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How to Build an Employee Ambassador Program

Culture, Employer Branding, Recruitment

Graphic for an article on employee ambassador programs

Ever wonder how some organizations have the coolest employer branding content? There is spirit, fun, and personality…so what makes it so interesting? It’s the authenticity shared through images and video that depict the organizational energy. This can’t be manufactured. So how do they do it? Enter the employee ambassador program…

Employee ambassador programs have become increasingly popular in recent years as companies recognize the value of having their team capture the real deal. By empowering your employees to be social scouts and brand ambassadors, one is better able to provide what we like to call “a window into the employee experience”. This can ignite employee pride, connect distributed teams, and magnetize prospective talent to the organization.

Here are 8 steps to help you get started in launching your very own employee ambassador program:

1) Determine your goals

You are a busy HR/TA pro. No one has time for “busy work” that doesn’t move the needle. Before you start designing your program, define your objectives. Determine what you want to achieve by launching an employee ambassador program. Are you looking to increase brand awareness, drive engagement, grow candidate leads or increase team connection? Once you have a clear understanding of your goals, you can tailor your program to meet your specific needs.

2) Design the program

Next up is designing how the program will work. Is it an annual program where ambassadors sign up for a year term or will it be more free-flowing? How many ambassadors will your organization need? Will ambassadors submit content for curation and publication or will they also be mobilizing their networks to share the company’s story? There is not a one-size-fits-all answer here. Either approach can work. Should you wish the team to share on their social channels, will they be using their personal social handles or creating branded company ones, for example: @SeemaForXYZCompany?

Will ambassadors be trained and if so, how and by whom? How will ambassadors be selected? Will is be a sign-up process or will individuals be invited to participate (still kept voluntary)? What volume of content do you require and in what geographic locations? Will the program be enterprise-wide or business unit specific? How will you manage consent for content? These are just some of the parameters that you’ll want to think through as you design your program.

3) Select your tool/s of choice

Now it’s time to talk tools! There are several ways to collect the content. You can designate an EB lead and have content emailed in, set up a shared file and provide access to ambassadors to upload, or use a content management tool to capture content, curate, caption, and schedule all in one place! At Powerhouse, we love the simplicity of the latter.

After using Later for years, we are thrilled to be an Official Later Partner. Later is a social content scheduling tool with several other superpowers. When using Later for ambassador work, we add each ambassador as a contributor for them to have the ability to upload content into Later’s backend interface. You can also set up a custom content submission e-mail where one does not need a Later account. This works great for employee-generated content contests independent of an ambassador program. These are just a few of the reasons we love Later and are so happy to be partnering with them. Later has a ton of social platforms that it publishes to including LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Facebook, and more.

To learn more about Later, click here.

* We are a proud Later partner which means not only do we use Later but we may receive a commission from them at NO additional cost to you. Later does this as a thank you to us for helping to share their awesomeness with the world.

4) Promote the program

Now that we have our program designed and tools ready to go it’s time to spread the word. Here’s where you can unleash your creativity to design compelling posters, splash pages, and other graphics that invite your team to become an ambassador. You could even connect with your marketing department and pick their brain on suggested approaches to broaden reach and inspire employees to become an ambassador.

5) Select your ambassadors

The success of your employee ambassador program hinges on having the right people on the team and their commitment to sharing the “window into the employee experience”.  Look for employees who understand the vision of this work, want to broaden their skills, and who are committed to sharing your organization’s story.

6) Provide training and get the team pumped

To be effective ambassadors, your employees need to understand your consumer and employer brand’s key messages, values, and objectives. Providing training and resources will help your ambassadors to be confident and effective advocates for your brand. Consider creating a brand ambassador playbook or cheat sheet that outlines your program’s objectives and provides tips.

7) Shout out, recognize, and gamify

One of the best ways to incentivize your employee ambassadors is to establish a leaderboard or rewards and recognition program. By recognizing your ambassadors’ efforts, you can encourage them to continue promoting your brand. Rewards can include things like exclusive access to company events, gift cards, or other incentives.

8) Measure progress 

Like any initiative, it’s essential to measure your employee ambassador program’s success. Define what success looks like from the outset. Does it mean increased employee engagement, team recognition (as perceived by employees), content consumption in the form of impressions, candidate research (as noted by candidates, thus serving as a conversion tool), etc. Like with any program, it’s an evolution and you will need to tweak as you go.

Launching an employee ambassador program is not only a great way to kick off your employer branding efforts, but it is also a fantastic way to bring your team into this work — supporting a co-created people philosophy. This can lead to much more interesting content, employees who feel part of the journey, and a team that celebrates all sites, roles, and levels…not simply the executive ranks.  It’s time to power up your content and empower your team to share the ride internally and externally. Now go on out there and make some noise!!!

Starting an employer brand project?

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How to Build a United Culture Following a Merger and Acquisition

Culture, Employer Branding

Image of fluid art representing the merging of organizational culture

 

If you were around in the 1970s, or love iconic retro TV, then you know from watching The Brady Bunch that coming together brings both challenge and opportunity.

When organizations blend through merger and acquisition, they face a similar setup in aligning disparate cultures, organizational traits, brand personalities, and team traditions. Unification is crucial to the health and wellbeing of an organization and it’s an opportunity to internalize and operationalize company culture—not water it down.

Here are seven ways to unify your organization’s culture post-M&A and get buy-in from employees.

  1. Start with the end in mind

Start with the end in mind and build a solid change management philosophy to support the teams coming together. Whether your organization uses ADKAR, a proprietary approach, or any other change management methodology, planning for change is critical to its success.

This work includes understanding the rationale for change and conducting an impact assessment to uncover the magnitude of the change on a multitude of levels, including individual, team, organization, industry, and beyond. People change management is a discipline that drills down into how the change may be experienced by each individual and then plans accordingly. From messaging to support, and from programs to systems, thinking through this transformative experience well in advance helps design change management programs that better prepare the organization and its people for a more thoughtful metamorphosis, while identifying change agents within the team.

  1. Employ the communication hat trick

You’ve circulated your M&A announcement to the team, now what? Be proactive in communicating the path forward to employees. Think of your strategy as what we call “the communication hat trick,” with the three goals of delivering frequent, transparent, and humanized communications. Communicating in a manner that is open and feels human resonates with our basic need for a sense of security…because we all crave connection and context, especially during times of transition. This supports retention and builds trust and connection with team members. By showing up consistently and keeping it real, you empower your team to feel part of what’s next.

  1. Uncover your organization’s DNA

Every organization has its own culture DNA—the unique factors that make it tick. In an M&A, it is vital to uncover the DNA of both organizations. This helps in understanding and supporting their different strengths and identities, while deciding how to bring them together in ways that deepen ties, build community, and foster a harmonized culture. You can help discover what makes each organization’s culture its own special unicorn by speaking with employees via focus groups. You can also use culture assessment tools to better understand the unique qualities and behaviours of each organization. As a CultureTalk Certified Partner, we see value in uncovering the distinct archetype composition of each organization and how this is experienced by the team through strengths and shadows. To learn more about the CultureTalk system and how it can support transformational change, grow organizational self-awareness, and enable greater team collaboration, visit www.powerhousetalent.ca

CultureTalk Certified Partner Canada Culture specialists

  1. Co-create the path forward

Don’t go it alone! Combining two organizations is the perfect opportunity to co-create the way forward. This is not just about sitting down with leaders in boardrooms, it’s also about connecting with employees, using a diversity of perspectives to mobilize a shared identity. Getting employees involved in what the future looks like means asking them how they work best. You can do this by establishing employee committees to share the employee perspective and weigh in on program design and policy development. Employee committees are also a great way of growing fresh traditions from shared interests.

It all boils down to this: Co-creation is getting employees involved to solve pain points and create the new future state together. This makes it a golden opportunity to elevate the merged culture above and beyond the sum of its parts.

  1. Get the best of both worlds

As you fuse teams and working models, don’t fall victim to larger company conformity. This can lead to a broad, loosely defined culture that is hard to rally around. Instead, take inspiration from both organizations, remembering that unity doesn’t mean uniformity. Tap into the best practices, branded assets, operational procedures, and funtivities from each entity to design a shared future state (and some epic staff parties). This helps get employee buy-in because one culture isn’t unseating the other, so all sides feel valued and heard.

  1. Keep evolving

Unifying your organization’s culture is not a one-and-done, it’s an evolution. This means building upon lessons learned, harmonizing, and tweaking. The philosophy of co-creation is valuable on an ongoing basis and not solely during times of change. Empower your team to help create the path forward and/or enhance the existing experience. When team members are involved, not only do we naturally solve pain points more effectively, we also create natural change agents, hence supporting adoption and advocacy. The work of self-improvement is ongoing and includes our organizations.

  1. Align with your employer brand

Finally, review your employer brand messaging to ensure it represents the future of your united organization. Consider the employer brand identity of each entity and ask employees if it aligns with their experience. Now is your chance to update and fine-tune your EVP messaging, refreshing your brand not only around the merger but also in a way that reinforces authenticity. Fill your channels with the new you! Populate them with consistent messaging to deliver a brand experience reflective of your shared mission.

Blending organizations after an M&A is no small feat, but it is also an incredible opportunity to create a culture even more united than the OG. It’s a lot to execute, but you got this! And we’re here to help! If you need additional support or want to learn more about culture building after a merger, hit us up at www.powerhousetalent.ca. We are proudly a CultureTalk Certified Partner, offering culture diagnostics, leadership alignment, culture transformation, and more!

Starting an employer brand project?

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HR storytelling content saying

HR Storytelling & Employer Branding – Connect Through Content

Culture, Employer Branding, Recruitment

HR storytelling content saying

Content is Queen! In the world of people and culture, one might be wondering how content is relevant to our discipline. Unlike any other time in the history of our profession, storytelling is helping to set organizations apart, providing a window into the employee experience, igniting employee pride, and magnetizing others to join the journey.

As exciting as this time is, a large gap remains in our discipline. So what is the gap? It is the knowledge gap. There are many HR pros hungry for growth, change, and advancement within our discipline and to all of those who subscribe to this philosophy, we applaud you! There is so much that we can learn from other disciplines and domains even outside the business world that we can take inspiration from to fuel our advancement. 

So understanding the time is now to double down on our efforts for progress, what can we learn about content to help better our organizations?

  1. It all begins with self-discovery

When we uncover who we are as individuals, the world opens up to us. When we discover who we are as an organization and own it, the same is true. It all begins with an employee value proposition (EVP). An EVP brings intentionality and cohesion to the full employee lifecycle helping to honour our people promise and increase the likelihood of brand recall in market. If we don’t take the time to understand who we are, how can we expect others to be invested in the mission and join the journey?

  1. Aligning content to goals

Before designing a content strategy or building any content/creative, it’s important to get clear on one’s goals both organizational business objectives as well as people and culture. The two should go hand-in-hand, as only through our people and a strong and vibrant culture can we achieve our full potential and realize our business objectives.

  1. Designing a channel strategy

Next up is developing one’s channel strategy. There are so many places to distribute content to but that doesn’t mean we need to be everywhere. By understanding our business objectives, audience, and where we would like to expand awareness to support broader workforce inclusivity, one can select the appropriate content channels. This can range from Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Reddit, blogs, YouTube, podcasts, LinkedIn, Medium, other discipline-specific niche sites, events, and more. We don’t need to try and boil the ocean. It’s about being selective but committing fully.

  1. Keeping it real!

Let’s lose the corporate-speak and stock images. Nobody wants to consume self-serving and artificial content. Let’s instead focus on highlighting the people within the organization, celebrating their unique stories, and who they are as people beyond their job title. Let’s show up with personality and build community at work!

  1. Showing up consistently

Time to commit to the process. It takes time to see the impact of ongoing effort but don’t be fooled, we are planting seeds and below the earth, they are getting ready to sprout. The harvest will come in time through consistent effort and showing up for our audience.

The benefits of content

  1. Market awareness

Content helps tell our story beyond a single job posting on our career site or internal chatter that’s happening within the organization. It can help activate the full recruitment funnel and optimize the efforts of our recruitment team. It can help us reach under-represented populations and build a more diverse and inclusive workforce. 

  1. Employee engagement and pride

Content can ignite employee engagement and pride across geographies and remote teams. It can also serve as a form of recognition celebrating the day-to-day achievements of our talented workforce. It can build a community that deepens ties internally and helps us share our story more broadly thereby inviting others to join the mission.

  1. Recruitment and candidate research

Content is by far one of the most powerful candidate research tools. It allows for multidimensional storytelling and helps bring to life our key messages. It also rounds out the information available on our organization, giving candidates more to consume than simply employer review channels and our career site.

 

So go on out there HR pros, let’s empower our organizational storytellers, and build more than a content strategy, let’s build employee pride and share our story more broadly!

To learn more about Employer Branding, EVP development, or content strategy, hit us up at www.powerhousetalent.ca. We build award-winning employer brand strategies. Will your organization be next?

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employee engagement

Deepen Employee Engagement

Culture, Employer Branding

Deepen employee engagement - Employee Experience Infographic

The workplace continues to change and progressive employers are deepening employee engagement by recognizing the paradigm shift that is occurring.  

You can read more about escaping legacy behaviours, sparking a cultural metamorphosis, and changing the energy of your organization in our book Peace, Love, Meaningful Careers.

Looking for support on this journey? Hit us up here or at [email protected] to learn more about our award-winning employer brand strategies and programs designed to help your organization realize its best self. 

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How To Write Employee Communications With Heart In Five Simple Steps

Employer Branding

Have you ever received a corporate email laced with jargon and wondered why communications can’t share information in a more human manner? We got you. Not only is it possible, but there is also a helpful formula to make sure you don’t put your readers to sleep. Are you ready for it?

1) Determine what you want the audience to know and how you want them to feel

Start by understanding your communication goals. What do you need the reader to learn from this communication and how do you want them to feel while reading it? When we are intentional, not simply about information structure, but also the emotional response, we improve the output. Rather than a vanilla communication, compose heart-centered messages that share not simply the desired information but also enrich the employee experience.

2) Speak to one person and do so with transparency

Stop writing to the masses. The best way to hit it out of the park with your communication is to imagine your reader, not your readership. When you move from a generic mass communication to a custom-crafted message that can still be shared broadly, you increase your odds that it will feel human, connected, and sincere. 

Don’t forget to be transparent. If you need to gloss over the facts with jargon, don’t bother including them. Employees want to be informed, trust their leaders, and this is built with transparency. Share the journey and help employees understand the landscape. Let them know what is keeping you up at night and what you are doing about it.

3) What’s in it for them

While speaking to your reader, ask yourself, “what is in it for them, or what is the impact?”. It’s human nature to focus on our personal impact, positive or negative. Shifting our thinking to the reader’s questions helps build messages which convey what is needed while addressing the elephant in the room. This helps communications land well, reduces noise, and assists the team in digesting the information. 

4) Add images or video

Tell stories, don’t just regurgitate facts. Bring the reader into the story with visual elements. Did you launch a new product? Share images of the product team including the journey leading up the launch (the pizza boxes, the goofy moments, the product demos, and team shots). Bring the reader into the experience of the message with informal images and video. Highly produced scripted video or portrait shots won’t usually win over hearts. Keep it real!

5) Use modern channels

Communication is simply the sharing of information. Break those predictable communication patterns and experiment with new channels. From live streaming to internal podcasting, there are plenty of ways to break up with the “office memo”. Kick it new-school. Consider the criticality, confidentiality, and scope of the message when determining the appropriate channel.

There you have it, employee communications delivered with intention and heart! Now go on out there and build an awesome workplace!

Need help communicating with your team in ways which inspire connection? We got you! Powerhouse Talent builds meaningful employee communications, compelling employer award submissions, and social media content which unites. Hit us up at i[email protected] to learn more. Contact info here. 

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HR and Recruitment Training

Recruiter Training Has Never Been So Much Fun!

Employer Branding

Recruiter Training: You’ve heard it before, your recruiters want more training. The war for talent is intensifying and the landscape seems to be changing on a daily basis. While conferences are great networking opportunities, you are really looking for training that is specific to your organization’s current state. A collection of generalized approaches to topics is just no longer cutting it. 

Powerhouse Talent's Recruiter Training

Behold…Powerhouse Talent’s Talent Attraction Learning Intensive. Our custom learning workshops are called intensives for a reason. We get in there and dig into your organization’s specific needs. We dive deep into pain points and build the path forward together while learning simultaneously. We like to say we put the “action” in talent attraction learning.

Powerhouse Talent's Recruiter Training

Powerhouse Talent's Recruiter Training

In each customized session we provide inspiration, education, and operationalization to help get you to the other side! The best part is we have a blast doing it! Our sessions are designed for team building and togetherness. They are fun and human….no stuffy theory lectures here! So much so that we have a 100% net promoter score with participants describing the training as inspiring, engaging, unique, useful, and high quality!

Powerhouse Talent's Recruiter Training

Give us a shout today to learn more. 

Join our journey on Instagram! Wishing you peace, love, meaningful careers!

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Ten Great Recruitment Videos

Employer Branding

These companies have set aside vanilla and opted for a more flavourful preview into the employee experience. Here you will find 10 recruitment videos that don’t suck and actually leave an imprint. Let’s take a look…shall we?

Fiverr – We start with Fiverr. This video pokes fun at all of the cookie cutter recruitment videos that likely cost thousands if not tens of thousands to shoot and yet still leave no mark in the job seeker’s mind. Remember, everyone is at a different stage of the recruitment funnel and the video’s job is to create enough of an impression that brand recall occurs.

 

 

 

Vimeo – This one is an oldie but a goodie! It also shows you that you don’t need a serious production crew to film a human, funny, and memorable video. To top it off, this video is credible. Job seekers get to see real employees literally lying on a couch working or figuring out lunch. No smoke and mirrors here…just the raw and real employee experience. The viewer learns so much about the culture through one video. Well done Vimeo!

 

BBH London – “You cannot make a difference if indifferent!” True that! This video is so unique and powerful. Remember that great brands are designed to both attract and repel.  This is what optimizes your recruitment funnel. Opening the floodgates is old school thinking. Let your recruitment marketing do some work for you and that is exactly what this video does!

Natural Light – Relatable, fun, funny, and memorable! This company doesn’t take itself too seriously and as a result builds excitement around their summer intern opportunities. Move over stuffy corporate videos, hello #NattyIntern!

 

Starbucks – Real employee stories never seem to get old. The link to future career aspirations is also a key highlight of this video and a career at Starbucks. Walmart is doing something similar to help launch the careers of emerging talent.

 

Discover.org – This one is human and informative, a wee bit wacky, yet relatable. It tells a story of the company journey and hits all of the key considerations such as commute in the video. Well done Discover.org! 

 

Chewy.com – Chewy rocked this recruitment video! It demonstrated a customer centric workplace that is fun, wacky, and high-performing. Great recruitment marketing helps optimize the recruitment funnel by giving a realistic preview of the employee experience thus helping people opt in or out. Anyone not looking to go the extra mile for customers will understand this is not the workplace for them. There was a strong use of color for a consistent visual identity thus increasing the likelihood of brand recall. If you don’t want to work at Chewy after this video, you will certainly want to be a customer. LOVE! 

 

Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department – Take a massively popular trending topic like Game of Thrones, throw in a reference to your field, use your creative mind to bridge the two and you have a solid and playful recruitment video like the one from the Las Vegas police department. This video demonstrates passion for the field…so much so, Sophie Turner is considering a career in police work. This video not only highlighted that the work is interesting but that Las Vegas is the place to do it. Help job seekers answer the questions that are in their minds.

 

Soda Stream – Save the planet, join the revolution! Soda Stream highlights the qualities that enable one to thrive while being playful and funny at the same time. They weave in purpose and environmental conscientiousness allowing job seekers to see how their discipline specific talents may be put to use in bigger ways.

 

Dell – If you are going to create a corporate video, Dell does it right. It doesn’t feel scripted. It discusses the relevant topics on job seekers minds such as flexibility. While it may not scream funny and playful, it is successful in building the ever-sought after “know, like, and trust”. 

Well there you have it! It is possible to create recruitment video assets that are human, provide a realistic picture of the employee experience, and help job seekers descend in the recruitment funnel.

Now go on out there, hit record, and show the world your awesomeness!

Ready for more Employer Branding?

For full-service support – Building an employer brand strategy or EVP? We can help. Hit us up here. 

Starting an employer brand project?

Land Your Brand is more than a course, it’s an EB project toolkit!

www.LearnEmployerBranding.com

Employer Branding course

 

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Ensuring employer branding reflects what you want

Culture, Employer Branding, Recruitment

https://www.humanresourcesonline.net/features/perception-vs-reality-ensuring-employer-branding-reflects-what-you-want/

We work with employers who are ready to stand out in the war for talent and turn their company from “best kept secret” to “talent hot spot“. And the best part is, we make it feel easy on you as a busy HR professional, not to mention easy on your recruiting budget! We have put together a FREE employer branding webinar to help you rock the talent world! Click here to access it.

Ready to learn more? Check out our employer branding and talent attraction courses and coaching programs here.

Recruitment and employer brand training

 

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The U.S.-Canada War for Marijuana Talent

Employer Branding, Recruitment

The U.S.-Canada War for Marijuana Talent

Canada has blasted out of the gate in the legal cannabis industry, with revenues expected to surpass $7 billion this year according to some reports. Just a single Canadian marijuana corporation, Aurora Cannabis, sold 9 metric tons in the last quarter alone. Since Canadian law made cannabis legal last fall, there’s been an opportunity for explosive growth.

We work with employers who are ready to stand out in the war for talent and turn their company from “best kept secret” to “talent hot spot“. And the best part is, we make it feel easy on you as a busy HR professional, not to mention easy on your recruiting budget! We have put together a FREE employer branding webinar to help you rock the talent world! Click here to access it.

Ready to learn more? Check out our employer branding and talent attraction courses and coaching programs here.

 

Recruitment and employer brand training

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Home Depot is embarking on a massive hiring spree as retail’s war for talent rages on

Employer Branding, Recruitment

Home Depot is embarking on a massive hiring spree as retail’s war for talent rages on

Home Depot is on a massive hiring spree for the spring rush. In order to hire around 80,000 store associates, Home Depot is reportedly putting some new in-house technology to use. The home improvement retailer’s campaign features a few strategies that other retailers are unleashing in the war for talent that has arisen in today’s tight labor market.

Need help attracting talent to your organization? We have employer branding solutions for companies for all sizes and budgets. Hit us up here.

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