B&E | How to Execute Diversity Based Employer Brand Campaign

By Jonas Prasanna

 Employer Brand | Social Media Recruitment | Talent Analytics

We have become a society of trending topics. Diversity is not a trending topic. It's just not  

- Viola Davis

Organizational workforce diversity matters - not just view points, ideas, market insights but bottom-line business impact on sales, revenue, equity and invested capital returns. Diversity has many expressions, the focus of this article is on gender diversity.

There was a tremendous activity in the week preceding & during International Women's Day #IWD2016 with companies showcasing Women Leaders, news inserts of women centric benefits, women's day grooming session, marathon etc. with the sole objective to ride the trend. Most people see through this like water in glass bowl. My endeavor is to help you to develop not just a trending campaign, rather a sustained year long diversity attraction campaign.

Buyers Persona - Marketing 101, knowing your audience inside out, what are their motivators, trigger points for action, whom /what do they connect with. Does the organizational pyramid adequately reflect workforce diversity ? Are there women leaders in decision making roles? 

What are the reasons for exiting the workforce?

Aligning Diversity Objective with Organizational Direction -  Measurable outcomes define the success of any initiative. Multi-dimensional diversity objectives includes being recognized as an employer of choice among target group, showcasing culture that promotes diversity -  add layers to just increasing diversity hiring numbers.

Brand Activation Framework - Your target audience is experiencing your brand at different stages

Attraction, Evaluation, Application and Advocacy.

The key to launching a diversity brand campaign is identify & evaluate which intervention can have the maximum impact at the each stage. Each stage is not encased in a silo, they are permeable, you will need to evaluate which stage makes sense for your organization and direct greater efforts to the areas that need strengthening.

Identify & build a repository of Women Leaders and their stories - A great way to identify which women leaders in your organization has a great story, first hunt them on LinkedIn, look at their profiles. Do you see an interesting pattern of work in male dominated areas e.g. sales, finance etc. Mine their personal blogs for insights, have a conversation with them.

Interact with Women Leaders with Internal & External communities - External communities such as Grace Hooper, BizDivas, Sheroes, Avatar Career Creators are great resources to showcase your organizations culture and diversity leaders. These forums also provide mentoring opportunities for women talent, such models can be replicated in your organization to promote the diversity agenda year round.

Deliver relevant content to the target audience to trigger a desired action -  Sponsored updates, content marketing, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) helps to deliver your message to your audience with precision and predictability. Leverage on these paid means to drive traffic to your landing page. Newsletters with periodic updates to the women candidates in your talent community.  Share audience-centric and content driven topics like Leadership speak aimed at Executives & Senior women professionals

Advocacy is the secret sauce to a successful employer brand - Yaay! you have successfully recruited a women leader, what next - communicate to the external world - it could be as simple as a selfie. You keep peppering your talent community with these updates, their perception of you as an employer will change. Encourage  your women leaders to build their network within the organization - showcase key jobs to your employees to encourage them to refer their personal networks.

A "Selfie" with Recruiter

Pinterest Activation - This is a no brainer, a fantastic visual medium built on powerful SEO that makes users engage with your pins even after 6 months of pinning them. No other social network can claim this recall.

• The half-life of a Pinterest pin is 1,600 times longer than a Facebook post.
• The average Pinterest user spends 14.2 minutes pinning every time they log in.
• 42% of the registered users are Women

User Journey Workflow - Now all the above mentioned activities needs to be stitched together to build a cohesive campaign. To enable a single-platform-cross-sharing-multiple-initiatives you need a diversity landing page a.k.a a micro-site. The campaign execution plan shared is by no means exhaustive, it's dependent on  organizations current state and it's internal objectives.

My view on hiring for diversity doesn't seems to be climbing a toughest mountain, considering the half of the skilled population consist of women. However, creating an inclusive workplace that encourages women to stay, grow and nurture others are ultimately the real challenges.

About The Author:

Jonas Prasanna is passionate about delivering value propositions that aim to attract, engage and hire the best talents in the world. He is an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Management, Kochi (IIM, K). In his current role as the Talent Brand & Social Recruitment - India for Capgemini, he collaborates with multiple business teams to influence talent pools through digital & social media channels.