92 [EB Series] How Authentic Employer Brands Create Experiences Worth Talking About | Anne Caron

[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] Well, welcome to the VideoMy Pod where we go deep in employer brand. We had a fantastic episode today. I'm David Machucker. I'm Emma Lang. And I'm Anne Caron. And we are really excited to be unpacking how to personalise communication through employee stories in maybe companies that aren't so big, maybe under a thousand,

[00:00:53] but the importance of telling stories and having personalised content to attract and maybe to retain talent. Do you mind introducing a little bit about yourself? Sure. So I'm a people strategy advisor and I work with CEO and founders of companies, typically around 10 to 50 employees.

[00:01:18] And I help them build the conditions for skill while remaining positive and high performing. And I've been doing this for 10 years now. Prior to that, I was with Google for 10 years, between 2005 and 2015. And when I joined Google in 2005, so globally the company was 5,000 people.

[00:01:47] So I joined in Europe. In Europe we were only 1,500. And interestingly, it's hard to believe now that people did not apply to Google at the time. So our posts were dry of candidates because people knew Google as, you know, a search engine, but not as an employer.

[00:02:13] So my role when I arrived was to place Google on the map as an employer of choice and to build an internal headhunting team to actually go and get those people. So I did all that, you know, employer branding exercise of telling people, you know, who we were.

[00:02:35] And 10 years later, I was here in Singapore at that time and we had moved from 5,000 globally to 65,000 people. And we actually had totally reverse issue. We were receiving between three, yeah, two and 3 million applications a year.

[00:03:00] And I think it's where the employer branding kind of went the wrong way. It went beyond the truth. A good employer brand is when you tell the truth. And at that point, people were just joining to add Google on their resume. And also people were staying not necessarily for the right reasons. And I know that I was one of the people like that.

[00:03:27] It took me probably two years to actually make the move because everybody I was speaking to were telling me, why would you leave Google? Everybody tries to get in. And so you actually get inside a place where you're not necessarily in sync anymore. It had been 10 years, so it was totally legitimate to leave. But I was like thinking, oh, there's something wrong with me. If I'm not happy at Google, where will I be happy? Yeah.

[00:03:54] I feel like we're talking to one of the original OGs here. I was just over at Google's office yesterday and it is a fascinating campus. It feels like a campus. You definitely get your steps up walking around. It is massive. And luckily, we do have Glynis who's going to be joining us in this podcast series who works at Google, who's the recruitment marketing manager. But I'm absolutely stoked to unpack this.

[00:04:23] I think what you're doing is really valuable, assisting CEOs and founders of smaller companies and helping them break through. So I'm really looking forward to unpacking this episode. Me too. I think the experience of your the scale that you've witnessed from the likes of Google to the startups and organizations you work with now and how you can bring the leaders on the journey around.

[00:04:47] I loved how you positioned it, creating the conditions for growth to thrive, for the employer brand and the employee workplace to thrive. So maybe we could start there around the conditions that you focus on that supports more of the employer brand talent marketing work streams that you lean into with your role now.

[00:05:37] Yeah. So if you want to control, if you want to control the narrative in terms of how people feel, you need to be authentic. People feel the lie. So the very first job when you want to build an organization and an organization is a group of people. So in a business environment, it's companies. But it's true for any type of companies, but it's true for any type of organization, communities and everything.

[00:06:06] When you build an organization and you need to be clear in terms of who you are as a leader. And that's the very first job that I do with my clients is really get them to articulate who they are as an individual,

[00:06:27] to really look at the mirror and embrace who they are, because this is the core material that they're going to have to deal with. So for building that organization, there is so much that they will have to do. They won't have time to change. So it's very important to take that person and to be able to be clear in terms of what are the values, you know, what makes you tick,

[00:06:54] what makes you, what triggers you, what are your core philosophies, so that then this becomes the core material that HR teams can work on. You have then a people strategy that will be able to translate into HR policies that are in sync with who you are. Yeah.

[00:07:16] So when we talk about CEOs or founders of smaller size companies, when you were talking, I was almost thinking, I don't know if you had this thought as well, like hiring managers or executives who should have that shadow when they walk in the room, that identity, that trust that they're able, because they're able to be their authentic self. They can't be someone who they can't be. I just want to touch on the pillars.

[00:07:43] We not employ brand pillars, but the pillars that enable someone to be their authentic self and how that can be translated into standards or messages that are aligned to the business. So I'm assuming that we're talking about values or your mission or the founder's mission or the CEO's mission. Are there others? So you mean at the CEO level? The executive. The executive.

[00:08:18] 90% of the company culture comes from the CEO. So that's why I focus on the CEO. And somehow, no matter the size of the organization, when there is a change in CEO in a big organization, you do feel that at every layer of the organization. And often that goes with a wave of people leaving and somehow that's healthy.

[00:08:46] Because people who thrive with CEO A may not thrive with CEO B. And denying that is a big, big mistake. So being authentic is being clear in terms of who you are as an individual and, you know, being harnessed and, you know, really embracing that fully.

[00:09:16] How do you do that? It's, to me, a CEO is lonely. Normally, it's very hard to be at the top. So you need to have an advisor, a coach, either one or both. The coach will help you to identify who you are, but also to help you see those blind spots, things that triggers you very often,

[00:09:42] that tends to end up being aspirational values in your organization. The things that we need to be, but we are not. And the more you have of those, the more you're actually lying to your employees. You know, you're telling we need to be this, but what they feel is totally different. So it's very important to do that first exercise.

[00:10:05] The mission vision is indeed very important because it's driving not the feeling, but more the direction. It's like, this is why we are here. So it helps people understand in which way they're contributing to something bigger, no matter how, whereabouts in the organization they are. And this is something that is extremely key for all the layers of management to know about.

[00:10:34] And that's the third pillar that I would add, which is communication. And it's quite interesting to see the number of CEOs that are not comfortable communicating at the company level. And to me, this is absolutely critical.

[00:10:54] I love the concept of all hands that I discovered at Google 20 years ago, where both founders, Larry and Sage, were in front of the company taking open questions and answering the hard questions.

[00:11:12] This is the best way to control the narrative and to make sure that people understand why they're here and how we're doing, we're working here beyond what you said in a presentation or what is written on the culture deck. This is where it becomes important. And it's only just through repetition that you can do that and by answering those difficult questions.

[00:11:40] And it's absolutely fine to say, I don't know, or we haven't made a decision on that yet. Or, well, I know you don't like it, but that's who we are. And that's who we stand by it. What are your thoughts when you think about supporting, you know, hiring managers and the content? I think there's definitely some learnings here.

[00:12:07] And I love how we're starting from the top, the CEO level and the importance of the open communication and the interaction. Because to your point, that's what will connect is having those town halls and hearing it firsthand. And then translating that to the employer brand space as well. We need the hiring managers, the people leaders to lead by, follow that lead and do the same thing for their internal teams, but also for the external talent piece as well.

[00:12:34] So then knowing that they're empowered, this is how the leaders behave, I can follow suit and then replicate that in the ways they need to to support, whether it's the hiring needs, the employer brander needs to attract talent into that organisation too. So, yeah, I love the fact that it's defined from the top because quite a lot we start. So defined and documented.

[00:12:56] So at the founder CEO level, with my clients, we create something that I call the founder charter. And that is a summary, it's a document that summarises all the core values and philosophies of that CEO. And that's something that then can get translated into the people's strategies and, you know, employer branding, etc.

[00:13:24] Then you will have also people management core values. How, what is a people manager in our organisation? You would have also a candidate, ideal candidate profile who will thrive in our organisation given our values in our work environment. I work in start-ups. So it's quite a specific environment.

[00:13:56] It's changing all the time. It's exciting for sure, but not for everyone. It's messy. And a lot of founders get to that point where it's like, oh, it's too messy. We need to make it organised. So they're tempted to put organised in the values as an objective. And then they would hire people who come from organised set-up so that they can bring organisation to the company. Yeah.

[00:14:25] And it doesn't work this way. What happens, like, you're lying, you're making a false promise to these people. What you need to do is to say that, you know, we embrace the fact that we're messy, but people here thrive in chaos. Yeah. They're able to organise mess or make sense of a mess.

[00:14:49] When you say that to people, they immediately know whether that's something that they're attracted to or they feel discouraged and the like. And that's what a good culture and, you know, when this is well articulated, you can attract the right people and discourage people who will not fit. Well, let's talk about how we align messages externally to attract talent. Because obviously, you know, the CEO's voice can only go so far.

[00:15:19] And in some studies, some CEOs' messages are not necessarily believable. It's not too dissimilar to marketing material. We do know when the wool's being pulled over our eyes. But trust really comes from employees. And usually early stage employees are really passionate about the work that they're doing. But how do we mobilise them?

[00:15:42] Do you have any tips for people who are trying to create an ambassador program or cultivate a culture where internally employees are sharing content of what it's like to work in the company? Yeah, so I agree. For me, the two main source of employee branding are the employees and the candidates. The candidates. Yes. The candidates joining. Candidates. Candidates. Full stop. Going through the experience. Yeah.

[00:16:12] Because even a candidate is speaking, right? When you actually speak quite a lot when you're going through interviews. And you will speak about the terrible experiences that you had and the amazing ones. I actually wrote an article about that on LinkedIn way back. But it's a concept that I created at Google with the teams that I had.

[00:16:42] I called it the cookie effect. And basically it's speaking about the fact when you go to a coffee place, there is, you know, the bare minimum that you expect. You want to have hot coffee. You want to have the right amount. You want the... Double espresso, please. Sorry? Double espresso, please. Exactly. Please. You want the cup to be clean, right? And if that happens, you know, good. That's expected. You're not going to speak about it.

[00:17:11] But if the cup is dirty, you will speak about this and you will not go anymore and you will tell your friends not to go. The opposite is true. If you have a wow experience, if there is a cookie on the side that is delicious, you're going to take a picture of it. You're going to tell your friends and come back with your friends.

[00:17:34] And so what you want to do as an organization is to create a cookie effect with your candidates and your employees. And so you need to create those experiences because that's the only thing that you control. You cannot control the narrative of what your employees are saying and what your candidates are saying. But you're in control of the experience that will create the narrative. And so...

[00:18:03] And this is not expensive. A lot of people think, oh, I employ a branding. We don't have a budget for that. It's not a budget. It's an intention. And be creative. Be creative. Integrate. You know, sometimes it's just about a birthday note during the recruitment process. I mean, a recruitment process, on average, is three months. Leadership, six months.

[00:18:30] It means that in a leadership, you have one chance out of two that your candidate is going to have the birthday during the recruitment process. Collect that date. Make it in your calendar. And even if the candidate was rejected, just send that note. We can automate everything now. So just be intentional. It's not about...it's just being, you know, intent, you know, authentic and positive and creative. So it's about communicating.

[00:19:01] Identifying the opportunities to communicate effectively. So let the communication happen from your employees and from the candidates. Create the conditions. Create the experiences. I call it creating share-worthy experiences. I'm genuinely 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.

[00:19:28] 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. 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.

[00:19:58] You were really clear on the candidate experience and how you can create those moments so that they do have a good experience. How do we mobilize employees and empower them to share their stories? So, yeah, interesting. So you spoke about empowering, right? So empowering means that as an employer, I'm comfortable with them doing it. So it starts from trust. Culture, yep.

[00:20:26] And this is the first step. Not everybody's comfortable with trusting their employees to tell the right stories. And I think this is a huge mistake. Not to trust your employees because it means that you're starting from the wrong foundations. I mean, there's something wrong earlier on that journey if you don't trust your employees to tell the right stories.

[00:20:55] And the employees also need to be trustful that if they speak up, nothing will be happening to them, right? That they're actually okay to do that. So this has to be expressed. Sure. When we think about things from an enterprise perspective, because usually the bigger companies do have employee brand or recruitment marketing initiatives,

[00:21:20] there's usually a process like, okay, create content, but allow me to approve it before I proceed. So I'm speaking about the opposite. You know, like it's like go, I mean, I find that horrible when we go halfway through. It's like do it or don't do it. So to me, it's like what's the worst that you can have? So the foundation is trust. The foundation is trust. Trust, just trust.

[00:21:47] Now build the right conditions for them to tell the stories. And these conditions are the right conditions that you want for people to be performing anyways. These are exactly the same foundations. So just make, you know, invest. That's where the energy should go is to build an organization that is consistent with who you are, what you say, and, you know, that which you sell to the candidates.

[00:22:15] So there's consistency on that. And then you create those movements. And it could be the old hands. It could be, and there's tons of things that happen every day. It could be a magic telling that. And to me, it's great when you give the power to the employees to go online on their own and share.

[00:22:38] And I do encourage my clients to train their employees on personal branding because you want them to go online for their own benefit. If they're increasing their brand, they're increasing your brand as well. Yeah, it's a great way to sell it.

[00:22:59] What to the employees that your personal brand will increase and they'll get a skill recognition internally and externally is powerful. What are a couple of other ways that gets an employee on the hook? On the hook? On the hook. Participation. To participate in the program.

[00:23:22] Well, I mean, the fact that you call it a program somehow, I mean, employees are, my experience, that employees are happy to share from the moment they feel, you know, they truly feel in sync with the message that you're asking them to share.

[00:23:46] Yeah, well, I'll lean back there a little bit because say, for instance, you don't have good tenure or you don't, you're not performing to the standard, you wouldn't give that person a license to create content, to share that content. You would probably like to be a little bit selective on who you issue because there is trust there. By the end of the day, they will still share it. Right. And who do you believe?

[00:24:16] I think there's two, yeah, different ends of the spectrum of advocacy here. So, yeah, there's so much research to show that the power of the authentic employee content on advocacy, whether that's just sharing those moments on LinkedIn. Hotspot actually did that, right? I think Hotspot opened entirely their Snapchat channel to employees.

[00:24:38] So, employees are creating the whole content of their channel and they've seen incredible results. And so, it's not approved. There's no approval system to that. And I think that's a really great example of that. And they know they've harnessed the power of that. I'm sure maybe behind the scenes, they would have, to your point, there's trust. But I think there's also equipping them. So, letting them know, A, that we really empower you to do this.

[00:25:06] But there will be some guidelines behind it. And for me, that's where I was thinking the lengths of advocacy. So, you want your CEOs and your C-suites to go out and talk and advocate for the organisation. But for perhaps larger ones, they go through media training for that. They have to have the right company narrative. They know what to say, what not to say.

[00:25:28] So, you need to equip them at that level to equip them with the mass programmes where you've got 100 employees or 100,000 employees, where you want them to participate in maybe a social ambassador programme or to submit content to create. And I think those ones are perhaps where you might need to help manage them a little bit, guide them in the right direction. It depends on the output of the content, I guess. I think the key is training.

[00:25:59] People who are not in this programme will still post on LinkedIn. Yes, absolutely. If it's not LinkedIn, it could be Glassdoor. It could be somewhere. So, you cannot control to that extent anyway. You can't. But if you give them, if you give everyone a licence and tool them up, it's like throwing fuel on the fire because then it goes off. So, I… By not equipping them with…

[00:26:25] But I really like your narrative by training people on personal brand. I think it's really important to communicate the benefits of employee brand and how to go about that. Because you are creating a framework of what the expectation is. Maybe the do's and don'ts. Yeah, but for their own sake. For their own sake.

[00:26:48] I think from the moment you actually bring guidelines, then you feel bought by the company to say something for the company. From the moment people are going to post on LinkedIn, whatever they speak about. If you look at their profile, you're going to see who they work for.

[00:27:14] And gradually, they will speak about things that will have a side effect on you. So, on what you mentioned, I… Again, what is the worst that could happen? A lot of companies are creating policies, guidelines based on fear. Fear of the worst happening.

[00:27:41] Or, this happened once. We can't have that happen anymore. So, let's put a policy avoiding this to happen ever again. But most of the time, we're speaking about one individual or a very, very small amount of the people that, you know, perhaps could be educated. Perhaps there's something that we didn't tell them right.

[00:28:09] And so, in that case, a policy will not help at all. Or perhaps they're not a fit. In that case, you know, bye-bye. Thank you. And that's fine. I'm so torn because I absolutely agree with you. Because I have a startup. Or startup mentality. But the thing is, if you put a policy in place and you say, let me tell you, you know, let's take a stupid example.

[00:28:34] You know, you have this employee that arrives late all the time, right? And that gets on your nerves. And, you know, the performance is, you know, there is an impact on the performance. So, two options. And most of the people go for the second one. First one, you go to that person and you speak with them. And you say, okay, you're not, you know, you're not performing.

[00:29:03] But it's normal. You're missing half of the day. So, you can't. And if it's not working. Second option, you go to HR and you ask HR to put a policy that if people arrive 15 minutes late, then they will, you know, whatever. Right? And that's a policy. The result is that this person is not going to improve at all. Right?

[00:29:27] If setting up a policy worked for people making mistakes, our jails will be empty. Okay? So, people who are doing mistakes are not doing it, will not stop doing it because there's a policy or a rule. Right? That's either they don't know or they don't care. I...

[00:29:51] So, but for the rest of the people, that policy is telling them, we don't trust you. To know that it's respectful to arrive at work on time. And that's where I really love Netflix that came up. That judgment value that they had really resonates with me. It's not for everyone that really differentiated their culture.

[00:30:21] And that's great. But they said, you know what? We hire grown-up adults. And we shouldn't have to tell people, you know, grown-up adults how to work, how to behave in a working environment. And we decide not to infantilize them. And just trust that they will know what to do. If they abuse the system, they're out. But as a reaction, there is a no-leave policy. So, you choose.

[00:30:51] You know best than anybody else when is the right time to take leave. You know that if half of your team is going on vacation, you're probably not going on vacation. Right? I mean, should I have to put that in writing for you? Or are you smart enough to realize that? Hopefully, you're hiring the second one, right? Yeah, yeah. No, I'm with you. I'm with you.

[00:31:14] Because I have a small company and startup mentality, we're still considered a startup. And moving quickly and not being highly regulated but having transparent conversations is the straighter line to success. There's also a cheat sheet or a trick you can do to attract talent.

[00:31:44] By putting your highest performers in front and giving them an opportunity to share their authentic stories. Which then enables you to attract those types of people that you want to get. Because there's different saying birds of a feather flock together. And that goes on your career page or… No, just telling their stories through social. They're authentic stories of what life's like within a company. But they come from you.

[00:32:14] They're posted by you or by the employee. By the employee. By the employee. Yeah, either or. No, because I make the difference between content that is generated by the company, which needs to happen, right? Yeah. And it needs to be there. But it will never be as trusted, indeed, that when it's generated by the employee. Organic content. Yeah. But I agree. I mean… …

[00:32:40] We start there, indeed, with the companies because a lot of companies are… …I'm curious to challenge my clients. Yeah. Well, it's very tempting to… But most of them are like you. It's like, I'm not sure I'm that comfortable with that level of trust. Oh, I am. Personally, I'll just declare I am because I live it every day. but my thought for people who work for bigger companies, who is the majority of people who are listening to the episode

[00:33:10] and them thinking through, well, yeah, how do I unlock the gates? Because I do want to let it out of what it's really like here. I am a little bit restricted in what I can and can't do because I might be stealing your thunder because you're feeling that when you're… Could you feel me shaking? I was really toying with it as you were talking through it

[00:33:38] because it's a really interesting topic, I think, to talk through and unpack because coming from an MNC, when you're talking about just let them do anything, no, as the brand protector, as there are global comms policies, social policies, some organisations, you mentioned it, are highly regulated. There can be a lot of damage done if somebody talks about that product or this project. So coming from that context, it's terrifying.

[00:34:08] However, to flip it, I mean, the dream for an employer brand team is to know that you're, again, you're 1,000 employees or you're 100,000 employees are so trusted and proactive and just naturally advocating. Let's just use LinkedIn as an example. I mean, that's half your job done in itself, that you know that they're all singing from a similar hymn sheet but telling their own personal story in their own way and they feel entrusted to do that.

[00:34:36] And we know that impact, that engagement will be huge. But I think from, yeah, we're the opposite. It's from a large organisation that I've never seen that happen because some people, not everyone's on LinkedIn, first of all. I have. I've seen it. Not everyone, but ambassador programmes. And that's, yeah. That are tight. So, you know, putting it out there to a larger company and people put their hand up, I will advocate for this business. Exactly.

[00:35:05] And I think that's it, finding those people. Because not 100% of your workforce-based will, but your natural advocates and those that want to learn more, yes, we'll put their hand up. Yeah. And then you can... Yeah, nurture those guys. Yeah. I'm interested to know, to your point, around the executives that push back, the leaders that... Let's define them as a leader, a CEO, founder, a hiring manager, a leader, the persona of a leader. Well, they're hiring... They push back.

[00:35:34] The decision in any case comes from the very top, right? Of course. But yeah. Yeah. So they push back, yeah. They push back. And they might be a little bit... They might be a champion of the product that they've got or the service that they're providing, but they're very hesitant to tell their story. How do you unlock a leader to be their authentic self externally to the people who work within the company?

[00:36:06] Again, I think I would train them to getting out. So train them to start posting. It's the easiest. And so there's a few companies do that, but I think the power that it has, if you're actually training... Because again, it's win-win. So train them on social media,

[00:36:35] just posting employer branding, speaking so they can go to podcasts, speaking on the stages as well. It's fantastic for your brand. And of course, no one will speak bad about their own company on stage. I mean, that would be the killer of their own personal brand. So it's grooming them, grooming them, growing them, so that you care for them.

[00:37:04] And that will circle back. I was speaking about an example to a client recently. When I was at Google, one of the teams that I had were resume screeners. So what they were doing all day long, were reviewing thousands of resumes,

[00:37:33] rejecting the huge majority, and then forwarding those that looked good enough to recruit. So definitely not the super exciting role that would make you attractive on LinkedIn. For all my teams, I had always wanted them to work on site projects. So this team was the same. All of them were working on site projects, optimizing processes,

[00:38:03] building new tools for clients. So the clients were mostly recruiters, but not just some who were hiring managers as well. Creating a new initiative, organizing learning sessions on a specific team, or whatsoever, right? They were doing. And because that was important to me to keep them excited. And it was a very entry level job. You know, I hired for potential and was training them. But, you know,

[00:38:31] obviously that was not a job that they were going to stay for more than a year and a half, two years. I feel like I want to apply for this role. Yeah. Personal development. But the thing that happened is this third, their brand internally started to grow. And I started to get my, my team poached by my colleagues to hire them for their recruiter roles

[00:38:59] or their employer branding roles or whatsoever. And even in the business as well. So this, I started to have. That's a good story. Yeah. Good sign of a leader. And, and then even what happened, people started to apply to join my team, which hadn't never been seen before. Resumes. I mean, the first time I received an internal candidate, you know, willing to join with, really? I mean, I'm trying to get them out. No.

[00:39:28] So what I'm saying is a lot of people are like, you're trying to grow them. You're, you're, but you're making them accessible to the competition. Yes. And that's great. That's actually a great thing because it will shine on you. Ultimately. Yeah. It's not an immediate, uh, But for me, the best branding is organic. Yeah. And that's why it comes from the employees getting, so encourage them,

[00:39:58] groom them, use your, you know, so the managers need to be trained so that they can train and encourage their teams, et cetera. Do not look for a direct result. Just trust the process that ultimately it will shine on you. And that's why. Yeah. The thing that you can control is the experience. So be, create share where the experiences, the, the, the examples that came to my mind, like, you know, things that really, you know,

[00:40:28] get people to communicate about it. Um, you, when, um, there were all these layoffs, RBNB did amazing. They still laid off, but the CEO did such amazing announcements, the way that he announced it and, and, and the perks that were given to the people leaving, just left everyone. Voiceless. No,

[00:40:51] because they actually posted and people who were laid off were thankful for the consideration. That's an experience. It's crazy. And so the more you can create experiences like that, that people are going to speak about on the kind side, you have, I love that one, Ikea. Well, they're creative. We know, but so they were in Australia, they were opening a, um, a new, a new, uh, you know, shop.

[00:41:21] It's not shop. anyway, but a new thing. Um, and I think they were hiring in the hundreds of people. So what they did is that they created career instructions, or I don't know how they called it. Right. You know, that example, and they placed it. Yes. It's, it's free, but the experience is amazing. And people started speaking about this. So to me, for an employer brand,

[00:41:48] we need to have creative people who create experiences that people are going to speak about. The examples you just gave were fantastic examples and you just kept on bringing them out. They're all moments that matter. Yeah. And as a storyteller or an employer brand or a recruitment marketer, we're looking for those moments to share those stories, but create them, create them. Absolutely. Yeah. Create the conditions for people to speak for you. Yeah. They act as the springboard for the. So at Google,

[00:42:17] at some point we had, um, I don't know. I don't remember how often we were doing this, but it was, uh, we were sharing my magic, my Google magic moment. And so it was like a whole hands, uh, thing, but people were going to, uh, the stage and speaking on the mic about their magic moment. And it was, it was so emotional. Really? People were speaking about how, when,

[00:42:47] you know, they were sick or their mother was sick and how the team came together and actually collected, uh, leaves so that they could take a longer medical leave to be with a mother or to, to, to get treated. Um, um, I spoke about when, uh, I got pregnant twice when I was with Google and the first time I was pregnant, I, I joined Google on, um, uh, temp contract,

[00:43:16] which was the case at Google for almost all the HR jobs. Um, and I remember I had a meeting with, uh, my manager and I was three months pregnant or, and he was going to convert me and he was like, okay, I want to tell you I'm going to convert you. Oh, really? Oh, thank you so much. Well, I'm pregnant. Uh, I say, oh, congratulations. Well, I was like, but I guess for the conversion,

[00:43:46] then it's going to be a problem. And he was like, what? Oh, of course not. I mean, that would be, that would be terrible. It will be a discrimination. And I was like, oh, really? Oh, okay. And the second one, I had the same experience. I was pregnant. I was changing job. And, and when I was hired in the second job, I was six months pregnant. Uh, and, and I was so thankful for the organization to allow me,

[00:44:15] to, to do that. It's, so it sounds crazy to, to speak about that. My second one, I had him 15 years ago. So of course these conversations seem, you know, more open today, but 15 years, 20 years ago, it was not necessarily the case. And, but yeah, so, so you open up this discussion, get people to speak. Yeah. And then capture it. Those, those magic, Mike, magic moment, magic moments, magic Mike. Um, I'm picking them internally and then showcasing them. Yeah. Excellent. You know,

[00:44:45] share those really personal stories, but that, that's the goal. It starts with one. Yeah. You know, when I start, so I, all my clients, they know that I'm on their back for months until they actually roll out the old hands. Because for me, that's a non-negotiable. If you need, you need to be in front of your team and be able to take on this questions. If you can't, there's a problem. So I'm on their back for that, on that. Um,

[00:45:15] and, and also about it. And so for the old hands, because we need people to take, to ask questions. I tell them, find people to already have questions before. So, so the first one will start as questions. And then that role will encourage people to, so you can do the same for the magic moments. Get two, three people who have already a great story, uh, ready to share in their comfortable sharing it. It will trigger some more.

[00:45:46] Yeah. The snowball effect. Exactly. Feel comfortable. Yeah. How about, I have a question around, um, those all hands moments, for example, and you talked about it earlier around making sure there's, there's not a disconnect. We're not painting this polished picture, but how are the realities here? And setting the expectations of what it's like to work in a startup around that organized piece versus being agile. How do you coach the leaders? Um, and I'm thinking about this for employees too, because it's really important how we do, we're realistic with the expectations,

[00:46:15] you know, I love working here. This is my experience. And not to say, but this is really hard, but how do you set expectations again? But I thrive here because of this type of environment and I'm this type of person. And it allows to your point earlier, I think around people opting out. Which is a really important part of employer branding. You're, you're bringing the right people. Other people opt out, which is a good thing. But sometimes I think it's hard to articulate setting those expectations. If that makes sense.

[00:46:42] So how do you coach your leaders through perhaps ask, answering those hard questions at all hands or how do they talk to those conditions that you're creating? Yeah. So great question. And we, we've spoken to most of it. I'm just going to pile it in order. So it starts with articulating it, right? When we spoke about the identity that's in their founder charter, right? We have the mission and vision and values that then decide.

[00:47:12] So the mission vision, it's the, um, it will generate the business strategy. The values are the people strategy. How do we work here? Um, so this is clear. It has been communicated and everything is, is built based on that. So all our HR policies are validated against every single one of our values and ensuring that it's not contradicting. All right. So you have a system where it's,

[00:47:40] everything is consistent and making sense. And then you have the all hands. And every single question that comes is an opportunity to either touch on the mission and the vision or the values. Because all your argumentation should always be one of these three. So why did we decide to go to Australia or to, or to, to launch this new product thing,

[00:48:09] going to the vision or going, because this is where we're going, because this is what we, we do, or this is who we are because this is who we are. And so the more you repeat that and you put that in the context, the more it becomes clearer to people and they can still opt out as individual. I mean, I've always been against retention, retention at all costs, um, in general. Uh, but yeah, people,

[00:48:36] we change also are as a, as individual. We're not the same person over five years and 10 years, you know, let alone. Um, so it's fine. And, and the, the best way to say goodbye is in good terms because we call them boom, rang. We have so many in, in, in the tech, uh, companies, you know, you leave Google, you do your little startup and then you go,

[00:49:02] you go back and same for meta and all those and same for other companies. Right. Um, so. Yeah. Thank you. I love how you mentioned the boomerang, the Australia is. Yes. Just pop out. Very nice. But thank you. I really appreciate you sharing your story. It's been a fascinating conversation. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you to you. Thank you. Lovely being here. Thank you. Thank you.