There’s been a lot of discussion lately over how employers can navigate the growing skills gap in the American workforce. In addition to adjusting compensation levels, retraining workers and refocusing recruiting efforts, one of the most effective ways employers can help ensure they bring in the qualified candidates they need is one they should already be doing: strengthening their employer brand.
Companies like Pepsico and AT&T have recently begun their own employer branding campaigns with the aim to build awareness about what it means to work for them and attract more relevant candidates to their open positions. Already known for their strong consumer brands, these companies realize having a strong employment brand as well will give them an edge in recruiting the most in-demand workers by positioning them as an “employer of choice” in the eyes of quality job candidates.
So then what, exactly, constitutes a “strong” employer brand? Generally, there are five ways to tell if an employer has an employer brand that effectively communicates the right message to the right audiences, according to Keith Hadley, Senior Director of Employment Branding Services at CareerBuilder. Below is a checklist you can apply as you evaluate your own employment brand.
Five Tests of a Strong Employment Brand
Is it attractive? Are the benefits and opportunities you offer attractive to potential job seekers? In order to answer this question, you first need to consider your audience. Keep in mind that workers’ wants and needs vary depending on age and situation. For example, while younger workers might seek employers who offer ample advancement opportunities, older workers might be more focused on flexible schedules and retirement benefits. Rather than having a one-size-fits-all marketing strategy, tailor your message to speak to and attract different audiences.
Is it authentic? Do you practice what you preach? Your brand should reflect the authentic work experience at your company; otherwise, I guarantee you people will find out: Thanks to sites like Yelp and Glassdoor, where employees discuss and rate their employers anonymously, it’s virtually impossible for companies to hide their true employer brands today. Not convinced? Search your company on one of these sites to see what people are saying about you. If you don’t like what you see, go straight to the source to see where you can make changes. Host an open forum to generate honest discussion and feedback or utilize employee surveys to find out your organizations of strength as well as opportunities for improvement.
Is it embraced? Does everyone – from the top down – believe in the brand and live it each day? A brand is an extension of the vision your leaders have for you as an employer. A well-defined employment brand aligns employee and management expectations so that promises made during the hiring process are delivered. Therefore it is critical your leaders work each and every day to deliver on these promises and reinforce the brand.
Is it unique? “Employment branding is about knowing who you are as an employer, but just as importantly, it’s about knowing who you aren’t,” employment branding expert Mary Delaney has said. Building a strong employment brand isn’t about trying to be Google or Apple; it’s about focusing on what makes your company unlike any other place to work. The best way to stand out is to find out which companies you might be competing with for workers, and then focus on what differentiates you from them.
Is it consistent? In order for any branding to be effective, it must be consistent. Would job seekers get the same impression about your employer brand from your company’s career site as they would when visiting your Facebook page? What about if they saw a job ad online or read it in a newspaper? What about if they talked to one of your employees? If you want to make a lasting impression on job seekers, you must ensure the message you send out is consistent across every possible employee touch point.
Easy, right? Okay, yes, it’s a lot to take in, and taking on such an all-encompassing initiative can be overwhelming. Fortunately, however, there are third party service providers available to help you evaluate your current employment brand and look at ways to enhance your efforts. CareerBuilder, for instance, offers Employment Branding services – including candidate and employee research, brand message development and creative – to help companies of all sizes build a foundation for a strong employment brand.
And if there’s any doubt as to whether building your employer brand is worth the investment, consider the words of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos in a recent interview in Wired:
“If everything you do needs to work on a three-year time horizon, then you’re competing against a lot of people. But if you’re willing to invest on a seven-year time horizon, you’re now competing against a fraction of those people, because very few companies are willing to do that. Just by lengthening the time horizon, you can engage in endeavors that you could never otherwise pursue.”
Bezos’ statement is just as true of employment branding. The efforts you make today to recruit and retain quality employees will help your business stay competitive in the long run.
Many companies are making great strides in social media recruiting. This is good – social media is an excellent place to find passive and active candidates, and connect with them on a more personal level.
In addition to talking on social media, are you listening? Listening is a key strategy for engaging with individuals on social media. In order to maximize the benefit, you should follow these steps to listen efficiently.
Comb through reviews on social media and job feedback sites. In addition to your Facebook and Twitter accounts, sites like Jobitorial (formerly Jobvent) and Glassdoor can help you figure out if your employment branding strategies are working. Jobitorial and Glassdoor feature anonymous reviews of your company from employees and potential employees. Jobitorial offers employee perspectives, and Glassdoor gets further in-depth by including salary information, interview feedback and more. Both sites offer rankings one through five.
Look for negative and positive patterns. Do employees consistently feel that the benefits are great? Do they think the interview process was lengthy and cumbersome? Are the salaries fair? Track these patterns and make adjustments internally, if needed and feasible. To be even more strategic, check in on specific dates and update your spreadsheet or tracking document to see how things have changed.
Use the patterns to inform your employment branding strategy. Maybe job seekers are saying that your four-hour interview process is daunting. Can you change it? Experimenting with it might result in happier job seekers and a better employment brand overall.
Take stock of employee reviews and see what can be changed. Are employees from one location all complaining about a manager? Maybe you need to talk with the manager about his/her work style. Are all the employees incredibly happy with the office vacation policy? Maybe this is something that should be touted more to interviewees and potential employees! You can uncover benefits you didn’t even know you had, just by listening.
Look at consumer sites, too. If your company offers a consumer service or product, checking in with review sites like Yelp can help you see how your employees are faring. Traditionally, happy employees are happy to provide good customer service. Problems may indicate areas for improvement in your management or training styles.
Monitor other social media commentary to get the full picture. Sites like Socialmention and Klout can provide insight into what people are saying about you on social media as well as how you are performing. These insights can give you focus areas and direction for your social media strategy.
To get the most out of your social media endeavors, incorporate listening fully into your strategy! What are some of your favorite “listening” sites?
Have you ever compared the experience job seekers go through when searching for a job to the experience you go through when, say, buying a car? Believe it or not, the two experiences are more closely linked than you may realize. We have specific reasons for deciding to go through with a car purchase — or walk away from it — and the same is true for job seekers considering your company as a future employer in their job search process.
The experience you provide job seekers through your recruitment process is something they will evaluate, engage with, and accept or reject, ultimately deciding whether or not to “make a purchase.” A new CareerBuilder and Inavero study of more than 4,500 workers demonstrates that that decision can happen at any point in the job search process, from the time they first start thinking about searching for a new job to the moment they have your offer letter in front of them — and everywhere in between.
The job seeker/employer relationship: It’s complicated
Today’s job search experience looks drastically different from several years or even several months ago, and it continues to evolve. Now, although job boards still have a prominent place in the job search, the job search experience has become much more complex. When job seekers embark on a job search, they are actively using five specific methods to find their next job: Search engines; vertical sites (job boards and aggregators); social media; corporate and career sites; and user-generated content sites. They are using these five platforms in different ways and with varied intensity as they move through four distinct phases of the job search — Orientation, Consideration, Action, and Engagement.
To effectively build and manage your company’s employment brand, reach a large segment of the many job seekers you’re missing out on, and continue to position yourself as a visible and desirable place to work in today’s rapidly changing world, you must have a diversified recruitment strategy that incorporates these five platforms — and you must understand the mindset and behavior of job seekers as they move through the four stages of the job search process.
Job seekers have changed — have you?
The CareerBuilder and Inavero study takes you through a job seeker’s typical job search experience as it happens in today’s recruitment environment, a time in which job seekers are hungry for information and have a wealth of online resources at their fingertips. Long gone are the days of faxing or mailing a resume and simply waiting passively to hear back from an employer — today’s job seeker is much more hands-on.
By learning what job seekers are thinking and doing as they move through four distinct job search phases (Orientation, Consideration, Action, and Engagement) and crafting your strategy to align with those thoughts and behaviors, you’ll be equipped to reach the best candidates for your open jobs, position yourself as a strong and desirable brand, and ensure your approach is consistent from phase to phase.
The Four Phases of the Job Search
Phase I: Orientation — This phase consists of a job seeker’s self-evaluation and evaluation of the market. Ninety-seven percent of job seekers reported self-evaluation as one of the first five things they did when starting a search.
Phase II: Consideration – During this phase, the job search moves from a solitary to an interactive, social experience. Job seekers are seeking to validate the brands in their consideration set by posting on social media platforms and user-generated content sites, and collecting opinions from members of their online social and professional networks in order to narrow their focus to a handful of jobs.
Phase III: In this phase, a job seeker is going through the action of applying to jobs.
Phase IV: In this last phase, job seekers are interacting with employers and actively interviewing. Although the majority of research on a company is completed pre-interview, job seekers are conducting social research in this last phase by having personal conversations with employees of your company or close family and friends.
(Learn about the job seekers’ mindset and behavior during each of the four job search phases here.)
The importance of a great recruitment experience
Job seekers today are largely dissatisfied with the current hiring process offered by companies. Only 10 percent of respondents said companies they have reached out to have been responsive. The impact of this is immense: Nearly half (40 percent) of job seekers strongly agree that a poor application experience impacts their job decision. In fact, it might surprise you to find out that more than one in 10 people turn down a job at least once a month.
Bad experiences during and after the application process can easily negate the work and strategic investment in media you’ve made to bring the best talent onto your team.
Begin to create a more candidate-centric recruitment process by adding a human touch:
Communicate with candidates when at all possible, and let them know where they stand as the process moves from phase to phase.
Unplug cumbersome technology and flawed screening filters, and provide feedback and coaching.
View all candidates as a customer or potential future customer, client or employee.
Get the most out of the resources you’re investing by being responsive — in the long run, you will get better quality talent, protect your employment brand, and maintain a better reputation with clients (who once may have been your candidates).
Getting them to say “yes”
Job seekers are using a wide range of methods to find the right jobs, and by gaining a large presence through these methods, you will deepen your talent pool, engage and create trust with candidates early on, find more diverse candidates for your open positions, and, ultimately, improve your bottom line. Start thinking of your recruitment experience as a consumer product — and start
getting more job seekers to consider your brand, like what they see, and say “Yes.”
For details on job seeker behavior and mindset within the four job search phases and our recommended strategies for best connecting with job seekers at each point in the process, download the full report or learn more about adding the right platforms to your recruitment mix.
This post originally appeared on TLNT, an HR blog about “The Business of HR,” with news, insight, and topical information from experts and thought leaders in HR, talent management, and all areas related to HR and managing a workforce.
As the nation’s economy begins to stabilize following one of the deepest recessions felt across the globe, employers are shifting their focus from cost containment to growth and have begun to hire again.
They have also taken on the challenge of repairing employment brands which may have been affected by tough decisions around layoffs, compensation reductions or negative press tied to financial hardship. In a recent CareerBuilder study of more than 2,700 hiring managers, 70 percent of employers said they are taking measures today to strengthen their employment brand to prepare for when the economy turns around.
Employers are facing new market realities and need to reassess their go-to-market game plan for expanding their talent bench. Through an “Applicant Experience Survey” of more than 1 million job seekers over the last year, Personified, the talent intelligence and consulting division of CareerBuilder, gathered information on what job seekers said motivates them to apply, what deters them and how elements of the recruitment process impact their perceptions of a potential employer.
From the survey and other Personified research came a rebuttal of six common myths around talent acquisition that are important to keep in mind when planning recruitment strategies for 2011.
Myth #1 – The top competitor for talent is in your industry. Personified looked at a variety of companies, tracking who applied to their jobs and where else those candidates applied. On average, in 80 percent of the cases, the top competitor for talent operated outside of the company’s industry.
Tip: Expand your reach beyond industry borders to build up your talent pool for hard-to-fill and high volume positions. Use social media, niche sites and targeted advertising to connect with other workforce segments with comparable skill sets.
Myth #2 – I can wait until social media is better tested before incorporating it into my recruitment plan. Waiting will likely translate into a competitive disadvantage. One-in-four job seekers expect companies to have a presence on social media today. More than half become fans or followers of a company through social media because they would like to work there.
Tip: Master one social medium before going to other platforms. Promote the unique benefits of working at your company, cite awards received, include employee testimonials, highlight jobs and keep an open dialogue with visitors.
Myth #3 – The top motivator for applying to a company is salary. While compensation is one of the first things job seekers will look for, it is often not included in job ads. When asked which factors were most influential in getting the candidate to apply to a recent job posting, location topped the list followed by the company’s reputation and whether the industry itself was considered desirable. Interesting assignments also made the top five, ranking higher than benefits and work-life balance.
Tip: In the wake of a recession that was fraught with uncertainty, emphasizing the stability and longevity of the company and positives about the industry is a necessity. You also have to really sell the position if you want a top performer, presenting exciting opportunities and specific examples of a work experience they won’t find anywhere else.
Myth #4 – When a job seeker speaks to a company recruiter or hiring manager, they typically walk away with a better perception of the company. One-in-five job seekers (22 percent) who recently spoke to a representative at a potential employer didn’t feel the person was knowledgeable about the company and position. Twenty-five percent didn’t think the representative was enthusiastic about the company being an employer of choice.
Tip: From the recruiter to the hiring manager, the greatest ambassadors of your employment brand are your current employees. Regularly survey new hires and job applicants to identify where improvements can be made in verbal and written communications.
Myth #5 – The failure to acknowledge an application won’t impact the company image. Some 38 percent of job seekers reported they have a worse opinion of an employer who didn’t respond to their application. Another 30 percent stated they were less inclined to buy goods or services from companies who don’t acknowledge applications.
Tip: If limited resources and large volumes of applications prohibit a customized response, at the very least, set up an automatic reply with a quick note on the time frame of hiring, so the candidate knows you received his/her application and is aware of your hiring timeline.
Myth #6 – The main deterrent from applying to a job is typically content-related. While the content of a job advertisement is undoubtedly critical, the main cause for drop-offs in the application process is often technology-related. Nearly one-in-four (23 percent) of job seekers reported that they recently quit in the middle of applying to a position because the link didn’t work. Some 20 percent cited a computer/Internet connection issue.
Tip: Triple check links on your company career page, online job sites, social media pages, etc. to make sure the connection is live and leading to the right information.
GUEST CONTIBUTOR: Co-Authored by Mary Delaney, President for Personified, a division of CareerBuilder, and Sanja Licina, Ph.D., Senior Director of Talent Intelligence and Consulting for Personified.
In the following excerpt from CareerBuilder’s recent interview with Joseph Phelan, chief executive officer of Sunbelt Rentals, Inc., he discusses the importance of empowering employees and turning every manager into a talent manager.
What is your philosophy as it relates to people and their impact on your daily business?
Our people at Sunbelt Rentals are core to our business. The more than 2,200 different types of construction, industrial and do it yourself equipment along with 350 locations across the country by themselves will not make us unique. Our customers are looking for not just a national network with a wide breadth of equipment; they need these products to be supported by helpful, caring and knowledgeable employees who are motivated to provide good service with each and every transaction. The hardest thing to duplicate in this equation is having talented people who really care about our customers and are trained sufficiently to provide the best service in the industry – this is the real differentiator for us at Sunbelt Rentals.
How do you engage with and relate to your employees?
As a management team we engage with our employees by ensuring we create lots of opportunities for open and honest communications. Our people strategy is centered around hiring highly motivated/energetic people, providing the training needed to excel, setting performance expectations, measuring performance and providing ongoing performance feedback and recognition. With more than 350 stores across the U.S. it is critical that we rely on multiple channels for communication. To do this our employees are measured at the store level, provided monthly performance/dashboard information. We start each day talking about safety by engaging in flex and stretch with our field employees. This sends an important message to them about how we feel and how important it is to us that they return home in the same good condition them came to us in. In addition to the daily flex and stretch, we hold monthly performance meetings at each store, quarterly town hall meetings, and bi-annual senior leadership meetings. Our senior team spends the majority of their time in the field with customers and employees – this is the best way for us to stay close to our business and to quickly react to the needs of our customers.
How do you define Sunbelt Rental’s culture? As a leader what role do you play and what is your impact on the culture?
Our culture is entrepreneurial and our employees are empowered to do what makes the most sense for our customers and the business. It is my belief that if provided good communications regarding our vision and strategy and we provide the necessary tools and support, our employees will make the right decisions. We are very agile for a large company and make it easy for our employees to access management at every level.
Some people believe HR to be the only department with a responsibility for the organization’s people. Can you tell me how you make your overall talent strategy a priority and the role you play in driving it?
Let’s start with driving talent strategy. At Sunbelt Rentals, we believe that every manager should be a talent manager. We are constantly working to make this belief a reality by building programs that focus on the right metrics across all levels of the organization. We also hold our managers accountable through regular performance evaluations and dashboards that update key performance indicators every month. Using the right metrics to put our customer’s front and center provides a consistent rallying cry throughout the organization. It is hard to argue with doing the right thing – we call it “making it happen for our customers”.
How have you leveraged your brand to grow your business?
Our employment brand and our “brand” are one and the same. We are focused on making it happen for our customers. What is critical for us is to make sure we continue to hire professionals with the right attitude, drive and enthusiasm. Then we must educate them on our culture, mission, vision, values and brand. These steps followed by setting expectations, providing regular performance feedback and rewarding employees for good performance have helped us rally our employees. Most or our employees are interested in growth and you can hear of many success stories throughout the organization of employees rising up in the organization to new challenges and opportunities. If these steps are followed, we’ll continue to have dedicated employees.
Can you give me one or two examples of how one person had a major impact at Sunbelt Rentals?
One of the great things about Sunbelt Rentals is that our employees truly work together to make it happen for our customers. This collaborative effort is what sets us apart from our competitors and creates the team atmosphere needed to deliver the high service levels we set. Every day we have examples of employees in a host of positions who go above and beyond the call of duty. This includes mechanics, counter personnel, branch managers, Vice Presidents and support office employees. Every level of the Company is represented. To give you examples of how our team members pull together, we have had people working around the clock to help our customers and the communities in which they live in times of natural disasters. The floods in Nashville and St. Louis represent perfect examples. During Hurricane Katrina, our branch manager made sure the location was open in order to serve those in need. We had teams of volunteers who traveled to New Orleans from our support office and other branch locations to make sure we could provide as much support as possible. But, we also have employees who will gladly run out to a customer’s home to fix a down piece of equipment or provide needed advice on a Saturday afternoon.
Some people believe HR to be the only department with a responsibility for the organization’s people. Can you tell me how you make your overall talent strategy a priority and the role you play in driving it?
To be a good leader you also have to know when to get out of the way and follow. One person can’t take the headwind constantly and providing opportunities for others to demonstrate leadership skills is not only a learning experience for them but will be for you as well. Leaders must also be good communicators and listening is one of the most important attributes of communication. Listening skills start with creating the opportunities to receive input from customers and employees. Creating these opportunities will strengthen an organization as well as allow it to run faster than you could ever imagine.
ABOUT JOSEPH PHELAN: Joe Phelan brings more than 25 years of experience, visionary style and inspired leadership to Sunbelt Rentals. With a solid understanding of the industry and an impressive management background, he was named to this position in April 2009. Mr. Phelan joined Ashtead from Deutsche Post DHL, where he served as Chief Executive Officer of DHL Global Mail based in Weston, Florida. Before joining DHL in 2004, he held a number of senior executive positions with American Airlines. He has been an Executive Director of Ashtead Group plc since April 23, 2009. Joe is a native of southern California. He holds an MBA from the University of Dallas, and a BA, Business Administration from California State University.
ABOUT SUNBEST RENTALS, INC.: Sunbelt Rentals prides themselves on their people. They realize that their national network of construction and industrial equipment rental stores, with more than $2B in equipment and small tools for do it yourselfers to large national contractors, can be duplicated by others. What is most difficult to duplicate is the talent of the 5,000 employees pulling together to make it happen for their customers. Their employment brand and the external brand they go to market with is built on dedicated and committed employees who feel empowered to do what makes the most sense for our customers. By creating the environment for their employees to excel with this vision, they create opportunities for career growth, successes for our customers and growth for our shareholders.
When it comes to finding the best employee for a position, many organizations are now turning to alternate routes. Our complex and competitive business landscape has created an imperative need for a well positioned employment brand. Businesses traditionally relied upon industry contacts, expertise, job boards, and third-party recruiters to uncover the best match, but today the majority of corporations are also embracing social media as a leading recruiting tool.
In order to successfully utilize social media as part of a recruiting strategy, it is first necessary to understand how your target audience is using LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and other sites to land jobs. The most obvious reason job seekers use social media is to source companies for open positions. For example, TwitJobSearch is a social media job search engine that candidates rely upon as a resource to find open positions that are not always posted on job boards or company sites. Moreover, job seekers use online media to verse themselves in the culture of a target company. Job seekers study company pages on social media sites to gather insight about the company’s culture via photos, videos, and information provided by the corporation. Companies such as MTV Networks have successfully built their presence on social media sites by encouraging users to ask questions, offer info, and seek advice. Through its Facebook page – MTV Networks Careers – the entertainment leader sparks engagement with users, responds to questions, and posts open positions.
Lured by news, rumors, and trends, people are drawn to online media sites by the appeal of industry chatter. Professionals with social media know-how realize that industry chatter is an extremely valuable resource for gaining new and important information that can make them better candidates in the interview process. Job seekers in search of firsthand user-to-user information can easily connect with current and ex-employees through social media outlets. A directory of people organized by area of expertise, profession, and hundreds of other categories is available to the public on Twellow, the yellow pages for Twitter. LinkedIn provides similar information. Candidates also use social media sites to scope out recruiters and hiring managers to determine if they are a compatible match, and to gain helpful information for potential interviews and conversations. To find excellent advice that is pertinent to a specific situation, job seekers follow and connect with job search experts in the social media sphere. Many such experts exist offering daily advice. Ideas, tips, leads, news, informative articles and best practices can be accessed at the touch of a finger by using Twellow’s job search to find people to follow who send out helpful information. The vast array of social media tools now makes it possible for bold job seekers to attempt to engineer their own opportunities instead of waiting to be uncovered by recruiters and hiring managers. Some follow employees at their target company until news of a fitting open position arises while others network their way into new positions by engaging in strategic conversations with potential leads.
By understanding why job seekers use social media to land jobs, companies can leverage their activity to more effectively and efficiently recruit new employees. When using social media as part of a recruiting strategy, it is important to create a consistent and automated method for uncovering the social identity of job seekers. Sites like TiVo makes job opportunities accessible across major social media platforms so that anyone can post, direct message or update their status. Corporations can benefit from the opportunity to build relationships with candidates in their target audiences by maintaining an official company presence on social media sites. By following relevant people and igniting conversations, organizations can begin to create a healthy level of influence over their brand – a clear best practices in the social media sphere. Moreover, companies can determine what type of information fuels the jobseekers’ interest by listening to the candidates and then provide that content on their social media platforms. In order to avoid an influx of irrelevant offers to their job posts, however, it is necessary for businesses to refine their searches by specifically targeting candidates by location, career interests, and other top candidate profile credentials.
Through social media platforms, companies can connect to talent anywhere in the world and access personal information about top industry leaders. Social media is as valuable resource for organizations of all kinds and sizes to build employment brands and make the right candidate connections. It is equally as productive for job seekers, creating a platform where companies and talent alike can connect directly with multiple stakeholders in their target audience.
In the following excerpt from CareerBuilder’s recent interview with Martha O’Gorman, chief marketing officer of Liberty Tax Service, she discusses the importance of hiring the right people for the right jobs, the value of company culture and engaging brand advocates.
Liberty Tax Service has been the recipient of several awards in the past couple years – which of these are you most proud of and why?
We’re proud of all of them, but I think the one that we’re most proud of is one that we just received locally from Inside Businessmagazine, calling Liberty Tax Service “one of the best places to work in Hampton Roads” (which is the Tidewater Region of Virginia). To be named the best place to work in an entire metropolitan region was really special to us because we really embrace our culture, and we are proud to be recognized as a great place to work. Our rankings in Entrepreneur Magazine also stand out because that’s an industry-wide franchise publication that many people refer to when they’re looking to purchase a franchise opportunity. To be recognized by them as one of the fastest growing franchise opportunities – and one of the best out of 500 opportunities – is good for the franchise system in general.
The Liberty Tax Service franchise opportunity is #9 on the fastest growing franchises list of the 2010 Entrepreneur “Franchise 500.” To what do you attribute your growth?
I think the number one thing is the experience of the management team. Our CEO, John Hewitt, founded Jackson Hewitt Tax Service in 1982 and grew that to a very large franchise system, a system that today still bears his name. I, myself, am one of the founders of Liberty Tax Service, and I have over 20 years of experience in the income tax industry. When we decided to start another income tax company, we made a bunch of rules: to learn by our mistakes, to help foster the culture, and to promote people to jobs that they were good at. I think that the reason that we’ve been so successful is because we have been able to hire the right people, make them happy and then bring on great franchisees.
How would you describe your philosophy as it relates to people and their impact on your daily business?
I believe that people should be left to do their jobs. I don’t believe that [micro management] fosters creativity and excitement in the workplace. My personal philosophy is to hire the right people, give them their job description and what their key result areas are, and then let them go ahead and figure out how they are going to achieve those results. One of the principles of our company is, “Mistakes are a wise person’s education.” We believe that nobody’s perfect, and you’re going to make mistakes, and your mistake is like an education. We [as managers] are here to guide you, but you’ve got some freedoms and some flexibility to make your own decisions on how you’re going to run your business.
How do you engage and relate to your people? What experiences or lessons influence your leadership style?
Many folks who work with me have been with me for a long time, from the beginning of starting Liberty Tax Service. We are, as a group and as a department, very tight. There’s a lot of laughing that goes on, but when the work needs to get done, we push to be the best and to really get results because everybody is proud to be a part of the marketing department. If I attribute anything to my management style, it’s the fact that I let people do their jobs. I truly believe that you can have fun every single minute you’re at work if you enjoy what you’re doing.
How do people affect your business, particularly as it relates to your revenue stream?
We manage our employees though the position-results description method: Our employees set a goal for what their job is, and then there are key result areas that they agree with their manager are “the things that I am going to achieve this year.” We make sure that each key result area is measurable, but we also make sure that they are attainable. We work together throughout the year to make sure that everybody is on track. It’s a really good way to kind of put your goals down on paper and then track if you are achieving them.
Some people believe HR to be the only department with a responsibility for the organization’s people, yet you’ve made your overall talent strategy a priority in your role. Tell me about that.
I think our company operates quite a bit differently from some other large companies to attract good people. We have a referral program that motivates our employees and our franchisees to seek out good people. Our HR department is not a traditional HR department. They help us with issues, but when it comes to the actual hiring process, it is really left up to the managers to find and interview those people and make the hiring decision. We look for the right people, we bring them on, we test them in different positions, and we find the right job for them. It really boils down to this: you’ve got to hire for attitude and then train for skill. If somebody doesn’t have the right attitude, it doesn’t matter what job you put them in, they are not going to perform. We like to hire people who are happy, positive, and willing to stretch and to learn.
I understand that Liberty Tax Service doesn’t advertise nationally, and you’ve relied heavily on guerilla marketing with wavers and franchisees generating most of the buzz about your brand in the market. How have you used social media to extend your non-traditional marketing to reach a wider audience, centralize marketing efforts, and preserve your brand?
We’re new to social media. We knew that we needed to be involved in that, but we weren’t really sure how to do it. The first thing we did was hire an online brand manager who has experience in that environment. We’ve relied pretty heavily on the folks at CareerBuilder to help guide us through that and give us ideas on how we can better position ourselves on the web with social media.
We don’t believe in traditional national advertising. Television has lost a lot of its effectiveness. We continue have a very high percentage increase in business every year, and I attribute it to the fact that we’re doing non-traditional things, whereas our competitors are still acting very traditionally when it comes to media and to advertising.
We’ve developed a persona: We’ve developed a Facebook page that is dedicated to “Libby” and her adventures going across the United States and what she is going to encounter during tax season. We also have a traditional Facebook page where people can ask questions and we can post tax tips. Building the friend base has been very easy. People are interested, especially during tax time. Everybody has to file taxes, so you have a ready-made base of people who are seeking information, and we’ve found a fun way to do it through the interaction on the social media sites. And it has been very successful for us so far.
Tax preparation is a very personal service, and communicating on a one-on-one basis is far more meaningful to our customers than mass media advertising.
What lessons have you learning along the way in regards to social media?
One lesson we’ve learned is that you need to have a solid background in what your strategy is and how you’re going to implement it. I think you can hurt yourself very easily by going out onto Facebook or Twitter and not understanding what the rules of engagement are. You can kill your image as quickly as you can build your image if you don’t respect those parameters.
When we started, we were dabbling in it and didn’t really have a firm grasp of what we should be doing. I think we made some wise decisions by getting help from people who understood the space and could make some recommendations on how we should move forward. I feel really comfortable with where we are now with our social media presence, because we are moving through the environment in a way that is not only proper, but also fun and inviting for the people who are participating on our sites.
How have you leveraged your employment brand to grow your business? Why is this important to you?
It may sound cliché, but we have a group of advocates out in the marketplace, in virtually every DMA in the country who really love Liberty Tax Service, and who love working for Liberty Tax Service. So we’ve got this band of advocates who are out there singing our praises. Just last weekend I was at an office and there was a waver out on the street, and we had three separate people walk in and say, “How do I get that cool job? I’d like to have that job.” It’s rewarding and gratifying, but it also lets you know that people are noticing us and they understand what it means to be part of Liberty Tax Service. We’re just doing an outstanding job of recruiting the right people, showing them the right way to do business, and they in turn tell everybody they know.
Can you give me one or two examples of how one person had a major impact at Liberty Tax?
I would have to start with our CEO, John Hewitt. John is the consummate workaholic. He is constantly striving for betterment: both betterment of the company and giving the people who work within the company the opportunity to continue to grow and to achieve. His leadership, wisdom and vision are paramount to the success of our company. We like to call him the granddaddy of the industry. His wealth of experience and knowledge is unsurpassed in the income tax industry and in business circles in general.
Then I would have to use the franchisees, collectively, as our second group of people who propelled Liberty Tax Service to where we are today. We’ve got, I think, an unusual group of franchisees. Our franchisees are very entrepreneurial and are constantly bringing us all kinds of great ideas. And they bring them to the table with passion and understanding of what it’s like to be out in the field and on the front lines with the customers. They’re all just very, very motivated and really love what they are doing: They’re the kind of people that you want to hang out with.
What other advice would you share through this piece?
My advice to anyone who is looking to start a business or to re-engineer their business is to look outside of what you know. Just because this is the way that we’ve always done it doesn’t mean that’s the way that it always needs to be done. And that applies to virtually any business – whether it’s manufacturing, retail, science, or anything – because if you don’t look for a different way of doing things, you’re going to get the same results you’ve always gotten.
John likes to say, “If you do what you always did, then you’re going to get what you always got.” Another one of our principles is to break boundaries. You have to take those risks. You have to be able to steel yourself and say, “Okay, I’ve never done this before, but now I’m going to figure out how to do it and here’s the goal that we’re going after.”
Liberty Tax Service is the fastest growing retail tax preparation company in the industry’s history. Founded in 1997 by CEO John T. Hewitt, Liberty Tax Service has prepared over 7,000,000 individual income tax returns. Liberty Tax Service provides computerized income tax preparation, electronic filing and online filing through eSmart Tax. Each office offers customers audit assistance, a money back guarantee and free tax return checking. The Liberty Tax Service franchise opportunity is #9 on the fastest growing franchises list of the 2010 Entrepreneur “Franchise 500.” For more information on Liberty Tax visitwww.libertytax.com
Amid news of strides toward economic recovery and growth in 2010, organizations are still facing a myriad of staffing challenges this year, according to a new CareerBuilder survey conducted in November 2009 among more than 2,700 employers. Employers listed a number of factors with which they are struggling — covering everything from handling worker burnout to strengthening their employment brand. In looking at employers’ responses, it’s also evident that many of these challenges are interconnected.
What are survey respondents’ top five staffing concerns?
Ten percent of employers also expressed concern about the difficulty of strengthening their company’s employment brand after layoffs or cutbacks.
Despite these challenges, it appears that many employers are determined to find ways to keep talented employees on their payroll. Among them:
Offering more flexible work arrangements (28 percent)
Investing more into training (21 percent)
Promising future benefits like raises or promotions when the economy picks up (18 percent)
Offering more performance-based incentives like trips and bonuses (16 percent)
Providing higher salary without the title (11 percent)
Providing both higher title and salary (10 percent)
Providing higher title without the salary (7 percent)
Only 6 percent of employers responded by saying they haven’t been able to hold on to top talent.
“Retention is just one area that companies will need to address to maintain and grow their businesses this year,” said Jason Ferrara, vice president of corporate marketing for CareerBuilder. “Having the right people on board is a top concern. Our survey found that forty percent of companies are concerned about top workers leaving their organization in 2010 and that nearly one in five think morale at their company is poor. At the same time, companies have their eyes on future hiring challenges, especially as the economy moves into recovery.”
What do you anticipate as your biggest recruitment challenge this year?
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There’s been a lot of discussion lately over how employers can navigate the growing skills gap in the American workforce. In addition to adjusting compensation levels, retraining workers and refocusing recruiting efforts, one of the most effective ways employers can help ensure they bring in the qualified candidates they need is one they should already be doing: strengthening their employer brand.
Have you ever compared the experience job seekers go through when searching for a job to the experience you go through when, say, buying a car? Believe it or not, the two experiences are more closely linked than you may realize. We have specific reasons for deciding to go through with a car purchase — or walk away from it — and the same is true for job seekers considering your company as a future employer in their job search process.
