A Company Isn’t Just A Brand

It’s People

Remember, a company is made up of people ~ people the company serves, people the company hires, and people the company works with.  Developing a brand culture means showcasing people and putting them at the forefront of your external branding strategy.

So how are you going to get new talent hooked on your company?  What they find shouldn’t necessarily be focused on the ins and outs of your products and services, but rather, how your company operates as a team.

In Recruitment, Your Culture Seals The Deal

Company culture directly reflects on a company’s consumer brand, but it also reflects on the perception job seekers will have of your organisation — and what it really would be like to work there. Too often, companies keep their internal culture hidden from the outside world, and it may lead job seekers to think the company has practices it wants to hide, that the existing employees are miserable, or that the company has no interest in ensuring its workers are happy during their time there.

When it comes to recruiting and employee retention, company culture may be more important for job seekers than salary or benefits for determining whether or not they’ll truly be happy in their day-to-day life at your company. Consider this:

• A whopping 89 percent of hiring failures are due to a poor cultural fit.

• Hiring decisions based on interviews alone are accurate only 14 percent of the time.

• Only 36 percent of companies report regularly assessing candidates for cultural fit.

• One-third of companies surveyed reported they never hire for cultural fit.

So if job seekers have the wrong perception of your company culture as soon as they sit down to write their cover letter, who’s really to blame? You.  There’s one thing to keep in mind when creating a great brand culture: the importance of humanising.

Don’t Become Static ~ Create Conversations

Too often, job seekers send a resume and cover letter to an HR manager and hear nothing but silence in return.  They get frustrated, and end up harboring a negative view of the organisation they applied to, thinking the people on the inside don’t care about people who are interested on the outside.

Companies need to allow conversations to occur between current employees and the outside world, but too often, an employer brand doesn’t allow for this communication. Here’s how to open up a dialogue:

• Showcase company culture on social media, the website or blog. Post office photos, videos, interviews with employees and polls to create conversations and allow job seekers an outlet to ask questions and get to know the organisation from the inside.

• Develop a talent community: Create an open Facebook page and invite current employees and prospective job seekers to join. You’ll create a sustainable talent pipeline that works to reinforce your culture and unearth great hires in the process.

A strong company culture helps to boost job awareness and pegs your organisation as a place where employee contributions are the bread and butter of the organisation’s success. Creating an employer brand can help to sell products, but creating a brand culture  humanises your company, framing it as a great place to work.

So is it?  Is is a great place to work?  What does a great place look/feel/sound like?

In organisations where the brand culture is clear and robust, we find superior staff engagement at all levels, across all departments and work groups.  This is where the Agile worksetting really delivers!  Work settings must be agile – fully supportive of worker mobility, new technologies and communication – prominent features of an interconnected workscape are open structures and spatial flexibility and are inspiring, diverse and multifaceted.

Versatile places for communication, cooperation, concentration and recreation are required that have the capacity to inspire creativity and innovate. The office becomes a living space in tune with an urban landscape ~ perfectly tuned in to the four generations at work.

A place where  knowledge transfer, staff engagement and brand culture are valued and desired.

workspaceman  : improved business outcomes from high performance workspace

consult@workspaceman.com