Brad Power's blog at Harvard Business Reviewhas the kind of writing that seems especially helpful for HR, marketing, branding, and operational improvement leaders of all kinds. It reminds me of the best quality thinking of 20 years ago, when I had the opportunity to interview leaders in total quality management for Aviation Week & Space Technology and found my supplement text naturally slipping into spiritual metaphors: gurus, paths, commitment, the Zen concentration and cooperation of Japanese society, etc. Power's takes a similar if more sophisticated approach at HBR, e.g. showing the unity of the major "quality religions," too often seen at odds to each other (ditto any management philosophy, pursued as a singular truth). In his most recent blog, he tackles the value of selflessness and service to others for the HR leader. And less you think Mr. Powers is writing an ethereal philosophy, he backs up the notion with proof of how organizations like Broadridge, a $2 billion, 6,000-employee global financial solutions company, want an  HR leader like Lily Benjamin, their VP of organizational development and chief diversity officer:

According to Powers, while Benjamin and Broadridge have been honored for diversity efforts, Benjamin "consistently deflects any personal credit for their accomplishments." Instead she told Powers, "I develop people and the culture to support the accomplishment of business goals." And she adds,"But I don't do it alone; my approach is to partner and collaborate. It is very important to me that my team gets the recognition. Without them and their collective intelligence, the breadth and reach of my contribution would be limited. Hence my biggest reward is to attribute the success to my team, even if I am the accountable leader."

That's no small feat. Getting such team versus personal recognition has been one of the long-term obstacles to achieving genuine, lasting approaches to quality improvement.

The lead article in the January Government Executive magazinetackles recent attempts by non-profit associations and unions to create more favorable view of federal employees. For example, with trust in government at a low, the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) is running a campaign, called They Work for U.S. Through real-people-type testimonials, representing citizens, it shows Americans how much they depend on government for health, safety, protection, and overall well-being.

In the article, compensation expert Howard Rishercomments that much more is needed to turn the federal brand around:  "The Marines understand branding. It's more than PR - and it's certainly not defensive. The question is, why would someone find a career with [an agency] an exciting prospect? Each federal agency needs to develop a 'rocket to the moon' answer." Of course, agency's that don't have NASA's mammoth achievement wonder if they have such an answer.

My experience has been that they do. Our clients government agencies respond well to Mr. Risher's approach, i.e. finding what ad man Leo Burnett called inherent drama: discovering what most moves or excites your audience about what you're selling. Burnett's Chicago agency (where I worked in the 1970s)  translated those emotional attributes into compelling archetypal images like the Jolly Green Giant, who expresses the bounty of the earth.  The CNBC Titan Series, aired this past summer. honors Burnett along with leaders like Steve Jobs and Jack Welch. The program is available for instant download on Amazon.

There’s little doubt that agency recruiting has become far more complex and challenging over the last year. Internal hiring restrictions and increased inter-agency competition for talent—among other factors—have complicated this increasingly essential component of agency management. So today it’s become all the more critical to:

• one, frame an accurate and compelling Employer Value Proposition (EVP) for your agency, and
• two, bring this EVP forward consistently and prominently at every “touch point” with potential recruits - in your print and online materials, in your social media outreach, and in your event activities.

When I say this I don’t mean incessantly trotting out an itemized “logical” statement of the points of value that your team members get out of working at your agency [although formulating this framework is a highly useful background step]. What I do mean is making certain that you convey what it’s like to work at your agency in a style that engages the immediate attention of potential recruits, and speaks to them in familiar and comfortable ways.

One way you can do this is by stressing the appealing aspects of concrete, on-the-job reality at your agency. I’m suggesting three approaches that will help you inject a dose of authenticity and immediacy into how you portray your EVP or employer brand. The good news is that all these approaches are “media-agnostic”, i.e., they can be implemented in print, video, online, social media, and event-oriented form. The (maybe) not-so-good news is that they require some creative effort and production elbow grease.

Portray agency workplaces realistically and visually. Serious candidates want to get an authentic feel for working with you. So don’t hesitate to make liberal use of photos of your workplace environments. That’s not to say you shouldn’t consciously set up these shots in ways that underscore the variety of work settings and the attractive attributes of your EVP; just don’t let them look too staged and cheesy. Include people at work (and not lined up like the yearbook shot of your high school chess club). If, like many agency websites, you stick to a sterile verbal presentation, without realistic visuals, you’re missing an opportunity to engage candidates in an authentic and direct way, free of off-putting, if subtle, pretensions of authority. If this purely verbal web approach is agency-mandated, you should consider using other media to capture the real-world spirit of your workplace environments.       

Let representative team members make your case for you.  Don’t forget that candidates respond at a deeper, more personal level when they see and hear people like themselves describing their jobs, their working experiences, and the underlying cultures of their agencies. Personalized visual and video testimonials, sidebars, blurbs, case studies and so on add more real-world zing to the underlying attributes of your EVP.  Paragraphs of factual but unevocative prose about mission, teamwork, work-life balance, variety of assignments, and prospects for advancement just can’t carry this off as well.  Again, if agency Web standards make these resonant first-person approaches difficult, consider social media and YouTube as your creative platforms for this tonal outreach.

Don’t presume that an authentic portrayal precludes inspiration and emotion. Agencies attempting to depict their respective EVPs in recruiting engagement media frequently stray into one of two less effective habits: they either attempt to convey the higher values of their mission and the dedicated spirit of their agency teams in purely verbal terms, or they restrict their visual/video employee testimonials to facts alone, with no emotional or inspirational coloration. The former approach can veer into the forced and stilted; the latter into the sterile, stiff, and formulaic. The most engaging solution: let your visuals subtly convey higher values and your employees speak directly from the heart. It will pay off in recruit response.

Saturday, I attended Houston's Meineke Car Care Bowl of Texas, where I found myself not only in the presence of the titular sponsor but some 77 other official brands, from standbys like McDonald's, Nordstrom, and Exxon Mobil to national and local organizations like the U. S. Army and the Houston Ballet. With 68,000-plus in attendance (the largest among 2011 bowls played to that date) and an ESPN viewership, the venue exuded the kind of success that's a draw for sponsors. But favorable bowl sponsorships might have even more value in today's cognitively cluttered environment. America's bowl tradition, presently consisting of 35 games, confers educational, civic, and philanthropic mental associations on the institutions involved. Indeed, some bowls are so embedded in the fabric of their host cities that their proponents have reasonably defended the NCAA's current "FBS structure" against a centralized "championship tournament model" that prevails among the smaller college teams.

In a cognitively cluttered environment, corporate bowl sponsorships offer a relatively straightforward way to associate a brand with a positive event, furthering brand salience, i.e. the propensity to come to mind or be noticed in a buying situation. The employer brand equivalent would be for a prospective candidate to remember you at the time of forming their consideration set of potential employers.

But what does Meineke gain in salience from sponsoring a college bowl game? They are a solid brand in the automobile franchise aftermarket as evidenced by the fact that a few weeks ago New York equity firm Harvest Partners became a primary owner. As people hold onto cars longer and find it more difficult to maintain computer-based vehicles, Meineke seems to have a strong market case. In fact, some 92 percent of people in the U.S. recognize the Meineke brand name. One might wonder if Meineke might spend more time trying to pull customers away from competitors with their differentiating positioning that emphasizes consumer choice and financial benefits or their loyalty program, the Car Care Club.

The answer is that when thousands of messages press upon us each day, mental accessibility and availability assume greater importance. While persuasive content can be of help in making decisions, when we need to get an oil change, the chances are that we aren't going to overly scrutinize our options. However, when we think we need to "take the car in," known availability is essential. A bowl title sponsorship allows an organization multiple opportunities to keep the name front and center. Positive associations and brand attributes, rather than passionate loyalty, can lead us to Meineke. And people tend to be more "fanatic" about sports than brands. (At a Ted X conference, Byron Sharp has shown this matter to be true even for the so-called leaders in brand loyalty like Harley and Apple.)

Prior to becoming a sponsor of the Texas Bowl last April, Meineke had sponsored a bowl game in Charlotte, North Carolina. Ken Walker, Meineke Chairman and CEO, was well familiar with what  bowls do for business: "For the past six years the Meineke brand has benefited tremendously from its sponsorship of a College Football Bowl, and we are delighted to continue this tradition by returning to our roots in Houston, Texas [where Meineke began thirty-nine years ago]. It excites our Franchisees and it heightens Meineke’s awareness among the passionate and loyal fans of College Football across the country.” Notice where the passion and fandom are naturally going.

For more information on how bowl game sponsorships can cast a national spotlight on brands, check out thisarticle on BigLeadSports. 

We don't need to catalog the number of times that Federal workers faced uncertainty in 2011. And surety of steady, funded day-to-day employment is by no means a done deal for 2012. Yet this past week, USA Today posted several articlesabout how well Federal employees are doing. Again we saw the factoid that Federal employees slightly outearn their private sector counterparts, justified by the higher educational and experiential demands of civil service. Even more interesting are figures showing higher payrates for starting employees, e.g. a mechanical engineer, age 25 to 29, started at $63,675, up from $51,746 in 2006. Meanwhile, as all Fed employees reading this well know, while they may have gotten raises for longevity, merit and promotions, America's 2.1 million civil servants did not get a scheduled 0.9% inflation adjustment this year. That cut saved the government about $2 billion a year. And employees will not receive a 1.1% across-the-board pay hike scheduled for Jan. 1.

Although we try to remind our government clients that security alone does not a strong government brand make, the USA Today articles show that security figured importantly in Federal decision-making:

• Holding onto jobs tightens. The rate of quitting has fallen 29% since 2007. Ordinary retirements are down 11%. Early retirements are down two-thirds. Disability departures have dropped one-third.
• Layoffs decrease.Under the Obama administration, layoffs from reorganizations have dropped by two-thirds to fewer than 300 a year in the 2.1 million person workforce. Workers are 13 times more likely to die of natural causes than get laid off from the federal government.

As expected, the USA Today articles have provoked heated on-line exchanges, which implicitly revolve around the role of government. With many citizens outraged over what they see as a bloated, unresponsive Behemoth, the Federal government and its agencies have the opportunity to reconsider and redefine its value proposition. For our perspective about what we can learn in this regard from 2011, please see our article, "The Year that Almost Wasn't."

It is the year of straw polls, debates, promises and wishful thinking. In honor of the times, I decided to do my own straw poll to evaluate the frustrated new graduate RNs that are still finding it rather difficult to obtain jobs. We have heard the “shortage” word for many years and know the forecast of the shortages ahead. Yet, if you share those numbers with new graduates-they would have a hard time believing it.

Recently I sent out a very simple 4-question survey to 20 recruiters that I know from around the country. Simple, quick and good information for this article! Responses came in from the West, Midwest, South, Southeast and the Northeast. Although straw poll results certainly aren’t statistically valid, the results definitely yielded some promising answers and hope for the new graduates of the future.

The first question I asked was, “Regarding your New Graduate RN hiring plans for 2012, will you see an increase, same amount or decrease in the number of new graduates hired?”  Luckily, there were zero responses that reported a decrease. 67% reported the same plans for 2012 while 33% reported a definite increase in new grad hiring.

The second straw poll question asked if new graduate training programs would be available in 2012.  While 80% said definitely yes, the other 20% reported that they will hire new graduates but don’t have a formalized new graduate program. These organizations offer the training on an “as needed” basis.

Question #3 requested information about, “How many RN new graduate programs will you offer in 2012? One, two or 3 or more?”  47% reported they would be offering 3 or more new grad programs with one respondent reporting 8 for 2012. 27% reported 2 programs per year, 13% only 1 and 13% on an “as needed” basis.

The last question asked the respondents to estimate the number of new graduate RNs they plan to hire in 2012. A total of 14 respondents were able to report an actual number (the rest were not sure) and those numbers ranged from a low of 20 to a high of 400+. In just these 14 facilities that were able to share a new grad number, they reported a total of 1617 new graduate jobs for 2012.

In order to have a frame of reference on RN new graduates in the United States, the 2010 Annual Report from the National Council of State Boards of Nursing reports some interesting figures. In FY10, there were 140,610 first time, U.S. educated new graduates that took the NCLEX-RN examination while 123,112 (or 87.6%) passed. This new graduate total is broken down further with BSN graduates totaling 55,081 testing and a pass rate of 88.9%, 81,665 ADNs with a 86.6% pass rate and 3,756 diploma grads boasting an 89.6% pass rate.

Although the straw poll numbers reported some decent information and trending for the future, in the meantime, one only needs to read the nursing blogs and articles to really understand the new graduate frustration. Mentions of no return phone calls, dead space, black holes and one reporting having sent over 100 applications, which yielded her one interview.

Diane Mancino, the Executive Director of NSNA, reported 2010 findings in an article titled, “Invest Now to Keep the Pipeline Primed.” New graduates reported such issues as hiring freezes, organizations wanting only experienced RNs, discontinuing new grad training programs, use of travelers and older RNs not retiring as just a few of the reported issues that the new graduate experiences. In an August 2010 questionnaire, the NSNA new graduate members were asked if they had accepted an RN position. 54% reported yes while 46% reported no. Even though some of the new graduates that were still not employed had not tried to find a job yet (6%), were waiting until they passed NCLEX (13%) or were having difficulty finding a job in the specialty they wanted (18%), the remainder – 63% - stated that there just weren’t any jobs for new graduates in their area.

HR professionals can truly make a difference to this group of new graduate professionals. Although everyone understands time constraints, the recruiters that take the time to call people back and offer support and suggestions are the recruiters that will win in the future. New graduates remember the company whose recruiters treated them well during a down economy and the loyalty to your organization can be nourished during this time.  You make a difference to this group of new professionals that are doing the best they can to land their first professional job. Times are changing but not fast enough for this group.

National Geographic has done a beautiful job in bringing their brand to life through a wonderful AR experience. Audiences walk onto the marker in the middle of the mall and look up towards the big screen to see them selves surrounded with dinosaurs and astronauts. Kids seem to be able to pet live Bengal tigers and dolphins swim up and splash out of the floor. The set up is a bit extensive however the end result is an impressive simple easy way into AR. No smart phones or tablets. Just stand on the marker and interact. Well done.

Some cool things happening in digital advertising as well as more video interpretations of the future.

With a brand like Jordan, you expect amazing. The launch for the new Jordan Melo M8 shoe went beyond that. With incredible light projections onto water explosions, this event had Disney-esque production scale qualities. Nice job WK. Check it out.

With more AR apps being developed, we are starting to see more unique ways to experience advertising. Print ads whether on billboards or magazines are now experiential. The downfall is all the barriers consumers have to go through to experience these ads. Currently, the cool factor is driving curiosity levels to get people to do this but the hype levels will soon die quickly. What this means is that the value you get by doing all this to get to the interactive ad will need to outweigh the cool factor. Check it out.

Another video on the future. This video shows the Kinect effect and how it could affect the future in how we will consume content and interact with materials. There are some things referenced in this video that…well, simply shouldn't be replaced. Like the musical instruments. Check it out.

It is very interesting how most "The future is going to be this..." presentations and videos are starting to all feel the same and center on common themes. Themes around cloud computing, always-on devices available everywhere, and convenient personalization of each person's world whether at work or play. The videos that deliver these stories are calming with a feeling of control, and peace of mind. Yet there are elements that are a little uncomfortable. 

"Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should" - Jeff Goldblum, Jurassic Park

With cloud computing comes the ability for devices to become more powerful, more portable to hold most of our everyday functionalities that we take for granted. In result we should have more time freed up to spend with our loved ones or interact with people. We should also be more connected to others. Ironically, watching these videos there is an eerie sense of disconnection and isolation. We strive to be more efficient in our lives especially when it comes to our work. But the little annoying stomachache about all of this is how the future is so focused around how devices will function and not on the true content benefit it self. Are we truly headed towards a social ecosystem where we rely on these devices to run our lives, be always on 24/7 everywhere we go yet be so isolated from true face-to-face human interaction? Oh, wait, is that already happening? Perhaps.

It is no wonder that we live in a world of instant results where the world markets are now a level playing field between businesses and consumers. We are all mini databases and enterprises that are walking down Main Street, riding public transit, and sitting in wireless cafes as our offices. What are businesses to do in managing the future workforce who is becoming more and more isolated and driven by these devices? What will this future workforce who is in high school right now demand from employers? These are daunting questions that we face in our professional and personal lives. Perhaps, our brainstorming sessions may take on "un-plugged" themes as we look to the values that drive our needs first rather than the 10 second immediate thrill rides. 

Creating the Steve Jobs effect

Steve Jobs. An innovator, game changer, genius, futurist and visionary. A great loss. The irony of how the world found out about his passing was through the very devices that he envisioned. However taking a look at all of his accomplishments, we are in awe not just because he envisioned the impossible, but a visionary who knew when to allow others' vision to win out. He led and evangelized the means to make the impossible happen. He inspired us to think beyond our own daily challenges. He enabled his employees as well as the general public to be geniuses. We stopped in the middle of our workday to stream in his keynote to raise our hands in the air and say yes!  He connected with us in such a way, that complete strangers are now woven together into one community.

Now take this magnetic influence and place it in control over your employer brand. Imagine a work culture built out of numerous evangelists all beating to one drum. All believing and living the brand values that most companies just place on walls and annual reports. A true sense of clarity of purpose and community within your organization where everyone, even on bad days is inspired to come to work.

Unfortunately, there are far and few people of Steve Jobs caliber available for hire. But with careful observation, we can take pages out of his book to create enablers within your organization. In doing so, you naturally attract more of the same who want to join you. But characteristics alone won't be enough. It is a mindset driven from the top down that embraces this kind of thinking. An environment that says you can empower people because you are empowered to do so.

There are specific ingredients that are in the DNA of this type of person who can ignite cultures and drive valuable distinction in employee experiences. These ingredients are the few that really stick out among others. They are the type of qualities you find in great leaders:

The ability to articulate vision through compelling stories

Storytelling is a huge tool in delivering vision. People connect to stories when they are relevant, interesting, dynamic and compelling. You may have a great story to tell, but can you get people to believe it?

Enable those around you to be visionaries

Through inspiration, leading by example, and working in an attitude of empowering others, people gravitate to those that inspire them and make them heroes.

Authentic, unselfish ambition

When you have employees that truly feel they are owners of the organization in a way that whatever goes out that door from the company is a reflection of their work. When you have an environment where the employees feel that you care more about them than yourself, this feeds into a true entrepreneurial spirit within the culture. Employees start to become the quality control for the organization.

Identifying your Steve Jobs can be a lot of fun too. Internal recognition programs or ERP's could launch off this initiative and invigorate your employees.  Why just settle for one Steve Jobs when you could have 10+?