\u201cIt\u2019s about establishing your internal and your external brand as a company and that it leads to greater employee retention,\u201d O\u2019Keefe said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Takeaways include:<\/p>\n
- \n
- Employees are your best branding tool.<\/li>\n
- Think like a marketer.<\/li>\n
- How to ensure a common brand experience across the employee lifecycle<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
Employees are your best branding tool<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Attracting the future worker is a difficult proposition these days.\u00a0 Consider the cost per hire alone.\u00a0 According to LinkedIn, companies with stronger employer brands<\/a> compared to competitors see, on average, a 43% decrease in the cost per candidate they hire.\u00a0 Why? Companies will benefit from the natural talent attraction traits of an attractive employer brand instead of spending money on advertising and marketing campaigns.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s where employees come into the strategy.\u00a0 Companies with a strong brand stand to grow in profitability.\u00a0 Employees who are able to live and breathe a company\u2019s culture to other employees and potential job candidates have real power over the brand.\u00a0 Employee testimonials can be an incredibly strong tool in both the job market and against competitors.<\/p>\n
Think like a marketer<\/strong><\/h3>\n
In short, it\u2019s important for HR professionals, especially those charged with attracting and retaining employees, develop or attain marketing skills.\u00a0 There is a labor shortage happening at this moment.\u00a0 There are too many jobs and not enough employees.\u00a0 That means everyone is competing for the best talent.\u00a0 In a lot of instances, HR professionals are looking to lure talent from competitor companies.\u00a0 As Mark Schaefer once wrote in the Harvard Business Review<\/a>, HR should \u201ccompete for talent the way companies compete for customers.\u201d<\/p>\n
How to ensure a common brand experience across the<\/strong> employee lifecycle<\/strong><\/a><\/h3>\n
For Associa, O\u2019Keefe says her company takes an inside-out approach to making sure there is a common brand experience for each employee while working as talent in the company\u2019s ranks.\u00a0 In fact, the brand itself is made up of components from each.<\/p>\n
![\"future](\"http:\/\/squarehr.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/future-of-work-and-employer-branding.png\")
<\/p>\n\nCourtesy: Chelle O'Keefe\n<\/pre>\n
O\u2019Keefe says this is critical to their overall employer branding strategy.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt allows you to recruit and retain talent by strengthening your brand,\u201d O\u2019Keefe said.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Keefe\u2019s Take on the Future of Work<\/strong><\/h2>\n
When thinking about human resources, rarely if ever at all, does the word \u2018paradox\u2019 enter one\u2019s mind.<\/p>\n
Merriam-Webster Dictionary<\/a> defines the term as \u201cone (such as a person, situation, or action) having seemingly contradictory qualities or phases.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Associa, the future of work is definitely a paradox.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re in an interesting paradox between all of the AI and machine learning and all the things happening from a digital space.\u00a0 Also, with this idea of work being more human at the same time,\u201d O\u2019Keefe said.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Keefe says they\u2019re trying to figure out the solution to this question:<\/p>\n
\u201cHow do you enable both [technology and humans]in the organization so you can get more efficient at the same time you\u2019re creating a more human experience for employees,\u201d O\u2019Keefe said.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s almost an opposite.\u00a0 How do those opposites come together?\u201d<\/p>\n
O\u2019Keefe feels like the marriage between the two happens through soft skills usage.\u00a0 The problem is, those soft skills are not as developed as they once were.\u00a0 In fact, iCIMS<\/a> says its research found one in three professionals believe soft skills have declined in the last five years.\u00a0 That points to significant problem in that workers don\u2019t know how to develop relationships well anymore.<\/p>\n
And if there is one thing O\u2019Keefe knows for sure, the future of work is going to be more relationship-driven because \u201cthose are the things that computers can\u2019t do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now the question becomes how do HR professionals prepare people for that?<\/p>\n
\u201cIt becomes the company\u2019s responsibility to train millennials and even the new generations on how to actually have relationships and social conversations because they don\u2019t learn it anywhere else,\u201d O\u2019Keefe explained.\u00a0 \u201cSo, how do we as older generations demonstrate the behavior that we\u2019re looking for?\u00a0 It means putting down our technology and having actual conversations, being focused and in the moment, and present because those are things they\u2019re not used to or are not learning.<\/p>\n
HR Exchange Live:\u00a0 Future of Work<\/h2>\n
As mentioned previously, O\u2019Keefe is a member of the speaking faculty for HR Exchange Live:\u00a0 Future of Work.\u00a0 Other speakers include:<\/p>\n
- \n
- Johnny C. Taylor, President and CEO – SHRM<\/li>\n
- Luciana Duarte, Vice President of Employee Experience – HP<\/li>\n
- Jaclyn Lee, CHRO – Singapore University of Technology and Design<\/li>\n
- Luana Matos, CHRO \u2013 Nextel Brasil<\/li>\n
- Horace Porr\u00e1s, VP of HR, Latin America \u2013 American Tower Corp.<\/li>\n
- Dianne Anderson, CEO \u2013 Cylient<\/li>\n
- Paul Mastrangelo, VP of Sales, North America \u2013 CultureIQ<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
For more information and to register for the free-to-attend online event, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n