Web 2.0 and Consumer Relationships

Take a look at this recent New York Times article on the recent Tropicana packaging about-face to get a sense of how web 2.0 technologies are reshaping the way brands interact with consumers. 

Twitter, Facebook, online communities and the like all allow individuals to quickly and easily express their opinions about nearly everything.  Facebook's own group functionality ended up assisting a user-revolt on its terms of service, and Tropicana switched back to their old packaging when their marketing department realized online reaction was swiftly negative and loud (this despite the big bucks supposedly spent on market research).  

The technology will force organizations to evolve how they connect with their consumers and employees. I think there are three things that stand above the rest:

1. Role changes - Organizations may want to rethink the job expectations of selected roles that have the largest impact on customer satisfaction so that a portion of their duties centers around some form of community interaction and management. I think this is more than simply reading posts; it's creating a depth to the relationship so, at a minimum, embarrassing things like the Facebook and Tropicana events do not occur and, ideally, the organization is able to create and evolve its products and services in a way that efficiently matches consumer desires. 
2. Product / service methodology changes - I suspect we'll see (a) more open beta type product launches versus the traditional grand product launch and (b) more integrated data collection tools and practices.  This will happen because consumers have more choices with typically lower switching costs and they have greater access to information to easily evaluate product strengths and deficits.  In other words, there are more downside risks for launching products and services in the modern economy and organizations would benefit from a more open and participatory relationship with current and future consumers.  Apple Computer, an incredibly secretive company, learned about user participation via its horrible MobileMe launch and now has an open beta for its new iWork online service.  Facebook recently announced they will ask users to vote on the most significant changes to their system, although they reserve the right to launch new services without user input.  If you've ever heard of crowd sourcing, consider that Tropicana could have simply asked consumers for their thoughts on the packaging and, assuming a change was suggested, had the consumers rank their preference.  This would have been dramatically less expensive than the traditional ad agency route, and certainly less damaging to their brand.  Also, as technology is embedded in all sorts of products there will be more data sent back to developers on usage patterns, issues, etc. that will be used to prioritize and improve future features with either little or no effort from end users.  Finally, this does not mean organizations should give up innovating or independent decisions - the items above are input and should be balanced with internal ideas and experiments.    
3. Consumer and employee attitudes  - People, especially younger ones, now expect transparency, speed, and accessibility with their products, services, and employment situations. So while an older manager may question why it makes sense to have deep online relationships with consumers (possibly concerned about confidentiality and other reasonable issues), younger people will wonder why organizations are not doing more and will prioritize organizations that are doing progressive work in this area. Internally, this will likely play out in role expectations, product development methodologies, and cultural / management programs and practices. Externally, I can see it happening with online and mobile technologies and practices that help (a) clarify consumer priorities and desires, (b) give discounts or product perks to those that participate, and (c) potentially act as interesting recruiting tools for those consumers who would like to join the organization.

These are exciting times and there are no easy answers or approaches, although I am certain that things must and will change around customer relationships. Don't wait - experiment, revise, and build on successes both internally and externally, because your competitors are certainly not standing still. 

Frugal & Progressive University Recruiting Techniques

Here's a great article from Dr. John Sullivan about frugal and progressive university recruiting techniques. 

https://www.drjohnsullivan.com/content/view/240/27/

Employer Branding

An employer brand is an awkward term that basically means your reputation as employer. If you've ever had a bad experience at work and posted anonymously about it, or bragged to your family about your cool new job then you've experienced and influenced an employer brand.  I wanted to dedicate this post to helping people think about employer branding and share some practical, recession-friendly tips.   

A brand is the result of people's personal experiences with an organization, encapsulated in stories, and those stories act as powerful filters about future decisions towards that organization.  An employer brand is essentially a subset of those stories, centered around working for that organization. 

Employers should pay attention to their employer brand because it acts as a magnet for top talent if it is positive or drives them away if it's negative. It has a direct impact on your recruiting costs because a positive brand will have more desirable people applying, referring others, and accepting offers, thus requiring less recruiting staff time. The fewer employees that quit and need to be replaced also drive down recruiting costs. Obviously, the better qualified people you have on your staff directly impact your chances for ongoing success.

For purposes of this post, I'll differentiate between the employer brand (what others say and think about the organization) and the employer voice (how an organization tries to portray itself).  The employer voice is a subset of the employer brand because leaders are one of many perspectives, and our connected world has made it challenging to keep up with numerous and fast moving information sources. It's also made it impossible to hide the truth, yet most organizations simply focus on the positive or spin it in such a way that it effectively reduces the credibility of the employer voice. 

Progressive organizations have realized that authenticity is more valuable than staged perfection for efforts involving employer voice and their contributions to an employer brand. My experience has shown me that smaller employers simply do not adequately focus on their employer brand (which is insane because one wrong hire has a much larger impact on the organization) and larger organizations often realize its importance too late, usually because they need to quickly add more employees. 

Here are some quick tips for any organization who want to proactively develop their employer voice and influence their employer brand:

1. Remember that an employer brand is not under your control and is not something that can be easily changed via some slick campaign.  It's the result of actions and the organization will need to evolve its processes and talent in order to produce different results.
2. Acknowledge that you already have different groups within your organization impacting your employer voice: Investor Relations, HR, and Marketing. Each will have different interests and perspectives so coordinate your primary and secondary messages.
   
3. The core of an employer brand are your employees, so your messaging needs to include them and be based in reality. If your employees roll their eyes when their read or listen to your perspective, you've got big problems that will show itself via customer experiences and the brand. Recession-friendly tip: interview a small group of your employees and ask them how they describe your organization to others. Ask them how they describe your culture, your management practices, competitors, customers, and key issues. Find out what they've heard about how others describe your organization, especially candidates and employees at competitor organizations. You are looking for themes and stories that illustrate the employer brand, but you're not trying to actually create the final product; it's just data gathering at this point. 
   
4. I think the most compelling employer voices are those that humanize your strategy: stories about end users, how things have evolved for them because of the organization's contributions, how you're going to make your vision a reality for them and what that means for employees, competitors, the sector / industry, etc.  Add depth to your story by showing the evolution of those players from the past, to the present, to your vision for the future. Most employers are not very good about creating a narrative about themselves positively and powerfully contributing to the world and leaving a legacy: this misses the opportunity for stakeholders to see themselves connected to that possibility.  
5. If you're unhappy with your employer brand, you are going to need to act differently in order for it to change. There are no short-cuts here, and it starts with the CEO and executive staff making those improvements a priority. Listen deeply to the multiple perspectives of your past, current, and future stakeholders (employees, customers, candidates, analysts, etc) and have them tell you their unvarnished stories about your organization (and record those stories so others can hear it directly from them).  Analyze data, look for trends, and study the competition. In the end, your organizational processes and talent combined to produce an experience for those stakeholders, and changing those processes for the better is the only way you're going to improve your employer brand.  Recession-friendly tip: Use those interviews, with permission, in your employer voice efforts to lend credibility to your position. Everyone knows your organization can't be all rainbows-and-sunshine all the time, so have people describe the pluses and minuses of your organization's situation in a way that adds substance to your narrative without affecting its cohesiveness. 
6. Once you have this clarity, create a prioritzed plan to close the gaps, validate with key stakeholders, and communicate progress appropriately. You'll share progress differently depending on each stakeholder, but the key is to make progress, share honestly, and have everything link together in a way that makes sense to current and potential stakeholders. 
7. Spend some time on your careers section of your website.  Most are either barren, don't list open or ongoing hiring needs, or simply lack character. The net result of this is homogenized content: the majority of the people would have trouble remembering one website from another, let alone feel compelled enough to go through the effort of submitting a resume and pursuing an opportunity. Recession-friendly tip: have a group of your articulate employees help you build out the career section of your website, or have an outside consultant help you via a fixed price project that fits your budget. Remember to include your most strategic skill needs, even if you don't have an open position for them now (clarify that these are future hiring needs and that you encourage people to apply for them now). 
8. Get your employees and hiring managers on the same message, especially those involved with recruiting. Usually this means training them not only on interviewing techniques but also your overall employer voice message / perspective. The worst thing you can do is to develop this perspective but not have it consistently applied or communicated. My suggestion is to have your employees help you develop the employer voice, document it in an accessible way, and then communicate it in team meetings, training sessions, and any process or effort that impacts your employer voice and brand. 

As I've said in my prior post, Contrarian Recruiting, now is the time to work on your employer voice and brand prior to the economy improving. People are open to recruiting and relationship building efforts in a way that you rarely see, so be strategic and invest in this key organizational tool. This post has been a high level overview and obviously it is more complex to implement, so I'd welcome the opportunity to assist your organization improve its culture and employer brand, and we can work on a per-project basis that fits within your budget. 

Non-Profits, The Recession, and Talent

I volunteer with a not-for-profit (NFP) agency in Vancouver, BC called Volunteer Vancouver and they have been helping NFPs rethink the concept of workforces for some time. I thought I'd share that thinking, especially in the context of the recession. The NY Times had a good article on volunteerism and the recession which also nicely frames this issue.

Most NFPs have a very literal definition of their workforce: if they employ the person, they can trust that person, and therefore they can count on work getting done. In other words, it's a 1:1 ratio, which means the focus is on fund raising and doing everything themselves. They have volunteers but the work is very tangible and limited in duration (think envelope stuffing) because figuring out how to structure more involved work takes time (and they're busy "doing"), they're not sure where to look, and (this one is a biggie) they are weary of trusting a volunteer to do bigger, more complex projects. Their Boards typically have highly skilled individuals, but somehow that seems easier to manage than highly skilled volunteers involved in the actual day to day work.

Like so many leadership issues, how you frame an issue, or rethink an issue, can mean the difference between success and failure. If you view your workforce as only those you employ, like the private sector, then it's normal to focus on fund raising and staff-only activities. If you rethink the nature of your organization, and believe you exist for the community you serve, then the community becomes your workforce because they need your organization to succeed. Implementing that philosophy means a NFP should strive to have a ratio of volunteer to staff contributions of at least a 2:1 ratio, meaning volunteers should represent at least a doubling of your existing workforce.

This requires the Board and Executive Director to dream big about its mission and definitions of success. What services or products could you offer the community if you had access to highly skilled, responsible, free talent? Think about a step increase in capability of your organization: efficiency, automation, enhanced services or products, partnerships, or anything that allows your team to make a greater impact in the world. This is not about fundraising - it's about an integral approach to servicing your clients with a broader workforce. The volunteers may chose to also give money to your organization, but that's a secondary concern when you consider the benefits of strategic volunteering.

A great way to start this new approach is to have the Board involve highly skilled volunteers to help flesh out new strategies, audit key aspects of your infrastructure and processes (IT, HR, Legal, Finance, etc.) and develop strategic plans for each area. Specific projects will come from this work and can be done with a highly skilled volunteer with support from a staff member. Staff members will need to shift their time allocation from doing the work themselves to supporting the work of the experts. This tends to mean being the go-to person for a committee or set of volunteer consultants. Staff need to help the volunteers to understand the clients' needs, the history of the agency, and the organization's culture so that the ideas, work, and efforts align in a cohesive way. They'll end up growing their skills faster because they are assisting subject matter experts on strategic projects, something most NFPs could not afford if they went simply with consultants. This helps eliminate the one-off solutions of drive-by-night volunteers, something that is a fear for any rational executive director.

Managing these highly skilled volunteers requires workforce planning, recruiting, and solid management techniques. NFPs need to redefine their workforce to include staff and volunteers of all skill levels., working on crisp FY objectives with discrete deliverables and schedules assigned to both staff and volunteers. NFPs need to proactively recruit individuals who are inspired by the agency's mission and who can deliver these projects. You need to assume these people will follow through on their obligations and engage them as you would with paid staff: regularly scheduled meetings, updates, etc. Suffice it to say these required shifts are gigantic changes for many NFPs.

The recession has made this a buyer's market and NFPs are in an especially good position because they offer two compelling opportunities to volunteers: (1) the opportunity to give back to a community and (2) the opportunity to grow, maintain, or use skills that, for whatever reason, are not being applied in the for-profit world. The first factor requires NFPs to have a compelling vision for stakeholders so people clearly see why they should volunteer and how that time will meaningfully benefit the community. The second factor should seem obvious to people but it's often overlooked: if someone wants to learn new skills, or develop emerging capabilities, a NFP is an excellent opportunity. There are often very senior, successful individuals leading the Board, or on steering committees, and they can mentor less experienced individuals. Adults learn by doing, and seeing how leadership or technical concepts are applied in new situations often accelerates that capability elsewhere. In a recession where donations have dried up, NFPs can offer people an opportunity to simultaneously bolster their resume and their community. The key, of course, is rethinking the situation, and pouncing on this great talent opportunity.