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What shape is your employer brand in for the economic recovery?

Written by Peter Schmitt

Wednesday, 27 January 2010 10:03

Chinese Proverbs, Spanish Geese, Employee Engagement and Your Employer Brand

What do Chinese proverbs, Spanish geese, Employee Engagement and Your Employer Brand have in common you may ask? Not a lot directly. But indirectly, some surprising commonalities emerge to provide some significant pointers as you consider the impact of the global recession on employee engagement and your employer brand.

There is a Chinese Proverb which reads “Make happy those who are near, and those who are far will come.”

I watched a video from TED (www.ted.com) recently. A parable by an American chef called Dan Barber about foie-gras (specially fattened goose or duck liver). Now if you have any interest in cooking or food, you will know that foie-gras is the chef’s favourite ingredient. Its taste: rich, buttery. Its texture: delicate, unctuous. Its versatility in cooking: from appetizers to entrees to mains to deserts. It’s just sublime. The problem comes with how it’s produced. The fattening is typically achieved through ‘gavage’ - being force-fed corn. In Anglo-Saxon countries, this poses a problem to many, causing emotional outbursts amongst animal-rights supporters, restaurants to be boycotted and the production and sale of it has even been banned in several states across America.

This parable however spoke of a different scenario for geese on a farm in Spain’s western region of Extremadura. Local farmer Eduardo Sousa typically raises around 1,000 or so geese each year allowing them to roam freely, on a farm that replicates the wild as closely as possible, eating their fill of acorns and olives. Because they're not domesticated, their natural instinct takes over. When the weather turns cold and it's time for them to migrate, they start gorging to excess in preparation for their migratory flight. The result is a fattened liver that, while smaller than conventional foie-gras, is delicious enough to have won France's prestigious Coup de Coeur award.

But the truly amazing thing about Sousa’s flock of geese is that when wild geese fly over the farm on their migratory path, the geese below call out to them. The wild geese come down to investigate and many stay behind, mating with the geese on the farm – staying on to become Sousa’s next batch of ethically produced award winning foie-gras. Not because they are forced to stay but because they want to stay.

Actually, this is also a parable about employee engagement and employer branding.
As we move out of a global recession that stopped companies in their tracks and employees in a state of fright largely due to the fact we haven’t experienced anything of this magnitude before. Latest research shows an impending migration of large numbers of people for supposed greener pastures. Departures largely due to the mistakes we’ve made in dealing with them during the last 18 months. The biggest issue: many haven’t been looked after during the downturn. So they’re unsatisfied, unfulfilled and unhappy.

But they’re not talking traditional employee satisfaction (salaries, benefits, training, etc). They’re talking about respect, trust, freedom and communication. Respect for who they are and what they’re capable of and enough trust to communicate and share the business strategy with them. The sort of detail we usually reserve for the elite few of the executive leadership team or the inner circle. The good things and the bad things. The truth.

The reality is that when we realise our people are capable of handling the truth, we’ll be better off. And the sooner we realise they’re capable of understanding strategy and then putting it to work, we’ll be streets ahead.

When it comes to shaping and defining your employer brand, the biggest inputs to the process, together with visionary leadership and succinct communication, should be your corporate strategy. Combined, these are the most attractive components which appeal to most talent. It is this combination that engages and motivates talent to deliver beyond all expectations.

Your employer brand, if articulated correctly should also demonstrate the level of employee engagement across the organisation. Through its development, purely by including them in the process, employees start to get an understanding of the company's strategy and purpose that may not otherwise have been obvious. This enhances employee engagement through a clear understanding of what the business is about and what is expected of employees.

This makes people happy. Happy people stay in organisations - and happy people talk about what makes them happy to others. Ambassadorship and endorsement is the most authentic way of communicating your employer brand. This draws good people in their droves. Just like farmer Sousa trusts his geese to stick around on his farm that causes them to invite other geese to come and stay.

And in the process we’ll be rewarded for making them happy and fulfilled.

About the author

Peter Schmitt is Managing Director and Brand Strategist at Tribalfish
Passionate, curious, irreverent and entrepreneurial, Peter established tribalfish to fulfil a lifelong passion for connecting people to a purpose. The foray has given him great insights into how brands are defined and how they align and engage with the psyche of employees who deliver the brand promise. Peter’s work is focused on partnering with businesses to define their brand and authentic positioning to attract and retain people aligned with stakeholder objectives and who are committed to deliver on the brand promise. Tribalfish is a market leader in employer branding with global clients such as British American Tobacco, FBME Bank, Nakheel and Hitachi Data Systems.

Peter will be presenting at 2010 South African Employer Branding Summit in Johannesburg on 23 March 2010.

For further details about the Summit please click here>

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