89 [EB Series] Turning Your People Into Your Most Powerful Recruitment Tool | Glynnis Quek (Google)

[00:00:00] You're listening to VideoMy Pod's Employer Brand Series. I'm David Machucker and joining me for this very special Singapore edition is the wonderful co-host Emma Lang. We're sitting down with incredible people shaping employer brand across the region to have honest conversations about what's working, what's not, and where to next for employer brand and recruitment marketing. Where's it all heading? There's a lot to learn from this part of the world in Singapore. Let's get into it.

[00:00:28] Welcome to the VideoMy Podcast series where we go deep in employer brand and recruitment marketing activities. I'm David Machucker. I'm Emma Lang. And I'm Glynnis Quek. And we are going to be unpacking a really meaningful theme, something that's really important to enable employer branders and recruitment marketing to build trust. And that's being able to activate employees and get them to tell their authentic story. And with us, we have Glynnis to unpack that. Glynnis, do you mind if you share a little bit about your background? Sure.

[00:00:59] Thank you, David and Emma for having me here today. I'm Glynnis and I lead and manage employment brand programs and campaigns for Google in the Asia Pacific region.

[00:01:09] A lot of what I do involves content creation, working with employees to bring about their voices and experiences of working at Google to live on different social media channels, as well as recruitment marketing platforms where candidates will be engaging with us.

[00:01:30] This also involves recruitment marketing. So it involves the end-to-end cycle of having jobs shared on the various social media or marketing channels and ensuring that employment brand narratives and messages come through in the most authentic way possible.

[00:01:47] Amazing. I'll jump in there because I know you and your role, you cover so much amazing stuff and an area you're really passionate about and something we've heard you talk about a lot is around building out this employee voices, the advocacy program that you've been doing at Google. So we'd love to hear a lot of people. So we'd love to hear a lot of people. So we'd love to hear a bit about that, how you kind of approached it and identifying the right talent. So where would you like to start?

[00:02:09] I think I'll start with the why. Why we are so big on working with employees to build their voices and bring their own personal stories to life. In our research, we have seen, and not just in our own internal research, but we've researched across different platforms, including LinkedIn. We know that employees are the most credible source of truth about telling how a company is like when it comes to candidate attraction.

[00:02:37] People find employees, people take employee stories more seriously than they do on corporate brand channels. So if I can pull a statistic to that, candidates are six times more likely to trust feedback from an employee as compared to the corporate brand channel.

[00:02:57] And that's the key reason why we have been working so closely with our employees to build wonderful and to build really strong and authentic narratives that will speak to our diverse pools of candidates. I agree. It's very compelling seeing an employee advocate or not even advocate, just tell it how it is, like in a really authentic way.

[00:03:22] And I think it cuts through with former colleagues or people that are not too far separated, might do the role in a different company instead of having the corporate polish of maybe a digital agency. Or, you know, there's a lot of realism when an employee, but it's hard to get employees to participate in the program.

[00:03:50] I'd really like to know how you've cracked the code and how you think about attracting and who you should be attracting to identify those people who are telling their stories. Okay. I wouldn't say that we have, we at Google have cracked the code yet. We are still learning and growing and trying to understand how employee landscape is like as we move along.

[00:04:13] But in my time in doing employment branding across different companies, I have realized a couple of things. The first is a lot of employees do want to have wonderful stories to share and they do want to share that out on social or on a bigger online channel or platform. But many times they are, they're not confident or they don't know how to go about sharing.

[00:04:41] They don't want to do, they don't want to be overexposing themselves or saying something wrong, which may land them in trouble with their companies. So that's one, that's a key deterrence from having more employees talk about their own career experiences or being more authentic about their point of views. The second is many of these employees, they are, while they may be familiar, while some of them may be familiar with different social media platforms or channels,

[00:05:11] then you have to think about the multi-intergenerational mix of employees. Younger employees are more likely to be very familiar with social media channels, but then you have the older, more tenured employees who may not be on social media as often. So many times they need a little bit of guidance or perhaps some level of encouragement to be present on those channels.

[00:05:35] So for an employee amplification program to work, you basically need to bridge the gap and connect the dots and the needs and the wants of these employees in order to give them the confidence to be present online and to confidently share their stories.

[00:05:52] So the way about it is to create, it's all about creating a system, it's all about creating an advocacy platform that will enable and inspire them and empower them to share their voices at scale. And there are many ways to go about doing it. I do feel like one of the most straightforward ways is to really give them a high level, a deep insight into how the process,

[00:06:22] is to make the process as simplified as possible for them so that it comes across easy. So that the process of creating stories feels like a low lift instead of something that is really difficult. And to give them transparency and visibility into the policies and the guidance on the company narratives, what they can say and what they shouldn't be saying.

[00:06:50] So that helps to bridge the gaps in many ways. I think there's two great points there around keeping it simple enough so that they're equipped, they're empowered and educated on how to do it, but not so much it perhaps scares them. Because I've been in, I don't know if you've had this as well, you've taught them through the policies, but they're like, oh, what can I post? And they don't want to do something wrong. So I think that's a great takeaway of keeping it simple.

[00:07:16] Another one is around that simplicity line around they must get busy. So they don't see it as such a big lift or a task. So you can keep them engaged. And how do you then maintain that with them? So once you've done that great kind of onboarding and training and you've kept it simple and clear, what would be your next step to keep them motivated to keep going? Exactly that. In the recruiting world, we talk about candidate experience. In this space, we are talking about employee experience.

[00:07:46] They must have a great experience with your program in order to be motivated and empowered to be sharing their voices to a wider audience. So giving them clear frameworks, a really easy platform and a very simplified means of making it easy for them to share online is the way forward. To your question, which is around how to bring this to life, I think it comes across in a couple of steps.

[00:08:15] The first is how then do you go about selecting the right employees for the program? And then you also look into what are the processes that you need to navigate in order to bring this program to life? And finally, how do you celebrate those stories and amplify them at scale both internally and externally? I want to know all the answers to these questions. Yeah, let's work through those steps. Okay, let's start with the first one, right?

[00:08:45] Which is how do you find the right kind of employees? I think in the employment brand world, we are at a very interesting intersection. We sit between the intersection of marketing and with recruitment. And because we work with employees, we do have the privilege of meeting and getting to know many different employees. And we also have the networks and the relationships that we build with the recruitment team,

[00:09:15] the people operations or perhaps you call it HR teams. And then you have the relationships that you build with comms and marketing. So all these relationships are crucial in order for you to find the right kind of employees that you can feature as storytellers. In my opinion, the best kind of employees that you can get on your program are individuals who are very passionate about your company. They are huge believers of your company's business and the products.

[00:09:43] They are great endorsers of what your company stands for. They align with your company's values. Then you also, as an added bonus, if they are comfortable with storytelling, they are comfortable with sharing their voices on online channels like LinkedIn or on social, that's great. And even better if they are savvy with social media, right? They know how to shoot their own content. They know how to create. They know how to write.

[00:10:13] Those are the best kind of individuals that you want for your program. Of course, and many times because employer brand teams sit with recruitment. Many times you have employer brand teams who sit with talent acquisition teams or recruitment teams, then you may have to align your program with business priorities. So that's the added conversation that you may need to have with your recruitment stakeholders,

[00:10:40] your hiring managers on what are their critical hiring priorities, and you can bridge the gaps in there. And are you leveraging the relationships you have with the recruiters and the hiring managers for them to be your talent scouts? Yes, we do. Yes, and that's the process. Leveraging the relationships with recruiters and sources to find great employees to work with.

[00:11:09] Recruiters are a wonderful goldmine of employee knowledge and networks within the company because they are the first point of entry for any new job. For employees who are joining the company, they are the ones who source and recruit the employees for your company. So definitely go to them, speak to them, and get recommendations for them on who would be great for this feature.

[00:11:38] The other team that could be great as partners would be your HRBPs, your people operations partners. They work a lot with employees. They do know individuals in the company, and they would also have great recommendations. They may also tie it more broadly with your company priorities, which may not necessarily go hand-in-hand with the shorter-term talent acquisition priorities.

[00:12:08] So those are also great sources of truth. And then finally, if you know of hiring managers, if you do have your own networks within the corporation, do tap on them as well because they may have some great recommendations. I don't know, like some companies also may have employee resource groups

[00:12:30] or maybe company-wide newsletters or mailers or platforms where employees can come together and share topics or resources. Those can also be great channels, especially if you are looking to crowdsource or find willing volunteers who will immediately sign up for your program. I was thinking about that as you were talking through it. If you've had experience of where you really open it up to the whole workforce,

[00:12:59] because quite often, yes, I think we do align it and speak to the right stakeholders. And if you've had an experience where you've just opened it up, even if it's to a job function or a country population saying, this is the program who wants to get involved. And then hopefully, as you were talking through the criteria earlier, those who just naturally do it, who have a really authentic voice, hopefully you think they're more likely to just put their hand up and go, yeah, I'll get involved. And it unlocks that program quite quickly for you.

[00:13:28] Yes, Google has done a great job in crowdsourcing employee stories through site-wide employee networks and newsletters. You put out a form there and then you encourage people who are interested in sharing their voices with the employment brand team to come forward and pitch their story to us.

[00:13:54] And then they will be featured on the employment brand channels or on the careers website. So those are just some of the most passionate, the most interesting stories come through those channels. So going down the process, you've engaged with a recruiter or a hiring manager and they're like, I've got the best person for you. What's next?

[00:14:23] What flows best? Would you like to be included in an introduction via email? And then you, is that what occurs? A lot of times. So I think it really depends on how each, every individual employer brand manager works or how every company runs. Some companies could be a bit more formal. Then a formal introduction is required.

[00:14:48] But in the case, like in my line of work is a little bit more fluid, more flexible. I leave it up to the recruiter to either who, to decide whether they are more comfortable to me, the introductions or they are happy with me to, to reach out directly to the employee or the Googler to, for their, for his or her story. Yeah. Get out of the way. I'm just going to go straight in. Yeah. I think this comes to the next segment,

[00:15:16] which is how do you then create a process that is really enjoyable for the employee to build that story, to share that story. And at the same time, it's an easy lift for both yourself as an employer, as the, as the campaign manager and for the employee. Yeah. I can imagine it's very, it's, it's powerful if you say to someone, you've been recognized as a high performer.

[00:15:43] I'd really like to capture your story to inspire other people to come and join the company. Yeah. So yeah, I'm really curious to know how you, how you've systemized it and the conversation that you're having with them to secure them as a, as an employee story. That's a great question. I think one of the most important factors that anyone must take note of before they kick off an employee

[00:16:09] of ROC's amplification program is to deeply understand the, the content approval processes of their companies. So knowing who are the stakeholders that they should be, knowing if there's any policies around personal posting or, or around employees who are looking to share about company news updates or company updates or their, their, their career experiences on social. A good knowledge of that is important.

[00:16:39] The second is understanding if this comes out on official channels, who are the right stakeholders to reach out to for reviews? And finally, an approval and approval, right? Yeah. And, and finally the, the employment brand narratives and messages and marrying that with the corporate narratives, the corporate key messages, what's on brand, what's on, what's not on brand. A deep knowledge of that is, is, is really important for a program manager.

[00:17:10] So if you're able to connect the dots in these three spaces, that's where you'll be able to build out a, a really efficient and a powerful program. The next step is all about how you, you bring the employee through these many different processes and make it easy for them. So, in my case, I usually start out with an introduction email to, to test the water and see if they are interested in sharing their story. If they are not, if they are too busy, then okay, we park it aside.

[00:17:39] If they are, if they are, most, many times they are always interested, right? And then I'll put aside time for us to meet one-on-one and run an interview, get, get the employees voice and understand what are the key messages or the themes in their career that they'd like to highlight. And from there, we will, we will have that one-on-one session where we'll, it's more of a casual conversation. We will ask some questions to understand their,

[00:18:07] their career path to say Google or to a company that they're working at. And then, and then we build that story from there. I love that framework. I think you just made a really good point where quite often you see, sometimes it fails. You have a hiccup or it slows down. Yeah. And then it impacts the engagement of the employee is not truly understanding the frameworks behind it. So the guidelines, the approvers, the policies, because if you suddenly run off and launch these things,

[00:18:37] this is when, and when it can get impacted. If it's been aligned, it's not going to get approved. So, you know, it's not, it's not as glamorous as creating the content itself, but it's a really fundamental, important piece to get right. Yeah. And here's another really important piece. As we, if you're building a program of employee amplification, you have, you have to think about, if you have to think of yourself as an endorsement marketeer, not as an employment brand manager, not as a,

[00:19:06] not as a campaign manager, but someone who is in the endorsement marketing space, treat your employees as creators. They are content creators for your company. They are creating, you are working closely with them to create great content that will resonate with your company's narratives. And the whole process of building a program, right, is to, is to ensure that you build a mechanism,

[00:19:30] a machine that is able to bring their voices through authentically and, and bring critical key messages that, that align with your corporate narratives to life. If you have an employee who participates in your program, do you ever go back to them and ask them to participate again? Yes, I do. Some employees have such rich, have such a rich, have such rich experiences. There's so much,

[00:19:59] so we have so many angles and, or stories to share that you can't just feature all of the experiences or their stories in one post. And, and how do you go about organizing the content? Because for instance, in a way you probably don't want to just have it all living in your head. You want to be able to systemize it. So for instance, there's a job family, certain ethnicity, age or gender that you're looking for to present.

[00:20:29] Um, and you had someone about a year ago, create some content that you loved. And you're like, Oh, that person would be fantastic to get on again. But if you've got 50, 70, a hundred people, I'm assuming that, you know, it's hard to keep up. So have you created some sort of, uh, spreadsheet or, or system where you're tracking who's good on video, a little bit about them, like a bio. So, uh, first of all,

[00:20:59] we try to keep the process, at least at Google, we try to keep the process as equitable and as inclusive as possible. So, um, there are certain factors that we don't dive into such as like gender or age. Sure. But you're not going to have a whole bunch of women in engineering when that's not fairly representative of, um, you know, having males there as well. So I'm assuming you want to have a bit of a blend. So we do have a repository of, uh,

[00:21:28] stories or because we, because we, at unemployment brand team, the crowdsource stories, employees are encouraged to fill out form. Okay. And, uh, you know, that, that feeds into a repository of employees with, who are open and willing to share their stories. And we do have a database of, uh, employees who have volunteered for the program. So that builds the database. And then we, uh, we choose the,

[00:21:55] we choose the best stories that align with company narratives. Yeah. I love that. Yes. So, uh, that's one. Um, and for me personally, when, uh, when I, I think maybe it's, it's part of the job, right? I, uh, when I have worked with an employee that particularly stands out, they have a wonderful story to share. Um, it just stays in my brain. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's a really good point though. How, how can we, as practitioners always, is the feedback loop, isn't it,

[00:22:24] keep them on how do we go back every course for every six months, every year to everyone that's produced content? A, I think to get onto this, I think, thank them and show them the impact they've had, but then invite them in again. Can you do more or nominate someone? I agree. Because if they're high performing, say they had engagement, um, that far exceeded someone else's engagement. You want to go back to that well, don't you? And they also, perhaps they're more willing to do it because they realize it's, it wasn't that scary. Yeah. It was okay.

[00:22:53] And it's easier to get, I get exactly that goes to, well, get more out of them. Yeah. You know, your program is working well when you have employees coming back to you saying, thank you. I really loved working with you and being a part of this program. I hope that you can feature me. If you have future opportunities to work together, please let me know. That's awesome. That's really, I'm curious to know, um, just if we were to take a step back, how you're communicating what's in it for them. Um,

[00:23:24] we try to make it, we make it really prestigious for them. Okay. Make it a prestigious experience. And how I go about doing this is to inform them that their stories will go live on an official corporate channel. So recognition. Recognition. Internal recognition. Exactly that. So, uh, it, it sounds, uh, you know, and their profiles will be shared far and wide on LinkedIn. We'll be sharing their stories with, uh, with different, uh, with different organizations.

[00:23:53] And we're getting recruiters to amplify their stories. So that's already a huge, external recognition, internal recognition is a huge hook. Yep. And of course, um, we do also have, post campaign recognition for every employee. Yep. Who has participated in the program. Um, um, we let their managers know about their contributions and we inform them on how, on the, the, the performance of their, their content.

[00:24:22] So it could be form part of their performance review. Yes. It's embedded into their performance. That is, that is the secret sauce. If every employer brand, and I know this for a fact, if an employer brand can tie it to their performance review with hiring managers, even if it's just acknowledgement, you, you're likely to have a successful program. Yeah. The mechanism of acknowledgement and recognition is really very powerful and

[00:24:49] it's a huge motivator for employees to come up, to come forward and talk about themselves. Definitely. One hundred percent, um, internal recognition, external, but it is a slam dunk if it can tie it to their performance review. Yeah. In my experience, there's other things that have been really helpful. It could be swag. You have a sticker or like a mug, um, for participation. Um, so the points that drive, it's, it's not a metric point. It's,

[00:25:18] it's showing how you're continuing to support employee engagement and advocacy as a company, which helps the company perform better and so on. So I love the fact you, you hooked onto that and it's not just about the hard data points as well. Yeah. It's not just a hard data points. Uh, and man, it's also really helpful that managers endorse, endorse employment branding. Uh, I think that work, the support that we get from hiring managers and from the man, from leadership themselves in encouraging their, uh,

[00:25:48] their teams to, to go forward and talk about the, the, about their work, about the culture that they have, about the working environment is so, it's so important. I'm generally excited about this one. If you work in talent acquisition or employee brand, you would have come across James Ellis, four books over 15 years of experience. One of the most recognized employee brand authority voices in the world. On September 2nd, he's coming to Melbourne for the first time ever.

[00:26:17] He'll be talking about how to be choosable, how to be different in a market. That's super competitive. If you're in TA or employer brand, or you're a CPO looking for differentiation, this is the most valuable afternoon that you'll have this year. Tickets are in sale. Now don't sleep on this. You touched on something a little earlier that hiring managers, um, oh sorry, um, participants, uh, who are in the program.

[00:26:46] Some can be a little bit unfamiliar with, uh, social content. Um, younger people, probably not so. And I agree with that, like TikTok and other platforms, but some people just don't jump onto LinkedIn and they've probably never posted anything before as well. So is there some sort of framework or tips that you provide them? Cause I'm assuming the rubber hits the road when the person who creates the content shares the content. So working with employees can be a very nuanced,

[00:27:16] uh, experience. You want to tailor the experience for, to, I mean, to ensure that every employee that you work with is comfortable. So it can be, it can look very different from employee to employee. So that's one, some employees require a little bit more, um, reassurance, a little bit more, a little bit more guidance on, on the content creation process. So, whereas others are, you know, they are very, they are digital,

[00:27:46] they are social savvy. So they can, uh, maybe just after a meet, after one meeting, they are able to hit the ground running and, and start creating their own, their own, um, content and their own themes. Uh, for those employees who are, um, who require a little bit more guidance, that's where you want to be mindful of, um, their pain points and their, their concerns. And, you know, be patient with them and just slowly reassure or address those concerns with them. And position yourself as a, as a partner,

[00:28:16] position yourself as being there to support them in their journey of sharing their stories. And, uh, that's where you're, um, as, as a camp, if you're managing a program like this, your knowledge of social media platforms is, or online platforms is also important. Because the algorithm for every social media platform and online platform is quite different. So, um, if you look at a post on LinkedIn versus, versus what,

[00:28:45] a post on Instagram, the way it's positioned, the way it, uh, it tells a story, needs to be different in order to, to optimize engagement. And that's where, uh, your insights on, your insights in social media marketing will be really critical. And I think that proves the point of the need of, of management behind these programs. I think other people underestimate the, the time and the resource involved to, to manage it, to coach people, to give them the guidelines,

[00:29:13] to change the content for the right platforms. It just gets a statement of an advocacy program or content creation. And there's, there's so much planning behind the scenes. I'd like to go back and understand a little bit from you, because you mentioned around sharing the content internally as well. And I think quite often that, that step either, the, it gets missed because we're focused so much on external, different teams manage internal comms. So there's all sorts of different reasons, but I love the facts. I think you guys, you,

[00:29:43] you make sure it's shared internally as well. Externally. So talk through, you launch at the same time. How does that work? And how do you make sure that happens? Because I think it's a, a key unlock to drive it more. Uh, I do. I personally believe that internal promotion and amplification is just as important as external engagement. Because, uh, by sharing, by sharing employment brand story with other, other employees who will,

[00:30:11] who may or will be just as engaged with the, with the story as an external candidate, is going to provide a massive boost to amplification, to, uh, to, uh, to, to employment brand, uh, post. So, um, having like knowing which teams or which hiring manager teams to share that story far and wide with working with recruiters to establish that network, the amplification network, uh, is really helpful. Uh,

[00:30:39] you can have like recruiting champions who are very passionate about social sharing, about recruitment, uh, what do you call that? Social recruitment, right? You can have social recruitment champions who work very closely with you to amplify, um, to amplify, uh, employment brand stories with their recruitment colleagues and with, uh, hiring managers. So these are, this is just some of the best ways to get your stories shared, uh, get,

[00:31:08] to amplify your stories internally and to also provide that, uh, employee with recognition that they deserve. It also, I'm assuming, takes the edge off the recruiters because in big companies, um, there's re-skilling, um, you know, there's roles that they could be applying for. So you're touching on, uh, internal mobility, um, which is really helpful instead of them having to go external to get someone, someone can put their hand up. There is a role that exists. This is the type of role that I do.

[00:31:38] And we're looking for someone else who could potentially do it as well. exactly that. And, but that boils down to, that boils down to metrics, right? that's not, that, that boils down to talking about impacts of your program. Yeah. Right. And, uh, it's all about how you can, um, especially if you're in the, in the recruitment marketing space, in the talent acquisition space, how can you convey the impact of, uh, an employer amplification or advocacy program.

[00:32:05] I'm so glad you're going down this direction. perfect. Let's do that. So what are a few of the key metrics that you remind people that the program is working? So that's very dicey. I, um, here's my background. I didn't, I came from a pure comms and marketing background. It took me a long time to understand what recruiters are, really look out for what's really important for. recruitment. But once I understood that, I finally understood, okay,

[00:32:33] why these numbers are important for them. Which numbers are important for them? No, uh, when we are talking about marketing, tell us how you've unlocked, uh, what recruiters are thinking. When you're talking about marketing, right? What do marketers care about? Top of funnel. They talk, they care about the awareness, the engagement of content, and maybe a number of clicks it brings to the, at most, at the very, at the very end of it is the number of clicks that it drives to, say, that call to action link. Most marketeers care about that.

[00:33:03] You're talking about recruitment. You're talking about the low end of the funnel. Um, and here's where it, sometimes it confounds marketeers. Like, I'm doing top of the funnel. How does that even impact lower funnel where I have no control over? But yes, there, there is, so recruiters care about, um, applications, applications, whether or not, um, your initiatives are driving hires. And that's the part where, you know, as,

[00:33:31] I remember in my time when I was going through this learning process, I was like, so confounded. How can I tie my marketing impact to recruiting impact? How do, how do conversions even make sense? So, um, here's the part, right? most online marketing programs are easily trackable these days. even, either through the means of API integration or with, um, with third party, with third party tools.

[00:34:00] So leverage those tools to ensure that your marketing campaigns are trackable or your, or whatever that comes, your employee voices and stories that come through, uh, are trackable and then integrate that to your, recruitment numbers. It would, with, with the help of UTM or API integration. Is that too complex? No, not at all. No, no, uh, what I see with companies that execute, uh, and the impact that they're making it,

[00:34:30] you've just touched on, um, how to track it. Um, but in terms of metrics that they're really impacting, um, around attraction and retention, but referrals increase as a result of a while executed. And, that sort of program. And, you know, everyone's on about time to hire. Well, that's a really quick way to impact that because those people who are being referred, uh, usually high value people.

[00:34:58] And they go through that process a lot quicker as well. So time to hire is definitely a great metric source, pass through rates, whether or not it improves the, the, the pass through rates of the different, uh, hiring, the different hiring stages. Yep. Uh, you're looking at applications because applications, it definitely brings in the quality of applications. So the theory here is, um, if you go,

[00:35:27] if you are running an initiative, an employment initiative with the right employees, they are more likely to, uh, attract and hire the right, and they are telling the right kind of stories. You're more like, you're more likely to attract, attract the right kind of talent to your, to the roles that you are hiring for. So less reneging as well, getting an offer and not accepting that should, that should decrease. Um, if you've got it right,

[00:35:53] you probably won't be advertising twice on job boards because hopefully you close down that role. So the cost to advertise a role could, could drop, could drop as well. We could also look at LinkedIn, right? Let's look at, let's use LinkedIn as an example because it's so widely used for recruitment, for recruiters. Yes. Um, we do have established, I think it's industry wide, it's industry wide stat that, on LinkedIn, if a candidate has engaged with your brand, even with one touch point,

[00:36:24] the candidate is more likely to respond to a recruiter's in-mail. The in-mail response rate will improve on recruiters. Your influence of hire. So yeah, the more we can engage with them and have those touch points, the more it will help the recruiter. Yeah. Yeah. And what we find with content as well, that's been created, it can be repurposed and used in other areas like the candidate experience. When someone applies for a role, you can share that content. And we were talking about this previously, like,

[00:36:54] um, if you have goodwill with a brand, uh, then you're likely to continue to follow that brand or purchase something from that brand as well. So it has a real knock on effect. It's powerful getting it right. It's hard for employee branders to manage, to, um, to monitor, but attrition and retention should also come into play because if you're communicating the functional, emotional,

[00:37:24] and even social outcomes of what it's like to work within the business, it shouldn't turn into a revolving door because the expectation, you're meeting someone at the level of expectation. This is what to expect because you're not just spruiking benefits. It's you're sort of just keeping, you're trying to keep it as real as possible with an authentic employee story. Yes, exactly that. And so just to summarize, um,

[00:37:51] if you can tie your employee amplification program with, uh, recruitment impact, which is all about, improve time to hire, improve past, past two rates. Uh, if you are able to track the number of applications, that's great. All the way to hires. That's awesome. If you are able to tie it back to improve referrals, improved in-mail response rates, retention and attrition, improve retention and attrition rates.

[00:38:21] Those are wonderful, um, data points to convey the recruitment impacts of employee advocacy to your recruiting partners. Agreed. And that trust will enable you to get further investment, whether it be a person or purchasing software or taking a risk on something. So you can be a little bit more creative. Yes. The leadership endorsement is so important because that's when you know that, you're able to get more buy-in from leadership and,

[00:38:50] and credibility with from credibility from leaders to, uh, endorse and promote what you are doing. Yep. I've got one final question because I know we're coming at time. Um, we at Google, uh, people potentially could want to join the business for all the perks that Google offer. Um, and some would argue it's probably not the right reason to join a business. Um,

[00:39:20] how do you balance that working for an employer of choice to keep it real? You're right. We are trying to move away from the perks at Google and focus more, uh, and what we're trying to do is to focus on the, the impactful work that our employees are doing. And there's a lot of impactful work. You guys are doing some incredible stuff.

[00:39:48] AI leading the way. Awesome work. Yes. So, um, the work, the start, the whole, the whole focus on, on perks and free food came from legacy. Okay. But the Google, the Google before and the Google now are very, are two very different entities. What happened 20 years ago is not what we are today. So a lot of the storytelling that, uh, come from my employees these days,

[00:40:17] are really very focused on the work that they are doing and innovation or the team culture or the work environment. So that's where we are focused on. We really want to bring these amazing stories of what our employees are doing in their, in work to life. And, um, and we do want to ensure that it reaches the, the, it reaches and attracts the right talent pool to consider Google as a place to work.

[00:40:42] So what you're saying is that you're just trying to distill myths of legacy and moving things forward, using employee stories as a tool to attract talent. So it's a lot. Yes. A hundred percent. Demystifying some of the, uh, demystifying some of our legacy stories or legacy narratives. And what's probably just to build on that last point,

[00:41:08] you probably find people naturally not talking about the free food or if they were going to create their own content and they're not filming themselves. Getting their steps up because the place is so big. Yeah. They're not going to film themselves making their own coffee because they've also realized life at Google is so much more than, than that. But also perhaps during your, your guidelines right at the beginning, you're helping them talk to their, the valuable work that they're doing and the impact they're having. And that's where it comes through. So don't get me wrong. I think, you know, having,

[00:41:38] there's still a lot of people out there who, there's still a lot of employees out there who, uh, they, they put up shots of the coffee that they are having or. It's still part of your culture. It's still part of the culture, still what they're experiencing. Yeah. Uh, and plus it's very Instagrammable. Uh, but beyond that, what we are trying to encourage is a culture of sharing about the really wonder, the amazing work that they are doing, the impact, the innovations that they are experiencing and, and really what they, um, bring to life, what they do day, day to day.

[00:42:09] It's been such a fascinating conversation. I feel like we could talk about it for a really long time because we are really passionate about this topic, but some of the nuggets that you've, uh, nuggets of gold that you've shared is really valuable and we really appreciate your time. Thanks Glynis for joining. And thank you for having me. Thanks,