Employer-image | Bertrand Duperrin's Notepad

What’s the ROI of social media for an employer brand ?

May 31, 2010 By Bertrand DUPERRIN Leave a Comment

Last week I was invited by Weavlink to facilitate a series of workshops on the ROI of social media for employer brands. Attendees were mainly HR people with uneven maturity levels but who were deeply investigating the area. Of course it was not possible to do deep inside the issue in half an hoyr but here’s how I structured my presentation to make them think about their own model.

1°) Introduction

• It’s a concept that’s hard to get with our traditional thinking models. Do you know the “streetlight” story ? A guy is walking around a streetlight in the middle of the night. A passer-by comes and ask him what he’s looking for. “My keys”. “Wait…I’m gonna help you”. After a few minutes of unsuccessful search, he asks : “Are you sure you lost them here ?”. “Not at all but this is the only place where’s there’s enough light to search”. We need to learn to search beyond the streetlight !

• There’s no mathematical model because such systematic models don’t work for activities that are not systematic, that are about working on knowledge and information, where everything is exception and unique. We can’t equate people and interactions.

2°) What’s your goal ?

• Being on twitter, Facebook or wherever is not a goal. It it was, companies would find themselves idle in spaces where they would not know what to do because no one would know the goal that’s strived toward. They would be tossed, react insread of act and put themselves in danger. So, what matters before all is to know why they move into these media.

• Quick reminder on Norton and Kaplan’s strategy maps. Working on intangible only creates a potential that has to be used into formal activities to reach tangible goals.

• All successful social media initiatives (internal or external) share a common point : they aim at improving the delivery of a process or activity, in this case it could be recruiting, building a corporate image etc…

• Social media don’t change the nature or goals of an HR department but are one more tool they can use to fullfil their goals. Hence the need for segmentation : social tools (and each of them taken alone) has a varying importance depending on the targeted population (you won’t recruit you CEO on Facebook or a Yer with an ad in the NYT)

• That’s not because no mathematical formula exists that what is done can’t be measured as well as the impact on the efficiency of a given processus.

• 3 challenges for the employer brand : sourcing, image, engagement.

• Then, what matters is not to wonder what are the impact of social media toward these challenges but how to use and include them in strategies that aims at addressing these challenges.

• If any improvement can me measured in the way any action plan is executed in termes of speed, quality, scalability or cost, then we have answers to the ROI question.

Would you like to see your intranet on internet ?

April 5, 2007 By Bertrand DUPERRIN Leave a Comment

We all known intranet 2.0 is a matter of transparency, of visibility. These are necessary behaviors but evenu those who agree with that acknowledge it may be frightening for a lot of managers. And they surely consider the bank manager I talked about in a former post is inconscious.
What do people exactly fear ? To let their people talk about what’s wrong ? They’re already talking about that by email or at the coffee machine. To make it visible ? Breaking the thermometer will never lower the temperature. Knowing things is always an importunity to improve. Making everything in order not to know brings peacefulness…but just for a moment. When things happen it’s too late even though if things had been known earlier problems could have been avoided.

It’s obvious the only people in a company who really know what’s going wrong are operational. Since the rule is “report only about what’s going right”, top management seldom know about what’s going wrong. So they can’t make decision about that.

Moreover, if you don’t allow transparency inside you’ll find it outside. People have, outside the company, as many tools as they want to do what they’re not allowed inside. So let me introduce you the manager’s worse nightmare.

Could we assume such things wouldn’t have happened if there had been a space for transparency, exchanges and interactions inside the company ?

Filed Under: Intranets and digital workplace, Management & HR Tagged With: Communication, employer-image, intel, internet, intranet, intranet-2.0

Let’s talk about employers…even if they don’t join the discussion

July 16, 2006 By Bertrand DUPERRIN Leave a Comment

I don’t know if foreign people have ever heard about Tchooze. Tchooze was a french site where people can talk about companies who hired them, saying what whas goog, what was wrong, giving advice to those who wanted to apply for jobs in these companies.

The fact was companies didn’t like to see their inner face displayed at the face of the world and Tchooze was shut down a few days after being bought by mediasystem who had “big clients” that where concerned by bad opinions expressed by their former employees.

The “my opinion on my employer” syndrom is now striking back. The “web 2.0″ collaborative spirit, based on experience and information sharing scored the firts point, with people talking on their blogs. Some companies where afraid of that, others took this opportunity to talk differently and manage their “employer image”, taking benefit of the discussions on the web, creating their own blog, thinking that it’s interesting to learn what people think of you instead of ignoring it and acting as if nothing was happening.

I learned this week that Jobster was going to play a big part in this play by organizing such discussions based on their member’s experiences. The stake is great: managing the company’s image, learning from public opinion, show the real face of the company instead of the “official corporate side”. A great opportunity to improve HR strategy too.

What was innovating whith Tchooze is now becoming a strong trend and Jobster is the first major player in the HR industry who clearly gets involved in it.

The stake is clear for companies: they don’t master the game anymore so they have to deal with it, play with the new rules et work hard on their employer image if they want to avoid troubles. Neglecting this situation will cut them from what is the new reality of HR and corporate communication.

Talking about that…we (my collegues at Moovement and I) made a manifesto dedicated to companies who want to consider blogs as an HR communication tool in this new context. There’s a french and an english (yes!we’ve done it) version available here. If you’re not comfortable enough with french to read the whole page,you can download the english document directly here.