What is efficient internal collaboration made of?

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Employer branding has become a corporate buzzword that is talked about in many organisations, but few organisations appear to do much actual branding. Job search expert Monster revealed in a 2018 study that most recruiters think employer branding is difficult due to a lack of resources. Further reasons include a lack of know-how, small budgets and a relative lack of internal collaboration.

Taken together, the biggest challenges in employer branding seem to be such that they can be fixed, or otherwise enhanced, by putting more effort into internal collaboration.

To tackle the challenge and to find best practices for enhancing internal collaboration, Miltton Academy hosted a breakfast seminar. As a result, we had a house full of HR, marketing and communications people, great discussion and analysis and come the end, concrete steps towards better internal collaboration.

Rome wasn’t built in a day and the same applies to good employer branding practices. Therefore, allowing time and effort to build a well-functioning internal ecosystem, especially in big organisations, is one key to success. It’s also important to note that big organisations have various employee groups where segmenting will make organisations’ employer branding efforts a lot more targeted and efficient. One good example of this is Wärtsilä, where their employer branding is focused on doing things together, testing things together and leading by example. Wärtsilä’s approach was brought to us by guest speaker Sanni Suominen, from their global talent attraction team. She also reminded us of the importance of having shared goals for the different functions, to enable people to work together seamlessly.

The value of transparency in all aspects of employer branding should not be overlooked. First of all, whatever we communicate about ourselves as an employer has to be true. But, transparency also applies to how we should work together. Different internal stakeholders need to share the same view of the brand identity and be transparent in what they are doing for the employer brand. This became very clear when the guest speakers from Gofore revealed their recipe for reaching both #1 in the Great Place to Work rankings and their recruiting goals in a very competitive talent segment.

Recruiting lead Anni Roinila, with Marketing and communications director Riikka Nurminen, emphasised that you can support an open and transparent culture in many ways. At Gofore, employees get rewarded for being active in employer branding efforts. The aim is to create a culture that inspires the employees to be involved in content creation, recruitments and promoting the company, as well as giving praise to their colleagues. The bonus acts as a sign of gratitude and also, it’s an encouragement to strive for impactful things whenever possible.

The presentations and smaller group discussions by the partcipants were inspiring and eye-opening. Below is a summary of the key findings:

1. Strategy as a stepping stone for success. First and foremost, you need to work together on a proper employer branding strategy. This helps the organisation to focus and have a clear idea of what the goals are, as well as the KPIs, the value proposition and the story you want to tell.

2. Constant and open dialogue. After the strategy has been crystallised and the engagement is off the roof, it is time to plan how to activate the employer brand with combined forces. To succeed in this, you need to involve the typical internal stakeholders like HR, marketing and communications, but also to constantly include and engage with all other colleagues in the employer branding work.

3. In order to gain trust internally and externally of the organisation, it is of utmost importance to work in a transparent way. Make sure that others in the organisation know what has been done and what is currently being implemented in your employer branding efforts.

About the author

Miikka Huhta works with Miltton’s employer branding services. Miltton is our World employer Branding Day 2019 Country Partner for Finland.

Miltton Academy collects together the many facilitators Miltton has, as well as the different trainings the Milttonees can provide. The Academy hosts a breakfast seminar each month to showcase a specific theme that we can help our clients with.

At Miltton, we work on all aspects of employer branding and also want to help more organisations to have breakthroughs in enhancing their internal collaboration.

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