Employer Brand thoughts from Simon Barrow

HRD confidence and courage at Carnival Corporation

2012-01-26T17:57:00.001Z

At a private meeting two evenings ago I heard a leading UK CEO state what he expects from his Human Resource Director (who was sitting at the same table). He spoke of the phenomenal business and reputation failures which are down to people and cultural issues and he believed that any HRD needs the insights, confidence and courage to ensure that the CEO and the Board are aware of these risks and the need for a plan to address them. He added other expectations including the ability to inspire, to be a great communicator (and to be responsible for internal communications) and to make sure HR plans reflect the Company’s strategy.

The ensuing discussion started with HRD confidence and courage and It made me wonder about the background to the recent Costa Concordia cruise ship tragedy and the role of its master Captain Schettino. The Captain may face prosecution for his role but I have broader and more systemic questions for his successful employers Carnival Corporation and its CEO Micky Arison:

- What are the key responsibilities of any Carnival Captain in the company’s fleet of 101 ships (and 10 on order)? In particular the role of safety and the maintenance of safety culture? Frankly, I don’t give a damn about his/her customer service duties - the Captain’s Cocktail Party and the like that is deck chairs stuff compared to his core duties.

- Against this standard, how are Captains appointed? What tests of competence, character, intelligence and leadership are in place?

- What training informs Captainson the latest technical, navigational and human factor thinking?

- How is a Captain’s current ability assessed? An airline pilot will have regular simulated flight sessions, during which a Training Captain will subject him or her to many potential incidents where flight crew knowledge and judgement will be rigorously reviewed.

- What was the management style of Carnival and the values which actually underpinned behaviours (as opposed to the usual list of commonplace worthy beliefs)?

- What was the role of the Carnival Group HRD (according to the website it is Jerry Montgomery appointed in 2011 and, according to the Carnival press release at the time ‘a long time hospitality industry veteran’)? Reverting back to my central point of HR confidence and courage, did he have a record of alerting previous employers to the potential risks of people and cultural issues in the context of safety? Equally, did his predecessor Wayne Byers have this reputation? It was Mr Byers retirement after 28 years which prompted the need to recruit.

- According to the same release Jerry Montgomery reports to Howard Frank, Carnival Corporation’s Vice Chairman and COO. Did Montgomery express an opinion on the areas above and if so did Mr Frank and Mr Arison act on it?

Carnival have announced a review to be led by Captain James Hunn a retired US Navy Captain and currently the company’s senior VP of Maritime Policy and Compliance. The press release states they will ‘review all safety and emergency response policies and procedures, officer and crew training and evaluation, bridge management and company wide response and support efforts’. Captain Hunn will report to the Health, Environment, Safety&Security Committee of the Board and to Howard Frank , vice chairman and chief operating officer of Carnival Corporation & plc’

This reminds me of the Bank of England’s enquiry into the Nick Leeson/Barings Bank collapse. It was all about the relevant process not about culture and the behaviours which were really valued. The Carnival enquiry needs to be broader and assess the overall employer brand of the company including the priorities of its leadership. As I heard recently ‘Culture always has Compliance for lunch’. I hope that the level of HR involvement is included and I have to say that I also hope that Captain Hunn, as an existing company employee, does, like any great HRD, have the confidence and courage to search and report on the soft issues as well as the rule books. Carnival has a brilliant record and deserves no less.

The Employer Brand of England post Cameron’s veto

2011-12-22T13:25:00.001Z

Any great employer brand depends on clarity of direction and unity among the top team which is not something we saw at the Brussels conference on the night of 8/9^th December. David Cameron’s veto of the proposed treaty reminded me of three business workshops where I have seen an individual separate themselves from their colleagues. In each case you could see it coming – a talented exec behaving in a way which was bound to put them outside the stockade and not really being ‘one of us’ anymore. The first time was on an ad agency offsite where a senior colleague could not cope with the then Chairman and made no secret of it. A week later he announced he was setting up on his own. A second was at a Nabisco meeting where a senior executive calmly stated that he was to be part of a group buying a competitor. His words were met with awed respect. A third was at an oil and gas explorer where a talented renegade’s behaviour meant he was clearly also heading for the door en route for independence.

I thought of those individuals when I saw Cameron’s news and the body language and expressions of the other leaders. Later came the verbatims like ‘he was never really with us’. However,our PM was unlike my three business people in that they already had a clear alternative destination. I am not sure Cameron did.

My point is that you can take an independent line in a group session when you have an ace up your sleeve and have chosen the moment to play it. Yet in Cameron’s case the talk since has been about rebuilding bridges and remaining in the 27. No actual change to protect the City has been won.I am not an economist and I don’t know what the future of the eurozone is likely to be. However, I do know about relationships at work and anyone being the one veto out of twenty seven is putting themselves at risk if they want to stay on the team. That is particularly so when the big topic is a macro one and highlighting local concerns is out of line. That behaviour has weakened the trust and respect England commands. I say England rather than the UK because somehow the Scots, the Welsh and the Irish are not in the same boat - it is the employer brand of England which has been damaged given the English sceptics and the English media. I fear that business values here maybe tarnished in the eyes of our partners as being more like those of Bill Cash than Martin Sorrell (who I was glad to see stating that he would prefer us to remain ‘inside the tent’). It is good to see that similar observations have been made by many Brit business leaders over the past 12 days.

A day or so after the veto I got an email from a Belgian friend regretting the line our Prime Minister had taken and fearing for the future of a country of which he is very fond. Next time I talk at a conference across the channel I bet I get a question on this topic and any Brits doing business there from now on can expect the same. I would prefer to be asked about something else but in replyI shall say that big business and the sceptics here are very different. What the veto has done is to prompt business Brits to rally support for continued UK/ European teamwork because it remains critical for all of us. There is no alternative (as Mrs Thatcher used to say in a different context)

Simon Barrow

simon@pib.co.uk

Why an Employer Brand project can be demanding, yet transformational, for HR

2011-11-29T12:34:00.000Z

Everyone likes to pigeon hole everybody else and in particular about what you do. While I have for years stressed the importance of coherence across an organisation as a critical ingredient for Employer Brand success, any conversation about what I or People in Business does often concludes with “so you’re part of HR then?”

Well yes of course we are (and proud of it) but we are also part of marketing, of corporate identity, communications, line management and senior management thinking. However ‘pigeon holers’ don’t think that way and so, if pressed, we are indeed part of the supply side to employers when it comes to the management of their people.

If that is the case, what makes the purchasing and project management of Employer Brand assignments different to most of the goods and services bought by HR?

I had a look at the constituents of the people industry looking at the list of exhibitors at the UK CIPD’s annual exhibition. What a varied crew of suppliers to the world of work starting with Alcoholics Anonymous and including Eye Care, Language teaching, Relocation, Mental Health, Equality and Human Rights, Child Care, Incentive Planning, Pensions, Employee Assistance, Employee Research, IT Services, Internal communications, Mediation and then of course every form of Recruitment service with the interesting exception of top end head hunters (what does that tell you about the relationship between Executive Search and HR?)

What in the main do these suppliers have in common for the HR buyer? I believe it is as follows:

· The rest of the organisation will clearly look to HR to provide this external help when it is needed

· HR’s advice on the choice will be trusted and will get rapid approval (if indeed sign off within an existing budget is required)

· HR will not need to undertake extensive cross functional discussion before proceeding

· The service exists to address an immediate need and is transactional rather than part of a long term strategic plan

· The supplier does not need to ask questions outside HR in order to provide the service

· There is little internal political risk involved. A supplier who fails can be replaced

Let’s now look at the services which HR should in my viewbe critical to, yet tick NONE of the above boxes e.g. Organisational Development, Change Management, M&A planning and integration, senior management teamwork and leadership and the development and management of the organisation’s Employer Brand.

It is impossible to create an effective Employer Brand without the involvement of other functions e.g. Marketing, Internal Communications and Corporate Affairs plus of course Operations and Senior Management.

Furthermore, an Employer Brand project maybe a catalyst for change in several aspects of the working experience and the ‘touch points’ where people see the truth about the organisation at first hand. If all it does is alter the artefacts of communication it is unlikely to succeed.

No one but HR should initiate Employer Brand projects since they demand an intense understanding of your people and the processes which affect them. However, HR must have the confidence, persuasiveness, commerciality and breadth to engage all the other critical internal partners to plan, deliver and maintain a distinctive, compelling Employer Brand which is rooted in reality. This is the sort of HR which a restless and ambitious CEO should demand. If the HR department does not have these qualities that is ultimately his or her responsibility.

Employer Brand projects can be transformational not only for the organisation but for the reality of HR at its best.

Simon Barrow

29^th Nov 2011

People in Business, 200, Aldersgate Street, London EC1A 4HD

Employers don’t tell the truth about work

2011-10-25T14:46:00.001+01:00

We know how Employer Brand Management OUGHT to work but one of the issues it must overcome is that so many employers do not truly represent the essence of what it is like to work for them. Most of the 401,000 pages on the subject of ‘employer branding’ on Google are about identity and communication not content about the reality of the workplace.

Business people have known for 80 years that the heart of good marketing is based on understanding the truth of the customer experience and then memorably communicating it. Yet in the world of work employers too often don’t tell the real truth but kid themselves with internal and external communications which are bland, samey and risk free (and don’t kid anybody else).

The tragedy is that most organisations have some great unique features (some of which certain candidates should steer clear of) but you don’t see that in their communications . Read even what some household name organisations say about working for them and you just don’t get the real essence - the flesh and blood of the brilliant successful businesses they are. The truth is often submerged under what is still a play safe, politically correct bureaucracy and, because it’s regarded as ‘internal’, they don’t have the energy or will to change it.

Yet think of the range of sources employees can access: Glass Door, Vault, Student Room, Milk Round, You Tube, Google Search and of course Facebook. All of that information is uncontrolled by employers. You can’t escape the truth so why not tell it in the first place?

It’s when you are inside an organisation that you see the real thing as I did when working with the late but formidable Arthur Andersen, then at the height of its powers. Here is what I heard a senior executive say to a group of potential accountants:

Come here and you will work with clever clients.

Come here and you will work with clever colleagues.

Come here and you will qualify faster than any of our competitors.

Come here and you will be a partner by age 32 or you probably won’t be here

Understand that this is an up or out culture and that applies throughout your career.

However, if you do leave us this is a great springboard – just look at our alumni.

But finally, DONT come here if you are not an argumentative character who will challenge others in meetings and being challenged. You’ll be miserable.

With the benefits of hindsight you can see the seeds of Enron in that speech – the ambition, over confidence and arrogance which ruined them. However, that was the truth about Andersen but you never saw it in the well designed, well written prose they used about themselves as an employer.

News Corp has been much in the news this year. Getting under the skin of Rupert Murdoch does not happen easily but Michael Wolfe’s book on the man gives you an indication of what News employees I have known have felt over the years. Consider:

Reject the idea of a higher calling in journalism. It’s about competition and winning.
When he’s not there he’s there as palpable absence. You never know when you’re on his mind.
Every second working for Murdoch is a second spent thinking about what Murdoch wants. He inhabits you!

News Corp has inspired enormous dedication, creativity and loyalty from its people. You will get the real thing when you talk to them but not when you read or view what the company formally says about itself.

My message is that Management need to be courageous and be themselves - a person is never more effective than when they are really telling the truth.

Consider what Steve Jobs said. Is not this the essence of Apple for its people?

Technology alone is not enough –it’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the result that makes our hearts sing

Yet so much of people management does not aim this high - the avoidance of risk is more important than the creation of inspiration. And that comes from the top – if senior management puts more pressure on HR to be distinctive rather than risk free we would see more great Employer Brands emerge.

Simon Barrow

Look out for my next three blogs – a) Great EBs mean busting the silos, b) Changing the DNA of the people industries who serve employers c) the life changing opportunity for HR in EB management

Simon Barrow
simon@pib.co.uk
44 (0) 203 375 4156
People in Business, 200 Aldersgate Street, London, EC1A 4HD, UK

Two meetings with Rupert Murdoch - both with a major EB insight

2011-07-25T19:53:00.000+01:00

It's not often that two brief conversations with a CEO give you an immediate insight into the heart of an Employer Brand.

Both my brief meetings with Rupert Murdoch twice were conversations to remember. A good start for any insights into the News International employee experience.
The first was just after he had bought the Times in 1981 at a lunch he gave for six ad agency CEOs including Ogilvy, WCRS, Allen Brady and Marsh, TBWA, McCanns and me representing Ayer Barker. Murdoch did not say much and watched the typical barbed banter of competitors supposedly off duty (but not really). I was seated two down from our host at an oblong table and to get him talking I asked him how much of his money was now invested in the UK. He replied ‘just over 55%’. I then said ‘Mr Murdoch you could invest anywhere why such a big percentage here?’ He replied ‘Most places you have to work hard and be very smart – in this country all you have to do is work hard!’. We all laughed but he meant it and it confirmed his role as the outsider, the restless challenger and the change agent with an anti establishment view of the UK. The move to Wapping and the breaking of the newspaper unions was yet to come.
Twelve years later I met him again. People in Business was up and running and I was in the canteen at Wapping as the guest of Les Hinton. I was telling him about the trip I had just had round the Nissan plant near Sunderland and the productivity of the local work force in crisp blue overalls. Geordies welded together as a company team in a way they never were as riveters, coal miners or in the other lost occupations of the north east. It was not the new plant, Linwood and Ryton had that too, it was Nissan’s focus, innovation and certainty that created an EB which those other new UK plants never had. At this point Murdoch ambled up with his tray and asked if he could join us.
I reminded him of what he said at the post Times lunch to which he replied ‘that was a long time ago’. Les then asked me to finish the Nissan story and I said that it was then the fastest automotive production line in Europe. I had asked my guide there what the average age on the line was and she told me ’27 but we want to get it down to 24’. At this point Murdoch said to Hinton ‘ Get up there and see it’ and asked if I could arrange that which I subsequently did with Peter Wickens the Nissan HRD (and the first employee of Nissan UK)
That was typical Murdoch the opportunist – sounds interesting, may be something for us, act on it fast. That’s his style when in trouble too. Closing the 168 year old News of the World and losing its 2.7m circulation was an example. He had to make a big move that would surprise everyone .Yet In my view he could have achieved the same impact by firing Rebekah Brooks and kept a profitable paper. As it was she left a few days later but her exit did not then improve his position.
From an EB standpoint, I can see little difference between News International and Rupert Murdoch himself. Relentless energy and opportunism, not much in the way of direction and vision. The perpetual outsider and challenger with no need to be liked. Yet News has many outstanding executives and journalists and inspires great loyalty not only to the group but to some great papers which have benefited from its ownership.
Michael Woolff captures the essence of Murdoch in his brilliant book ‘The man who owns the news’ – consider these observations. Woolff may not have gathered them from an EB standpoint but in the search for an EB which is distinctive and compelling for the right audience these are hard to beat:
-the elite at News Corp must prove they have shed any hint of elitism or even a desire for respectability.
-Rejection of the idea of a higher calling in journalism. It’s about competition and winning
-when he’s not there he’s there as palpable absence. You never know when you’re on his mind
-to work for him is to do his bidding, to follow his line
-every second working for Murdoch is a second spent thinking about what Murdoch wants. He inhabits you
The hacking story has become a global one and probably and has more to run. However, put that to one side and consider the implications of the 80 yr old Murdoch’s eventual exit. News International has powerful media properties and will become like other major companies in the sector. As the Economist says this week ‘The suits are firmly in control’ though it also believes that its feistiness will continue. Somehow I doubt that since suits are seldom feisty and unpredictable in the way Murdoch is.
Describing News’s EB point of difference a decade from now will be harder work and I suspect many of the current employees will miss the management style they have lived with for so long. This blog was prompted by just two short conversations but think what tales News International people will have to tell – and I think you will find that most of them will be positive.

Simon Barrow

Social Mobility as an EB attribute - the vital missing ingredient in diversity

2011-05-18T18:58:00.000+01:00

Readers of JD Salinger’s ‘Catcher in the Rye’ may remember Holden Caulfield’s description of the American school he went to – "it was one of those schools that advertised in the back of the National Geographic showing some hot shot guy on a horse. I never saw anything like that at Pencey Prep."
I had an exchange scholarship year at a school a bit like that 30 miles east of Philadelphia. I had done my A levels in the UK and started at the Hill School, Pottstown, PA when I was still 17. I was lucky to go there, it broke the mould of England for me and focussed the direction my life was going to take thereafter.
Reading about the apparent reversal in UK social mobility, now apparently decreasing when it was increasing, made me think of that time and wonder what steps UK employers are taking to increase social mobility within their own organisations. Universities have to worry about social mobility, should not employers also demonstrate that they care about it and sharpen their descriptions of diversity in their Employer Brand management? Employers are pressed to reveal gender and ethnic figures but how about the percentage of people they take on by type of secondary school which is a broader challenge? Universities have to answer that question, why not employers? Employers of course are meritocracies and are blind to background in their search for talent but this conceals educational facts which will add important themes to any discussion on what UK education needs.
In America, private prep schools (that is secondary schools aiming to get students into US Colleges of their choice) are just a pin prick in US cultural life. Secondary education carries little of the baggage which all forms of UK secondary education has to cope with. Few Americans are remotely interested - in contrast to the furious debate it prompts in Britain where some leading Universities contain over 40% from fee paying schools, a category which only produces 8% of the nation’s school leavers yet 54% of FTSE 100 CEOs, 51% of top medics and 70% of High Court Judges (Source HM Government). Many of these universities want to change this yet they face two obstacles:
a) They must to keep their high standards competing as they do on in a global market, particularly for academic faculty members, and they cannot act primarily as social engineers. I can hear employers making the same point.
b) Some feel, Oxford and Cambridge for example, that they cannot attract the very brightest of the state sector given their elitist reputation. The Vice Chancellor of Oxford has stated that this is one of his top two issues (the other is attracting world class academics)
This is a double whammy and the British press regularly runs stories showing that alumni from fee paying schools continue to make up large percentages of top jobs given that there are fewer Grammar schools. Small wonder so many UK parents feel they have to take on the crippling burden of fee paid education which most parents in the rest of Europe are happy to escape. I wonder what the comparable figures for fee paid alumni percentages by job category are in the US and in other European countries? I do not think that Brits do fee paid education for social reasons, it is about getting qualifications and skills which will provide better chances of a high earnings and career advancement.
This situation is made worse in the UK by the influence of London as a place to work since many of the career options above are centred there. Geography can be an important merit and demerit in EB management. The daughter of neighbour is a trainee accountant in a global FMCG company’s London office. In September the employer is moving her to Preston as part of her development. Her first reaction was to leave and get herself into a City accountant practice but to her credit she is going to make the move. It may transform her.
What do I think UK employers should do to demonstrate their contribution to increasing social mobility? I have these suggestions:

1. Redefine ‘Diversity’. Britain has treated diversity as an American import where the topic has been informed by the various US ‘rights’ movements and so the focus has been on Gender, Minority Ethnics, Sexual orientation and the Disabled. This is why it ignores social class which is the biggest cause of exclusion in UK as numerous studies have concluded.
2. Recognise social mobility within their corporate and HR communications. It is not enough just to make the usual equal opportunity commitments none of which capture social mobility
3. Make sure everybody applies on line even for intern jobs. Be seen to make it a really level playing field
4. When an executive is asked to help potential candidates referred by clients, suppliers, friends or relations, ensure that all know the organisation’s stance. Nick Clegg benefitted from personal contact in getting an intern’s job and, while he should have said so, was right to highlight the inequalities of the system. A good message ruined by perceived hypocrisy.
5. Record the school categories for their graduates in the same way that Universities do. Indeed, why don’t University Careers services record graduate employer destinations by secondary school? They have the data and it would save employers the extra bureaucracy
6. Publicise the results. I think we will find that some employers have a very limited balance in secondary school profile and others will be very broad. There is an interesting subject for analysis here – does that balance correlate with corporate performance?
7. Ask recruiters to track secondary education profile on their short lists aspects.
8. Encourage relevant Government departments eg Fast Stream Recruitment to do the same.
9. Persuade the state education establishment to change its aspirations, standards and opportunities it offers all families including those buying private education. Where is the pitch to the latter group?
10. The big one, make private education unfashionable (in many countries the decision to go private is often for non academic reasons and can imply family challenges rather than ambition) and do so by changing state standards. Will David Cameron’s children, who have started in a state primary, continue in the state system? If so, will his government encourage more of his peer group to do the same? Consider the impact on the UK state system if the parental pressure of every FTSE 100 director, journalist, judge, and doctor was focused on it? How would existing school management react? It would redefine the definition of the ‘pushy mum’! A university class mate of mine headed a comprehensive school in North London for some years. He told me how much the school would have gained if he had been able to attract a broader profile from the fee paid day school competitors he faced.

Finally, it is tempting to consider employers who have already built a reputation for both outstanding performance and improving social mobility. Top of my list would be Tesco whose culture has long targeted bright and energetic people with nothing resembling a silver spoon in their mouths. It is an unstated but powerful aspect of their EB

Simon Barrow

Employer Brand Management must work beyond an HR and Communications framework it needs senior management involvement -

2011-02-16T16:47:00.000Z

Recently, I ran an Employer Brand Management morning workshop in Amsterdam prior to speaking to an EB conference there in the afternoon. The morning session attendees – about 25 in total – were a knowledgeable group of HR, Resourcing and Talent Management professionals with extensive EB experience working in major European and multinational companies.
It became clear from a discussion on achieving brand activation that some EB road blocks existed for this group and I list below the major concerns they had. Here were the top five issues:
1. Lack of strategic intent and common purpose at a corporate level which should drive overall EB thinking and action.
2. Insufficient measurement by management of the key dimensions of the working experience. As one delegate put it 'we are not showing enough evidence of pain in order to achieve the change we need'
3. Continuing disconnect between HR, Marketing and Operations when it comes to the delivery of necessary improvements to ensure that brand activation is implemented
4. Lack of HR leadership and influence on senior colleagues. One verbatim 'who is ultimately responsible for the Employer Brand of our organisation? The HR Director or the CEO?' The CEO is clearly seen to be responsible for the corporate brand (with investors, the media and a major advisers/suppliers etc) and the EB is surely a vital ingredient of that.
5. The widespread perception that senior management usually faces bigger issues than the EB and EB Management at any one time and is driven by short term priorities.
As I said above, this group knew the theory of the EB in that, however important it is to create the messaging and positioning resulting in a stance which is distinctive, compelling and true (easy to say but hard to do), EB branding is only one element of Employer Brand Management. The effectiveness of the latter depends on the ability and influence of the Brand Manager to bring measurement, planning, innovation, change and coherence to the management of the overall employment experience.

To achieve that needs trust, respect and involvement outside any one department. It requires confidence and influence to argue the case for changes which will improve the working experience and which will demand alteration to attitudes, behaviours and processes over which HR has no direct control. That influence needs the direction and support of the whole management group and in particular the CEO. It is this top group who need to ensure that HR actions are integral to the strategy and plans of the whole business. HR is not a race apart.
I learnt this lesson very early in my career when I was a Colgate brand manager. I may have worked hard on the plans for my brand (Colgate Fluoride Toothpaste) but European and later New York management had to approve them having tested the financial, marketing, production, R&D and distribution thinking in demanding and inquisitorial meetings which I have never experienced since. However, all that resulted in an approved budget plan which the whole company had to get behind. The chances of a 27 year old brand manager successfully influencing change are vastly improved when his or her plan has become the approved company plan.
What I believe lies behind the frustrations I listed at the start of this blog is the feeling that Employer Brand Management ought to be like this too but HR ( the obvious place for this approach) is restricted to creating and delivering on projects which can be managed within HR itself. Recruitment marketing and communication is an important part of that remit and the development of an Employer Value Proposition is an important output. However, that is not Employer Brand Management and, while the EVP will result in a more focussed, joined up and improved communications, it will not bring the best of real brand management into a place where it can really make the difference. While some organisations we know are truly demonstrating this way forward, too many are concentrating on what to say rather than what needs doing.

Simon Barrow
Chairman
People in Business Ltd, London

Why are bankers not defending their bonuses better? -an Employer Brand viewpoint

2011-01-25T15:12:00.000Z

I have not yet been asked to work with an investment bank to assess the impact of the bonus debate on existing employees, potential recruits, investors and other stakeholders. Why are they not using every argument to demonstrate why substantial bonuses are vital and show that successful bankers are heroes rather than greedy ogres?

To date most bankers seem to use just one response to their critics namely that unless restraint is global they will lose their talent to other financial centres. I don’t buy this – successful bankers who have set down roots in London have a full and varied life living in the finest urban property in the world and enjoying the social and artistic life of this great city. Any confidential research amongst bankers and their families would indicate that London is a very hard place to leave.

Why don’t they use much more powerful arguments? All I can conclude is that they do not exist and Sir Philip Hampton’s TV message last week was correct ie yes there are some brilliant people but the rest are journeymen. If so then small wonder that obvious rebuttal points do not get made. Yet, if this is a trade worth defending then they should form a key role in the defence.
Here are a few I have simply made up which if true would make quite a hard hitting defence eg

1. The colossal margins eg such as those which enabled Morgan Stanley to afford $16bn in salaries, bonuses and benefits in 2010 are only achieved by a few outstanding firms. The majority of bankers do not deliver results like these and the corporate and personal career risks are great. As with sportsmen and musicians there are only a few outstanding performers amongst the thousands who take part.

2. The competition for customers is intense. If all bankers earned these margins then the self correcting principles of capitalism would ensure that new competitors would rapidly enter the market and bring margins down.

3. To be a successful banker requires quite extraordinary and rare qualities eg professional skills like accountancy, an MBA, a first degree First and outstanding commercial and interpersonal qualities. This evidence only gets you an interview – the rejection rate is over 90%

4. This is not a long term career and top talent must make money when it can. There is a long time in education and training and then perhaps only 15 years of really productive work. ’50 on Wall Street is old’ really is true.

5. The burn out/drop out rate for Bankers is crippling. The employee turnover rate for qualified bankers is over 35% pa.

If the above were true Bankers rewards would be understandable but presumably none of it is otherwise the average rewards for a large investment bank would be nowhere near the £269,000 per head which Goldman Sachs paid out in 2010. I have just read a glowing report on the level of engagement and commitment in Goldman’s UK business. With such a level of average earnings that is not surprising yet don’t these talented employees sometimes wish that their leaders could defend what they are paid rather better? In the meantime I’d be interested to know what they say to friends and family.

If there are powerful arguments based on the realities of this market then let us hear them - otherwise observers will fill the vacuum with the thought that they really are just overpaid journeymen in a category ripe for change.

Simon Barrow

Why can't Waitrose run our public services?

2011-01-05T16:53:00.000Z

Now here is a blog about a real Employer Brand

On Christmas Eve, I succeeded in getting a rubbish skip removed; the driver, noticing a Waitrose wine case, said ‘Ah, you’re a Waitrose man’. I mentioned free delivery and competitive prices. `Fair enough’ he said, adding that three members of his family worked for them at Saxmundham; ‘they’re all happy – Waitrose is a good employer.’ When I said I was going there that afternoon, he said `say hello’ to his son Ben in the wine dept.

That visit gave me five positive experiences stemming from helpful advice given in a warm, spontaneous, natural spirit by people who really seemed to be enjoying their jobs. True, it was Christmas Eve, but that’s no guarantee of a benign, constructive response. I remember once doing a student job delivering drink, working with a driver who described the season as ‘nothing more than a f….g booze up ’.

So: why were they all so positive?

- they were working for a successful business – well, so are lots of big retailers but there was something else about working there;
- perhaps because, they are part owners of the business, Waitrose being part of the John Lewis Partnership?
- perhaps because there’s a greater sense of fairness with everyone getting the same percentage bonus on their basic salary? Plus rewards at the top, though handsome, are not at the stratospheric levels in other organisations;
- perhaps, being decently managed, they pass on that sense of decency and work as team players? With Waitrose employees bringing out the best in their customers and vice versa;
- With people like this most of us would think twice before raising a bad tempered voice – you don’t easily lose it with people doing their best. In any case the management's careful planning and implementation probably means there is little to cause rows. This is a disciplined place.

If I had to select the key Waitrose attributes they would be a) the basic human qualities of the people they recruit b) the sense I get that how Waitrose management behave is how they the partners want to behave c) the clarity and expectations of the actual employment experience and the confidence in the strategy on which it is based

As I drove home I wondered why more organisations don’t prompt me to feel this way. If Waitrose ran the railways, local government, education and health would not their employees and their customers be a lot happier? In addition I can think of several commercial businesses where the bedrock of the actual experience does not stand out for all it touches in the way it does here. If you need to spin your way to an Employer Brand you’ll never make it.

Simon Barrow 5th Jan 2011

2010-11-18T14:44:00.000Z

I mentioned that ’Passion’ had joined the list of much used FTSE company values along side integrity, trust and teamwork.
I am not alone, just have a look at this You Tube clip

'A principle is not a principle until it costs you money’ – the role of ‘values’ in an Employer Brand

2010-11-16T11:47:00.001Z

This quote came from the great Bill Bernbach, founder of the celebrated ad agency Doyle Dane Bernbach, made famous by their distinctive work for Volkswagen and others which broke the predictable mould of advertising towards the end of the ‘Mad Men’ era in the 1960s.

I think of that line when I see the value statements of most large companies. A statement of values and the behaviours and processes they drive should be a fundamental building block of any employer brand – vividly demonstrated in the way the place works. People in Business recently studied the Financial Times Stock Exchange 100 top UK businesses (The FTSE) and established that 65 of them have stated values which are on their websites. The 35 who do not may believe that a formal statement is superfluous since the culture, style and positioning are clearly in the DNA and do not need added promotion in that form.

Frankly, looking at the 65 value statements there maybe another reason for not going public which is that non participants may be aghast at the samey obvious values which dozens of large organisations trot out. Maybe they just don’t want to join that club. You can see why from the PiB analysis ie 31 mentioned ‘Integrity’ and if you add similar words like ‘Trust’ and ‘Honesty’ that rises to 55. ‘Respect’ is claimed by 22 of the 65, ‘Responsible’ 20 and ‘Teamwork’ 19. Another 15 companies, trying perhaps to push the boundaries, state that‘Passion’ is a value of theirs.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with any of these as words which should underpin the basic stance of any organisation but value statements like these cannot form the basis for an employer brand which is distinctive and compelling. After all, unless you are Bernie Madoff or in organised crime, then are not such noble sentiments fundamental to all of us? They just do not add anything other than tick the box that ‘we have a set of values’

I think a great value statement should stop you in your tracks and make you think. It should give you an indication of what is expected of you and tell you what is really important to the organisation and what it stands for. Consider these for starters:

Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité for post revolutionary France in the late 18th Century

The Declaration of Independence for the United States of America. A brilliant example of where succinct prose works better than a few stated beliefs. In 1776 it was also a global first.

Down the street from PiB's office is the Lutyens memorial to the nurse Edith Cavell shot at dawn in Brussels, October 1915. There are four words in the stone ’Fortitude, Humanity, Sacrifice, Devotion’. Eighty five years on it strikes me as timely right now for the 20 health care volunteers killed at one time by the Taliban in Afghanistan earlier this year and all those who continue do that brave and vital work under such circumstances.

We have a new partner in Turkey and the basis of that country’s continuing stance is based on the stated beliefs of its leader Mustafa Kemal Ataturk post the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923 - ‘Westernization, Modernisation, Solidarity, Secularization and Equality for All Turks’. Turkey today is still driven by these values and the behaviours that represent them. Ataturk also knew the power of one simple edict to demonstrate a new order – in 1925 he made the Fez (the traditional hat of the ruling class) illegal stating that ‘civilised men wear civilised hats!’. He wore a fine Panama hat from then on.

Values should be at the heart of any worthwhile Employer Brand if the leadership can sign off on statements which are compelling and distinctive and which they themselves can demonstrate. It can be very hard to establish statements which match the power of the examples I have used above but using words which are just worthy and commonplace will not do it for you. If you can’t do it right, wait until you can.

Simon Barrow
16 November 2010

Small businessess need an Employer Brand too

2010-10-20T16:24:00.000+01:00

- a new frontier for the Employer Brand?

Most Employer Brand conferences are attended by delegates from large businesses, so it was a special event to be asked to talk about how the employer brand might be considered by 130 lawyers gathered at a recent NetLaw Media conference in London. While there were a few ‘magic’ or ‘silver’ circle firms present the majority were small businesses with not more than 10 partners . All the delegates were lawyers themselves, mostly senior partners facing with all the usual challenges of running a small business eg:
- cash management,
- client relationships,
- the pressure to bill (write offs can come in separate time period!),
- whether to concentrate services and build a reputation for particular expertise (in which case what to drop?)
- How and when to outsource (given the low prices for Asian work)
- Poor leadership –as one said law firms have rarely been led just managed
- How good are lawyers at being seen to deliver?
- The relationship between actual time recorded and that billed.
- Debtor management –why are lawyers last in the line to get paid?,

In addition to all that they had the impact of the Legal Services Act (coming into place in October 2011) to consider.

HR, Marketing and Communications people are naturally interested in the Employer Brand – it forms part of what is expected of them - but small businesses rarely employ such specialists. They have to live with the immediate issues and I would doubt that many of these firms have a strategic plan. Thinking ahead will be limited to a budget.

Yet small businesses do of course have an individual reputation for the working experience they offer. They will have to cope with managing that experience and they will have to recruit, engage and motivate their teams. They will also have to worry about how their business stands out versus their competitors. While they may not realise it in the mass of daily pressures they will need the insights, the planning and the implementation which an EB process can provide. We must make the case in a way which is relevant, ‘grabbable’and affordable in senior time and out of pocket cost – showing what EB management has done for a FTSE company is no substitute for that.

There is an opportunity to bring the best of EB to small businesses and we need to create the process for doing so. I suspect that there is a human as well as a commercial need – any analysis of where unfairness, prejudice and evasion or avoidance of employment law is most prevalent is likely to be found among small employers.

Simon Barrow

Courage and the Employer Brand

2010-09-27T14:33:00.000+01:00

Courage is a vital EB ingredient

Any one who thinks that Employer Brand work is an endeavour that does not need courage is unlikely to produce an effective result. Something which is really distinctive, compelling and true will usually need it. Sadly, one only has to see the number of predictable working experiences, and the platitudinous ways they are described in second rate copywriting, to see the need for greater courage among HR and Marketing people. That in turn may reflect on the precision of the demands which their senior management place on them

Courage in business starts with one individual and I saw three examples of this in the past few weeks. People like that develop great EBs

‘The Bravest Man in Britain’ was how the Daily Mail described Jim McAuslan, General Secretary of BALPA, at the recent TUC conference. With the whole conference supporting a motion to resist all public service cuts (despite them not yet being identified), McAuslan’s hand was the only one to vote against it. The Chair initially thought he was joking but up he went to the platform and said that he could not support the motion since the TUC must first understand the views of the general public ‘beyond this hall’. Without doing so he believed that the TUC were presenting the coalition government ‘with an own goal’. He walked back to his seat in total silence.

Small wonder that ,with him as General Secretary, the British Airline Pilots Association commands the respect it does as partners with employers, supporters of 75% of UK pilots and pioneers on safety management, pilot fatigue, cabin air quality among many other relevant subjects. Furthermore, when BALPA thinks right is on its side it can be a formidable opponent. Leadership like that deserves a following and his BALPA colleagues and members will have been proud of him.

Catholics will have been proud of the Pope on his UK visit for the same reason. Given the negative publicity on clergy wrongdoing and cover ups, the atheist attacks and apparent apathy, it is hard, whatever your spiritual views, not to admire the clarity of his message and the strength of his beliefs

Final example. A large European company kindly invited me to a dinner to thank University Careers leaders for their support in helping to recruit some outstanding graduates this year. We were addressed by graduate recruits who were about to join and by three members of the executive. They took some toughish questions and overall it left us all with the evidence of a courageous and innovative business with a clear idea of its role in the community. Passion is an overused word in business but in this organisation you could feel it

I am reminded of the Chicago writer Philip Bliss’s famous lines

‘Dare to be a Daniel
Dare to stand alone
Dare to have a purpose firm
Dare to make it known’

So many people who could be Daniels somehow fail to deliver.
I mention the graduate recruiters evening not only because the company had such a clear point of view and meant every word but also because of the venue hosts. The dinner was held in the west nave of the vast Liverpool Anglican Cathedral where earlier the Canon had welcomed us in the Lady Chapel proudly stating that St Pauls would fit comfortably into this building.. We then walked to dinner to the sound of an immensely powerful organ.

Now for the Daniel moment. We got to the round tables and found our names. Some sat down, others stood or shuffled about and then dinner started. I just wondered why the Canon had not given a short interdenominational grace. OK perhaps he felt that night he was just the venue operator as he might be if we were dining at the Adelphi Hotel nearby. Yet here we were in a building dedicated to a faith which is the Canon’s life’s work. Did he feel it was non PC and therefore, even in the most modest way, believe he was not able to recognise what he believed this great building was all about? Surely a missed opportunity.

We all have to answer the question ‘what do you do?’ and those who are proud of their job and organisation let it show.in their answers. Particularly the leaders.

Many people find it difficult. I once interviewed an engineer who worked for the Metropolitan Police – he said when asked what he did that he was an engineer who worked in the civil service. A great EB should have helped him to stand up for his employer

Simon Barrow

M&A and 'Mad Men' - an employer brand disaster

2010-09-14T16:04:00.000+01:00

From the mid seventies to the mid eighties I ran an advertising agency. We worked for Sharp Electronics, Chanel, Mercedes-Benz and Bassett's Liquorice Allsorts. It was a bit later than the early sixties period which is the subject of the acclaimed TV show ‘Mad Men’ but close enough to remind me of the extraordinarily delicate task of balancing client needs, new business development, getting the creative work right plus managing the egos and ambitions of the most talented people in a market always short of them. 'Simon, can I have a word with you? was a question I dreaded – it was always the start of a conversation about money or another job.

Mad Men’s writers are either brilliantly briefed or they too have been there and no better than when in Series 3 they cover the acquisition of the middle grounded New York agency Stirling Cooper by a large British company aiming to strengthen its US presence. Given People in Business’s work on the cultural integration aspects of M&A (27 transactions to date and just starting our 28th) this was a vintage lesson on some of the classic pitfalls which management can and does still fall into.

Misreading the business benefits.
The London firm has lots of mouth-watering global clients who they feel will be an easily persuaded to use the newly acquired US agency. Of course they aren’t. Just as the London clients chose the London shop for its own skills, their NY counterparts are just as picky. The agency must be a great choice in its own right. Common ownership is never enough.

Damaging the existing leadership.
London puts in a Brit to manage NY who predictably makes some classic errors like firing the Head of Client service and appointing two internal replacements while not telling each of them that this would be a joint role.

Chemistry misfits.
The Brit boss and his wife take the NY Creative Director Don Draper and his wife Betsy to an excruciating dinner in a grand restaurant where the Brit wife succeeds in insulting both guests by complaining about NY cockroaches. On the drive home to Rye, Don tells a surly Betsy Listen, I didn’t enjoy that anymore than you did

Interference on new business.
Stirling Cooper is close to winning Madison Square Gardens property development – a prize piece of business likely to lead to the imminent Worlds Fair project in NY. London blackballs the pitch on the grounds of high service costs..

It sounds like the last straw. Don Draper pushes back, asking “why on earth did you buy us ?” the Brit boss, at the end if his tether, replies “Frankly I just don’t know”

The aftermath of all this makes for more great writing in the rest of Series 3 and now Series 4. In real life of course, events like this continue to happen when deal makers and top management anticipate the rewards of doing a deal (in Stirling |Coopers case to pay for a partners expensive divorce) without sufficient planning of what is likely to happen in real life on the ground.

Of course deal makers don’t spend much time helping to assure sustained value post merger. M&A advisers are paid for getting a deal done not making it work by building a shared Employer Brand reflecting the best of both organisations and contributing to future success.

As a great Editor of Campaign, Bernard Barnet, once said ' There are many ways to ruin an advertising agency but I have never come across anything more effective than merger or acquisition'

Simon Barrow

Does upmarket and mass market thinking apply to Employer Brands?

2010-08-17T14:01:00.001+01:00

Last week results from two hotel and travel companies came out on the same day - TUI Travel and Intercontinental Hotels. Business commentators made much of the fact that the mass market TUI's results were down and Intercontinental's were up. Did this show the more confident spending power of the rich and big business versus mass tourism and the effect of continued uncertainty on the latter? Last week we also saw the sale of the UK's most expensive flat(in One Hyde Park for £140m).
Yes of course there are often two paths for customers according to how confident you feel.
BUT, is that thinking relevant to Employer Brands? should skilled people be heading up market too and seeking to grow in companies who specialise there?
My answer is NO. Big mass market companies are the best bet certainly for many early and mid career years for several reasons:
a) They are flexible and they have more cash- if there is an up market opportunity they will grasp it - think of Cadbury's acquisition of Green and Black
b) they generally have better strategic and planning capability
c) whatever short term shocks they may face the best have the reserves to stay to stay on course, I'd rather be employed by BA than Net Jets for example however strong private air travel has been in recent years
d) the training is better whatever the discipline (ditto the market research they do)
e) look at the alumni - I can't prove this but I suspect there are more success stories coming out of places like PepsiCo (as Martin Glenn did) than out of up market food and drink businesses.
Of course one place suits one person and another place suits another. There are some great stories coming out of up market companies and bringing new skills to them can be an admirable career option. Buying one with private equity finance can be even better.Similarly, if for instance you love fine art then what better than Christies and Sothebys? However, the great Employer Brands for most talented people are probably going to remain those in the mass market or heading fast in that direction.
As Damon Runyon I think said 'the race may not always be for the swift or the battle for the strong - but it helps to bet that way!'

Simon Barrow

A summer story of an Employer Brand own goal

2010-08-10T16:18:00.000+01:00

One of the biggest traps any management can fall into is creating an EB which does not deliver on the detail of the employment experience. This summer I saw this happen in a great company who are clearly doing so much right. The organisation is a leading brand in the global hotel and restaurant business and I know the story because a 21 yr old daughter just did a temporary month there as a waitress.

Good news first. On day one she returned with an experience to make any EB professional proud and in particular me as the originator in the first place. The whole session (for both full time joiners and temps) concentrated on the brand and what it meant, the standards, the values, the support and rationale. She came home proud as punch and really understood what her dad had been going on about for years.

That weekend the management had a party in the park for the new team. Superb food and drink and attended by most of the management (there cannot be many companies who would include a temporary waitress on such an event)

Then the work itself, she was a ‘runner’ making sure that the food was delivered to the right person at the right table coordinated with that for other diners in the same party. Working to the precise and high standards of this fashionable restaurant demanded attention to detail, teamwork, speed plus good personal appearance and ability to help others. Furthermore, it required quick learning and the preparedness to take detailed criticism on the minutiae of how the brand and its customer service standards were maintained. Great training for any job as the advertising man David Ogilvy described in his early days at the Ritz Carlton in Paris. Not everyone survived these first weeks and my daughter was proud she did.

Was not this experience what an Employer Brand should be like? a brand to be proud of, excellent training on the job, high standards and bright ambitious colleagues. That was ‘the give’ from the employers point of view, what was ‘the get’?

She was paid at the rate of £12,000 pa ie around £6 per hour for a 39 hour working week including shifts covering breakfast and lunch till 1600, then a two hour break and then on again at 1800 till 0200 the next morning. Awkward shifts come with the territory in the restaurant business. No complaints there. The problem was the unpaid hours. The contract stated that employees would be expected to work longer when that was necessary – but no overtime. Yet some weeks she was doing 55 hours and as the weeks went on so her respect for the brand, which the company had done so much to describe and burnish, started to decline.

However, her standards did not and she left with the good will of other staff and management. In my view the balance between ‘give’ and ‘get’ cannot have been right. Maybe unpaid long hours are a rite of passage in the hotel and restaurant business particularly where the standards are high and the brand on your CV is a benefit. Trainee solicitors in magic circle firms experience the same pressure though the prospects for them are perhaps more enticing in the longer term.

Did the employer pick up on this little story? Not really, she politely asked HR if there was an exit interview and was told ‘ no you’re only a temp’ (subtext, plenty more like you).

Simon Barrow

Bringing out the best in business people

2010-07-28T10:12:00.000+01:00

Last week I went to lunch in the City and it’s worth writing about. Not because we enjoyed delicious food and wine and sat at a table in a big open room overlooking the river. Lunches like that are quite a rare event today– perhaps because it takes time (12.30 till at least 2.30) and there was plenty of wine to drink. That is not fashionable lunching in the 2010 financial services world.
What made it so worthwhile and thought provoking was because the guests brought out the best in each other by talking about subjects which prompted both interest and amusement among our diverse group. The guests included a Foreign Editor, a distinguished public servant (now a Bank Deputy Chairman), a business efficiency guru, our host with many years in the investment business and me. We talked about the events of the week, about the arts, about politics, foreign affairs and our own experiences. There was not a single ‘closed‘ question throughout. We were all business people but this was not a ‘business‘ lunch and I believe we got to know each other as individuals far better than if we had been under the focus and discipline of the typical commercial discussion. We were discussing subjects we all had an interest in and had no political or commercial axe to grind. Our role was to say something interesting and ask interesting questions. We were ourselves and that is when the real individual is so apparent.
Of course, as and when there is ever a need for any of us to talk business there will I hope be a basis of trust and respect to underpin that conversation

EMF will need a new treaty but how will it get one?

2010-03-10T10:36:00.000Z

Angela Merkel is right to say that a European Monetary Fund needs to be set up post the Greek crisis and that that will need a new treaty among members. What a nightmare for everyone given the difficulties of Lisbon! If this was a multinational business the leaders would engage an independent specialist who could prepare the way, research all the key players, advise on the major issues and facilitate a way forward. The aim is to find a solution to a practical need rather than a political one.
After advising on 26 merger and acquisitions this is how to overcome the challenges to reaching agreement between different stakeholders. The EU is unlikely to hire People in Business but after 20 years this is an approach that works
Simon Barrow
People in Business