What would Dr House say about your EVP?

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Let’s be honest, almost every company would like to be at the top employers list for its candidates and employees first choice. We all know it pays off, but yet, hardly ever we do testify how long and challenging job it is.

First thing step on the way is to …crack tones of the data and break the code to your Employment Value Proposition (EVP)

Easy to say, harder to get…I know, I’ve been there – it’s a hard work and the process itself may feel like being at the edge of chaos – the deeper you go the more complex it gets. But believe me, you don’t need to hold PhD in research to win that battle. Dr House’s attitude in getting answers from different non-obvious data pickings will be enough. Stick to this rules and you’ll get your win 🔥🔥🔥

[1] Start loving to dig the data 📊

And it is many, many data. Just mentioning few like engagement surveys, exit interviews, CX surveys, official communication, non-official communications, HR policies and processes, social media mentions, others employers communication, candidates insights, employee in depth insights, marketing strategy, sourcing strategy, consumer brand positioning….oh, it’s already a lot! It can be overwhelming at first, but the more you study the clearer it gets. No shortcuts within the process, sorry.

[2] Use clarity when cracking the complexity

To crack the large datasets we need clues to follow. I’m using @ebnvai model to crush the data and looking for the chaos reduction. They helps to navigate your future EVP. When looking for the right elements try to test every EVP elements with following questions:

🔎 Is it consistent with our real offer as employer?

🔎  Is it adequate to the needs of target groups (external/internal)

🔎  Is it standing out form the category competition on the job market?

🔎 Is it in line with our business directions (marketing, sourcing, transformational to just name a basics)

[3] Use your 3 special powers 🔥

Yes, the process is not easy, making us furious sometimes and disappointed within partly results. But the more you dig into, the more you understand.

To pace the monster you will need 3 powers:

  • patience and belief there is an answer
  • curiosity in matching all the puzzles into one piece
  • intuition when seeking beyond the obvious

Be sure and accept that in most of the cases Dr House would tell you “Look deeper” 😀

[4] Always expect to win! 🏆

It means never giving up, even if you think there is no answer! And believe me, such moments happens just before the “aha moment”! So don’t give up, just give yourself 2 weeks for incubating the research results and then double check your answer. It will work, for sure.

And there is a win at the end! And it feels like a really gooood job! Just see the latest EVP communication for our B2C clients such as Sephora or CircleK for polish market. They’re communication is based on Dr House effect 😉

What’s next?  As you reach it, go with the execution plan to make your employer brand flourish! You will be unstoppable, I’m sure. Just stick to the rules above. Good luck! 👌👌

Having question on your EVP discovery process? Wanna be like dr House of EVP discovery? Let me know JAlways happy to help. I’m dr House soul as well, can’t stand problem left unsolved 😀

Happy employees = more productive employees? People Analytics can drive both!

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Let’s be honest with yourself and answer following questions:


3 x YES? Lucky you…and your company! As many research show there is strong link between happiness/engagement at work and profitability. So if you are happy, you work better. Easy to say, harder to prove. As we are data based company loving challenges we took a chance to check if it is true!

QUESTION: ARE HAPPY SALESMEN MORE PRODUCTIVE?

We prepared a recruitment communication strategy for a big bank operating in Poland, using people analytics and verifying, for example, whether a sense of happiness is related to work performance.

The aim of the analyses was to determine the predictors of efficiency with respect to sales chain employees, and therefore, determine the profile of employees with best sales results in one of the retail banks operating in Poland.



ANSWER: YES

We considered three performance groups with respect to different variables. It turned out that the profile of the top performers differs significantly from the profiles of other groups, both in terms of expectations about organisational culture and hard elements of the offer. What is more important, it also turned out that the people who are the best at performing their tasks exhibit a much higher level of happiness and sense of meaning at work. In this group, it turned out the flow state was the key. People who achieve better results (i.e. are more productive) up to twice as often feel that their everyday tasks allow them to grow and fulfil their professional dreams than people with a low level of task completion.

Based upon the survey results, we created a profile of a happy employee and reformulated recruitment communication with a focus on acquiring top performers and also made changes to the motivational system. The results showed that there is value to applying an analytical approach to profiling and shaping a long-term employee happiness policy.

CONCLUSION: HAPPINESS PAYS OFF

There is no doubt that building employee happiness pays off, both for employers and employees. It is not a random intervention though – it requires a strategic approach and consistency. But it is not impossible. And, what’s more, the results are felt by both the employees and the employers. I strongly encourage you, in these times of big challenges on the job market, to focus on employee happiness and to include it in strategic goals as a source of higher EBITDA.

AND IF YOU LOOK FOR MORE NUMBERS YOU SHOULD USE TO MAKE YOUR BOSS INVESTING IN EMPLOYEES HAPPINESS CHECK MY SHORT SLIDECK!

THE MOST IMPORTANT EMPLOYER BRANDING “TO DO” IN 2019

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As we see massive growth in popularity of technology, people analytics and ROI in management there is no longer space for treating employer brand other way than data-based and performance driven area.  So if you still think about employer branding as a PR function, focused on preparing nice leaflets for students fairs, better switch to the strategic approach. If not, you will reach nothing but few smiles from your project team members. And what we reach for in employer branding is (as in all business) higher revenue growth and higher profit margin. Delivering on that will get you smile from your board team 😀

Easy to say, harder to get. How to do that?  Looking backward to 100 projects for 500Fortune companies I can say the the most important success factor in delivering great employer branding outcomes is not knowledge nor experience but our own beliefs on the topic.

That is why preparing for success you should start form transforming your beliefs

from ->>> IT IS HARD to find measures, to track them and to extract ROI of employer branding 

to ->>> #IT IS POSSSIBLE:

#IT IS POSSIBLE to influence profit margin through employer branding

If we compare companies on different HR dimension it is obvious employer branding play important role impacting revenue growth and profit margin. See the table below:

 

#IT IS POSSIBLE to make revenue out of the particular employer branding processes

Going deeper, we can easily find the dimensions you can use to show the revenue of strong employer brand as it can:

  • lower the expected salary by 10% (CEB) ,
  • boost engagement and productivity up to 44% (Gallup)
  • lower the turnover by 26% (LinkedIn, 2016)
  • make employees more reluctant to competitor’s offer by 44% (Tower Watson)
  • make people better respond to the clients’ needs by 65% (Gallup)

Try to extract these numbers in your organization and your board will love you. Guaranteed 😀

 

#IT IS POSSIBLE to track employer branding precisely

Thanks to the massive amount of data being collected nowadays from the candidate-employee lifecycle we can track almost every step of candidate and employee answering questions such as:

Do people know us? Do we reach our target well enough? Do we build emotional connection with candidates and tailor our offer to their needs? Is our process of application friendly and effective? Which channel is sourcing the best performers? Are people safe and emotional stable in our company? Do we craft our position to make them flow? Are they loyal? Do they contribute to the brand? Do they refer us to their friends?

As the answer to  “Can we measure something such intangible like employer brand? “ question is obvious the challenge starts when we go deeper with above questions. To track employer branding precisely we must know how to measure the employer brand as complex entity and how to connect the data we collect to the right outcomes.

How deep can it go in data collection? Well, together with EBnavi team we systematically review more than 250 processes and 530 measures of each company. Is it lot? I don’t know. It is enough to automatically asses not only the overall strength of particular brand but also identify the weak and strong points on the road to lowering the salary expectation, minimalizing turnover and improving engagement.

But one can always go deeper. Let me know if you the one, I’ve been diving into the HR. EB, OD measurement for 15 years and I am still hungry for new discoveries in the area.

 

GOD LUCK dear folks in 2019 mind shaping! Fingers crossed for great results! 😀

 

HR in Poland. Market of 8 faces.

Job Market in Poland is boiling! Yep, we have reached the lowest (3,4%) unemployment rate ever (just after Czech Republic with 2,3% and on the same level as Germany). Companies are struggling with finding people to work (57% have unfilled positions) and facing the pay rise expectation twice a year! Yet we still have big investors ahead coming to Poland as we have “good quality and cheap talent pool” and still talents are migrating for better career possibilities (we are second, just after Romania, country with the largest amount of people working abroad in Europe). Really challenging and yet fascinating “market under stress” to observe.

How is it affecting HR?

I spent October speaking and talking with people on different conferences.

I’ve been speaking at more than 10 events, attended almost 50 other speeches and met more than 1000 folks from HR in one month!

A huge experience that cannot be wasted just staying as a memory in my head. That post is to share few insights on how Polish HR market is changing. There are some good trends but there are a few things we should focus immediately on!

I am happy to see..

  1. More focus on keeping people – as job market is short employers start focus more and more on how to keep people engaged and stay with company. It means more budget on internal changes and focus on how people inside organization feel and are satisfied with the offer. It drives changes in many areas such as development, well-being, communication and leadership.
  2. Growing interest in new tech – as old methods of sourcing and engagement are dead (or at least not sufficient) there is a growing interest in new tools. More and more companies are reaching for innovations, adopting hot technology to their processes. We have first implementation based on AI, video-based selection is growing or have first The problem is with verification of new technology vendors and seeing the whole
  3. Data is going sexy – we have organized the first People Analytics Forum in Warsaw this year, having great interest from the most innovative companies in Poland, investing in people processes. There is also more and more interest in results-driven employer branding, recruitment or learning. But in the same time we face the lack of analytics skills and experience in HR. It was so hard to find the Polish case studies in people analytics for HRcamp! We definitely need to overcome this gap as soon as possible.
  4. Well-being is getting trendy – more and more companies are talking about well-being not only as an argument for being an attractive employer but also on how it converts into the revenue. As we published the first report on happiness in Poland followed by the first report on recognition we see first well-being Award on the Polish market!

BUT in the same time we face challenges that even boiling market has no power to change rapidly:

5. Absorption of new tools is still low – not only we still find companies using mail-based recruitment processes, but also there is little knowledge on non-Polish but worldwide known vendors (not even mentioning start-ups)! It doesn’t mean we are not open – if something new enters the market and gets publicity, we are eager to test it. It makes a lot space for new vendors to enter.

6. HR has not enough voice – as we still don’t use enough numbers, data, ROI-language, we are not seen as a real business partners. Still hiding and not present in board rooms, doing operational level task, begging for budgets instead of making people operations the main area of profit!

7. Investment in HR innovation area is low – we face few investment in HR startups a year. Great minds, with experience and good will but little support and courage to reach for money outside. A gap I hope to be overcome the quickest, as it influences the HR position as a business partner to business.

8. Dialogue with marketing is still a dream – only few companies are crossing the borders in joining forces to build better organisations. Even if we know it helps in attracting and keeping people engaged it is still something to work on.

We are facing incredible time in Polish HR, changing the way we think about ourselves and changing other people opinions in companies. I am glad to see that, but still I think we must try harder, develop ourselves more and push harder the role we play in such turbulent times. It should be us, who say what should be changed in organisations to drive revenue. It should be the HR, who is looking for innovations and ask for that. It should be HR, who is deciding as key player.

Let’s not think about ourselves as a service but as a game changer in our companies. Let’s do this! 

EBstars 2018 Winners: employer branding has entered the data-driven level this year!

We have just awarded the best employer branding projects in Employer Branding Stars Award for 2017/2018. It was 9th edition of the contest and it shows that we are going really mature in the area, entering the data-driven approach here in Poland!

I have been organizing the EBstars project for 9 editions now – year by year observing what is changing on the labour market and how HR is responding to it. As Poland has hit the lowest level of unemployment rate for 20 years now – employer branding has become one of the main tools of strategic sourcing and retention management. Operating on such level is obviously changing how we understand our goals and how do we approach execution.

Shortly speaking – the shift is from “beautiful and innovative” to “effective” campaign. 

Does it affect the way we do employer branding? A lot.

And that is why we decided to change HR focus to employer branding on ROI and data-driven approach this year . It wasn’t easy for companies applying for the EBstars – to be honest, we knew not every company is ready to show the data and ROI of its activities and some would had to give up the process this year – but eventually we have gained applications from 50 companies!

Where is the shift?

This year together with the great Jury (Łukasz Trzeszczkowski, Magdalena Selwant-RozyckaTomasz Bartnik, Przemysław Stański, Piotr Bucki, Adam Piwek, Maja Gojtowska, Katarzyna Młynarczyk, Maciej Mazurek, Anna Woźniak) we heat up the strategic approach focusing on three dimensions picturing the way we all should approach our activities if we want to be a real strategic partner to the business. Here are 3 main hot points we had followed assessing the applications:

1.    Strategy (activities should be in line with business needs, EVP-centered, tailored to target groups in communication and tools)

2.    Data (insights and outcomes should be based on good quality data)

3.    ROI (activities should bring great revenue confirming it was good decision to chose employer branding as tool)

Ok, but where is the creative part?? Of course creativity was important as it is an marketing area eventually but it was treated strategically:

If not so hot and sexy concept is converting as hell to applications bringing revenue to business it means it is an effective communication.

Who are the Leaders of data-based employer branding approach in Poland?

Focusing on 3 main dimensions (strategy, data, ROI) Jury awarded the most effective projects as follows:

  • Best campaign over 100k PLN went to Leroy Merlin, Volkswagen and mBank
  • Best campaign below 100k PLN went to mBank and Performante
  • Best digital project went to EY and Accenture
  • Best candidate experience went to McDonald’s
  • Best internal EB went to Link4
  • Best video went to Future Processing
  • Best career site went to Accenture and AmRest
  • Special Jury Award went to Fabryka Mebli Forte

Congratulations to all! I am really happy to see the progress we are making to become the real partner to the business. Keep going – working on winning the next year edition has just started 😀

PS. I am really happy to see students of mine on the stage! Good job <3

Wanna learn more on people analytics and employer branding with me?

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Want to know more on employer branding? Or people analytics? Or maybe human potential management? As the new academic year is coming, here is the list of 3 educational tracks you can meet me for more advance than a conference learning session 🙂

All highly recommended but thinking about the level and interest area here is the list for today:

1. FOR POSTGRADUATES hungry for Employer Branding

Employer Branding for Managers at Koźmiński University

If you wanna learn how to manage employer brand strategically and get deep knowledge on research, strategy, internal employer branding and campaigns, it is for you. Or maybe you want to upgrade your position in organization? And learn how to sell and manage the employer branding projects? Then it is definitely for you! As a Director of this studies, with more than 100 alumni, I can say it is a leverage point in a career for many many people. See the official website here: www.studiaeb.pl 

2. FOR POSTGRADUATES hungry for People Analytics

HR Business Partner & Senior HR Business Partner at Koźmiński University in Warsaw.

When you want to start or deepen your expertise in being the best HR Business Parter ever, join this path at Koźmiński University. It is full of great experts from the field and many hours of workshops, training and immersive lectures. The Director of the study, Karina Popieluch, well know for her energy and knowledge, is a guarantee of the highest quality! See the website HERE.

3. FOR UNDERGRADUATES hungry for People Analytics

Human Potential Management at SWPS.

Do you want to learn how to use analytical approach in human potential management? This is right choice for you. Wanna lear how to use analytics in HR and be the HR manager of the future? Sign in. I am a mentor for this educational track, scheduling the program, so you can be sure you will find a top notch lecturers and hot knowledge from whole of the world there.

I am really excited for this path where we going to teach undergrads on that topic for the first time in Poland! See the website HERE.

Hope to see you somewhere learning as it is the best choice for long and happy life we know 😉

 

Starting with people analytics? Here is your help for a good start!

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Looking for a real hand-on people analytics guide? Here is the one!

The Power of People: Learn How Successful Organizations Use Workforce Analytics To Improve Business Performance

Why is it worth reading?

The book is full of tips and easy to understand examples. It written by experts who spent many years of their careers driving better business results through people analytics (including such organizations as IBM) and now sharing their knowledge with others.

My fav part is… case studies part

The ones I really recommend are:

  1. Nielsen: improving Careers Through Retention Analytics
  2. ISS Group: From Employee Engagement to Profitability
  3. Rentokil Initial: Growing Sales Using Workforce Analytics

Worth investing in is also a vignettes part – where you will find specific practical tips from the experts.

Interesting gains from the book for me!

A small but interesting part on of Traditional Statistics versus Machine Learning where it is clearly stated when use what and who should decide on that and a part on consulting model using people analytics from the practitioners perspective.

Where to buy it? The simplest way just download on Amazon. 

Read the #PAF17 in Zagreb here PAF17 Croatia is over!

PAF17 Croatia is over! Personal gains from the conference.

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People Analytics Forum 2017 in Zagreb is over! It was a great event for those who wants to go deeper into people analytics. Double-stream conference dedicated to presenting, understanding and embracing the use of data-driven analytical approach in HR function, and business as a whole. The data-driven decision-making process is recognized as the key differentiator in today’s workplace, giving companies who apply it properly a substantial edge. And I am so proud that such really insightful and learning-centered conference was organized in that part of Europe! Really cool.

My personal gains:

1. People and network

I was delighted to meeet keynotes such as: as Jonathan FerrarMax BloombergMariëlle Sonnenberg and many great practitioners from Europe. Some of their insights on #pa you can read here: People Analytics: key takeaways from the leaders of #PAF17 in Zagreb

2. Case studies

The case studies was so different and has a wide range – from sourcing, engagement through retention to skills development. All of them kept the professional level and were concentrated on generating real business results! My favorite one was focused on retention algorithm presented by Atlantic Grupa. One of them with more detailed insights you will find here: Who will stay, who will go? Case study from Atlantic Grupa

3. Knowledge:

It was two days of practical tips, special thanks to whole day of hands-on exercises with John based on his book which short review you can find here: Starting with PA? Here is the help for a good start!)

To sum up, it was a great event and I am waiting for the next year edition! Really recommend you to enroll early

Here you will find a video from the event:

AND EXTRA TIP FOR NEXT YEAR!

Not most important but as such great event takes place in Croatia, I was delighted taking one day off after the conference and traveling around the south west catching sunrise at 6 am (see the picture above). Next time, don’t miss it. Let the next year be your year of sunset chilling!