Chicken rice and workshops in Singapore

Friday 24 April 2009 and my creative director Neil Cookson and I are just back from a successful 4-day mission in 34 degree heat to our BrandSynergy Singapore office. Thank heaven for air conditioning. With the help of my partner Max Chia and other members of our fabulous Singapore office team, we held our inaugural BrandSynergy employer branding workshops at the Rendezvous Hotel for 20 companies ranging from large corporates including HSBC and Singapore Press Holdings to medium size enterprises and government entities. Singapore, although an island of modest size, is host to 150,000 SMEs who contribute significantly to the GDP, and receive much encouragement from government agencies IE Singapore and Spring, who actively support these SMEs across a wide range of business building activities including branding advice and support. Our discussions with a delightful gentleman from Spring highlighted the branding grants available through its Brandpact initiative to Singaporean companies, which can cover 50-70% of the costs associated with an approved branding exercise. Hello, are you listening Australia - please take note! In the past two years Spring has approved grants for 120+ businesses. Of particular note is that Spring is presently experiencing a surge in enquiries from businesses wishing to build their brand to the next level. This is the result of a recent awareness program and seemingly the fact that Singaporean companies with whom I have spoken have switched on to the rare opportunity provided by the present downturn to step back, focus on the future, prepare their businesses for the upturn and achieve competitive advantage. The rest of the world please take note.

What did we learn from the workshops and the interactions we had with attendees?

1/. Positive feedback from attendees suggests that we have a powerful employer branding offer that is attuned to helping Singapore businesses build strong employer brands that optimise their recruitment and engagement activities and enable them to attract and retain top talent.

2/. Singapore companies are showing more interest in employer branding and its benefits than their Sydney counterparts.

3/. Information gleaned by us from pre-workshop attendee questionnaires indicated almost all organisations had no creative proposition with which to underpin and promote their employee-related activities.

4/. More worryingly, the majority had not defined their Employee Value Proposition (EVP).

5/. The workshops reinforced that regardless of where a business is located - in Europe, Asia, the Americas or wherever - it will be facing very similar employer branding challenges and have very similar opportunities to make improvements. Human beings generally think and behave in similar ways and have similar aspirations and desires when it comes to their employer, their job and their career prospects.

6/. Any work undertaken to create or improve an employer brand must be taken seriously and accomplished within a carefully managed process, not just on an ad hoc basis - our EmployerBrandGuidanceSystem was created to do just this.

7/. Any employer branding activities can only be accomplished with a very clear understanding of what your employees are presently thinking, as their perceptions of their employer will undoubtedly have changed as a result of the downturn - moderately in some cases, critically in others. This can be accomplished in two ways:
> Online employee survey - a multiple question survey where employees are instructed to complete an anonymous online survey is a fast and effective way to identify what employees are thinking, what are their perceptions of their employer and prospects for the future, and to gain their ideas on what improvements that can be made and how to make them. Results we have gained from such surveys have ranged from predictable to alarming, in many cases requiring urgent remedial action. Without this knowledge and insight it is next to impossible for us to offer recommendations for a way forward.
> TeamPlanSystem process - where employment insight and ideas need to be sourced from smaller groups of people, or new employer brand initiatives introduced to them, our tried and tested process which we trialled with the workshop attendees is the definitive way of achieving this.

8/. Attendees expressed keen interest in our ‘12 pillars’ EVP model. Our process of defining an organisation’s EVP identifies the core strengths and weaknesses of the organisation as an employer... and therefore which ‘pillars’ need to be improved.

9/. Recruitment remains a challenging proposition even in a downturn where emphasis is now firmly on retention of talent. It remains a costly exercise and one where a creative proposition - visual and verbal - plays a crucial role in attracting job candidates, positioning the employer and establishing a consistent and recognisable brand presence.

10/. As one attendee with a DIY store chain is experiencing - the ability to fully engage with customers and achieve high levels of brand loyalty and differentiation relies not only on a strong corporate brand but also on sales personnel who are fully motivated and engaged by the brand and possess a clear understanding of what the company brand represents and how it can benefit the customer. Engaged sales personnel lead to satisfied customers.

11/. Communication is critical. Without it all efforts to build a strong employer brand will come to nothing. Employees need to be informed. They need to know what the company leaders and managers are thinking and planning, particularly in trying times. They need to have reinforced to them constantly the important role they play in the company’s future. And this needs to be achieved with language they understand in a medium that is easily accessible.

12/. Investing in the development of a strong employer brand, whether you are a large corporation or an SME is not an option. For some it is a survival requirement. For some it is the sole means to achieve competitive advantage.


Tony Heywood is a Fellow of the Design Institute of Australia, founder of Heywood Innovation in Sydney Australia and co-founder of BrandSynergy in Singapore.
tony@heywood.com.au
www.heywood.com.au
www.brandsynergy.com.sg

“We just don’t think employer branding will work for us right now!”

Despite there always being sceptics out there pathologically committed to an alternative viewpoint, employer branding makes a lot of sense for companies right now. The continuing downturn means that many of them will not be actively seeking new employees to facilitate growth strategies and replace non performers or mobile high performers for another 12 months. The recruitment frenzy of 2008 is now but a distant memory.

... in our day-to-day interactions we’re identifying so many companies who are doing so little to address the need to communicate with, engage and retain their best people.

The ‘new order’ of 2009 is characterised by clamp downs on hiring and new focus on finding ways to keep valuable people in their seats. For some companies this may mean a handful of people, for other companies the entire workforce – depending on the nature and size of the business, products/services delivered etc. Considering the severity of the downturn and the corresponding delicate financial position of many businesses, I find it surprising that, while the majority of companies are responsive to my company’s offer of assistance, in our day-to-day interactions we’re identifying so many who are doing so little to address the need to communicate with, engage and retain their best people. I’m sure my company is not the exception to this in the world of consultancy, so what can be causing it? Here are a few reasons/excuses that I have been made aware of:

> A basic lack of awareness of employer branding, its benefits and value
> Scepticism of what it can achieve
> Company clamp down on all spending so no available funds to initiate work in this area
> Previous bad experience with recruitment/advertising consultants
> Belief that the company is too small for employer branding activities
> Recovery efforts totally focused on product sales, not employees
> Activities thwarted by narrow vision HR Manager
> CEO has internalised all employee-focus activities and closed the door
> Company in dire financial straits and beyond help
> Too much reliance on incumbent recruitment agency to “get us out of this mess”
> “We’ve already got a recruitment website thank you”

When it comes to survival and the opportunity to get ahead once markets recover, guess where these guys are going to end up? Recessions can be ruthless when it comes to selecting those companies who just aren’t physically or mentally capable of surviving. For many, investment in tried and tested employer branding initiatives is probably the only lifeline that can stop them from going under, but it takes an enlightened CEO to recognise this. Some dwell in the dark, some see the light.

For a consultancy like ours, this reluctance or inability to seek help is very frustrating, when so many companies have sufficient knowledge and insight to converse intelligently on the subject, have a good understanding of what they need and recognise the urgency with which they need to make a decision and commission help. This doesn’t stop us from wanting to help. So we’ve decided to create an ‘Employer Branding for Beginners’ workshop to test the market. I will report back in a later post with the results of this initiative.

Perhaps we overestimate the ability of companies to grasp the benefits, or is it just a built-in reluctance to ask for help? Let’s find out.

Tony Heywood is a Fellow of the Design Institute of Australia, founder of Heywood Innovation in Sydney Australia and co-founder of BrandSynergy in Singapore.
tony@heywood.com.au
www.heywood.com.au
www.brandsynergy.com.sg