sales profiles not just the engineer like wait a minute did I just see an ad with a cross out something in it and the things like we’re not looking for the perect C no we we’re looking for the perfect candidate and then we annotated not into it so we’re not looking for perfect candidate Perfect’s predictable we want someone with unique talents and oh that’s strong it was just having fun being cheeky like that when I worked at the gaming studio there’s always a problem with hiring gender diversity there are just more men than women in gaming right now being paid not saying in the world of gaming but you know being paid at organizations so we had one Design Studio that was you know looking to do a little bit more for you know investing in female Talent so International women’s day came up and I suggested to them why don’t you instead of putting the one woman in the office into the frame of the Instagram post that you’re going to do saying hi happy International women’s day because that’s what was happening across the studios there were like two women one woman you know and I was like you know instead of doing that guys why don’t you get a picture of really depressed looking guys and then write the caption underneath it saying we wish we had more women working here so we could actually celebrate International women’s day and get cheeky about it you’re a gaming studio for God’s sakes if you can’t get cheeky who is going to get cheeky and get in front of the fact that you don’t have a lot of women here but that you want more to apply and one of them did it of the 10 one of them did it and they had really positive success you know it’s just we’ve got to be people aren’t buying the you know fun little sort of taglines that don’t take back to anything what they are responding to is transparency and honesty and you know eventually that will fall out of Vogue too but I do think we’re headed in the direction of Hey listen the work isn’t that interesting but you get to work with really cool people and get paid really well but that could be a sell to the right person absolutely it it goes back to knowing what your audience is actually seeking what your uh candidate pools are really seeking and then being honest about that and not overselling the other stuff and I love your prediction and I’m I’m betting a lot on this as well that transparency is the new authenticity right because people are going to find out anyway so either you get to shape that narrative or curate it in in your your words um or you can be subject to it trying to figure out how to get either away from it or embrace it and that’s going to take some bravy some risk uh right I say this is someone who worked at the coch family nonprofit um and oh yeah they do wonderful work sure right on the banner of my career page was Charles KO I was like listen GNA tell you what you’re getting into right from the get-go because if you’re not okay with this the rest of this doesn’t [Music] matter right leave now leave now benefits that so you’ve got to confront these things because between glass door and blind and all the other Myriad of sites personal chat rooms that people can talk about your brand you’ve got to put out the authentic experience for folks because your employees are doing it anyway and usually they’re doing it when they’re pissed off so why not why not give them Avenues and channels to do it when they’re happy and celebrating too look look I think on that note I could talk to you for hours uh as you well know um but I want to be respectful of your time and I want to move us to our final segment which uh which every guest does uh the answer question leave a question so the question that was left by our former guest was how are you using and how should people be be using AI to understand see uncover leverage or discuss their employer Brands I love this question so a lot of us are scared of AI I think AI is scaring you know a lot of folks in the market I too occasionally think that you know at some point AI could potentially do a big part of the content development that you know lives in part of our brand but right now ai is sort of like Sheldon he’s very gifted five-year-old um and needs Direction and gu counseling it’s a great I’ve Embrace AI like you know AI the hardest thing for me to do is stare at a blank page I’m great at editing um so if I can use AI to do my first draft for me and beat it up in the process while not having to like give somebody a human a hard time why wouldn’t I embrace that and so I’ve used it myself for Content development nanic has recently purchased for um our recruiting and employee experience two really strong AI tools to help us build job profiles and onboarding plans and the that’s higher brain they very cool and the other is find them our uh sourcing and CRM tool y they’re fantastic they streamline that first draft for the recruiters for the hiring managers just by asking a few simple questions producing output that allows us to iterate and build up off of and so I am a proponent of embracing Ai and really leveraging the power of it we’ve just purchased also happy Dan’s career page platform which has some AI supported content development tools I can’t wait to get my hands on it because I’ve been you know putting together chat GPT versus this thing and that thing together to build some uh build some product but I do think that you know like anything you either embrace it or you’re going to get left behind um it it’s incredibly timesaving it can be incredibly helpful and down the road at it as it advances so will you um if you get in front of it and embrace it that’s just how I’m thinking about it I could be wrong I could be out of a job in nine months with some robot doing it but you know that’s how I’m thinking about right and this episode will live forever in infamy as a result you be like take it down John AI replaced me no U no that’s a great take and I think you’re absolutely right uh either embrace the tool or uh become used by it so yeah um replaced by it I should say um excellent well now we would love for you to leave a question for our next guest I’m going to leave a question I will say before my actual question though my favorite question in the whole world is why we always start with why why are we doing this why um so I’ve got that sort of on my desktop to remind me we start with why why is the best question question out there but that said um because that’s a little bit too vague for next uh speaker so I’ll be a little bit Kinder I I mean I like the provocative nature of a one-word question why why why why um they’ll be cursing at me after this but no honestly I think the question that I’d love to leave is you know I think as Employer brand professionals we are if we’re doing it right we’re staying lock step with new advancements in tools and Technology the market I think we probably discovered crms before our recruiting and sourcing peers and career page technology that actually tracks leads and things like that you know we uncover that stuff and often introduce them to our recruiting teams I’m wondering for your next guest what tool do they wish existed but doesn’t right now what’s the Gap in our tool set with everything coming at us o oh that’s a that’s a phenomenal question think about that all the day every day because I need to eventually create that tool and become a billionaire but not yet I mean what are we waiting for SF what are we waiting for uh that is a tremendous question uh and I can’t wait to hear uh what somebody with somebody’s responses to that so our next guest response to that well look you’ve been amazingly kind and generous with this time and your knowledge uh and I like I said I love talking to you in general so so I hope that this has been valuable for our audience I have no doubt that it will be um but with that stay it’s def I want to thank you for joining uh joining me on employer branding unfiltered and we hope to have you back soon uh for sure as as the world Chang you know I’ll talk to you eight days a week and twice on Sundays it’s been a wonderful chat thank you so much absolutely take care [Music]