If you’re a multinational, then your main corporate contact points—investor relations or media, say—may well be in different countries from each other, and quite possibly in a different country from the person wanting to make the contact. When is a good time to call?
Aker Solutions have put a local time against each contact. Such a simple thing, but a really good idea…
I invited Alice Williams, who has a particular interest in corporate communications, to write a post for us about diversity, and how best to communicate this on your corporate website.
If you’re looking to foster innovation and cooperation in your company during the coming year, it may be time to examine your corporate diversity culture.
For those unfamiliar with the term, corporate diversity simply means emphasizing inclusivity throughout a company. Basically, if your business employs workers from various walks of life — different ages, cultures, genders, orientations, economic classes, etc. — then you’ve got the foundation for a great diversity culture.
Corporate diversity has a wide range of benefits. As Anthony Carter, Vice President of Global Diversity at Johnson & Johnson notes, diversity encourages innovation. With a wider number of perspectives to draw on, companies can tap into previously unexplored ideas and solutions.
Additionally, for many millennials, an inclusive culture is vital to a company’s backbone. If you want to attract and retain up-and-coming talent, you can’t overlook the importance of a strong culture of corporate diversity.
Keep in mind that real diversity means more than just hiring a few token employees. To maximize the benefits diversity can bring, you should highlight inclusivity throughout all of your business practices. If you need some inspiration, check out these four companies that have successfully developed highly diverse corporate cultures.
Year after year, Kaiser Permanente tops lists of corporate diversity rankings. At Kaiser, 60 percent of the staff are people of color. Additionally, its employees come from 140 cultures and speak more than 100 different languages. The health care organization recognizes the critical need for a diverse medical team — “Lack of cultural knowledge is a key reason racial and ethnic minorities often receive a lower quality of healthcare than non-minorities,” Kaiser’s research points out.
At Kaiser, diversity goes beyond skin color, too — the company works to include a variety of genders and orientations. The Oakland, California-based company has also played an active role at San Francisco’s annual Pride Parade, showing its support for LGBT coworkers and the community at large.
The company’s other diversity initiatives include a leadership advancement program for women and a push for hiring people with disabilities.
In a recent spotlight (pdf) by “Diversity MBA Magazine,” GE Foundation President and Chief Diversity Officer Deborah Elam explained, “Diversity is essential to our innovation and success, enabling us to connect engineers, scientists, teachers, leaders, and doers with different experiences and talents to help GE make a better world.” As a result, GE’s “Diversity Game Plan” focuses on hiring employees that reflect its customer demographic. The company also takes pride in the fact that a full 25 percent of its board members were born outside of the U.S., and 25 percent of board members are women.
The GE Affinity Network is another of GE’s major diversity initiatives. These voluntary networks provide mentoring and coaching for employees. The networks include an Asian-Pacific American Forum, Hispanic Forum, African-American Forum, People with Disabilities Forum, and a Veterans Network. Overall, there are more than 440 chapters across 45 countries.
Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz says, “One of the primary reasons that Starbucks has succeeded throughout all these years is the diversity of people who work for the company.” A diverse culture is an empowered culture, Starbucks believes, and it has spent the last several years working to back up that belief with powerful action. For example, it has provided health benefits to same-sex partners since the early ’90s.
The company was also honored as the 2014 Disability Employer of the Year by the US Business Leadership Network. Its diversity initiatives involve eight partner networks, including networks for the Armed Services, Pride Alliance, and India Partners.
Diversity is an asset at Wells Fargo, where 44 percent of the board of directors are female and 31 percent of the board are minorities. Wells Fargo actually has a long tradition of cultural inclusion — during its early days, the company’s publication of bilingual materials made them a favorite bank among Chinese immigrants. Nowadays, an Enterprise Diversity and Inclusion Council — chaired by Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf — meets regularly to establish diversity and inclusion goals and champion the company behaviors that already promote diversity.
The bank is also in the top ten list for best places to work for veterans, having recently donated $49 million to help military service members and their families find homes and jobs.
Diversity takes time to build, but you can start now. If you already have a strong culture of diversity, publicize it. Follow in Frontier’s footsteps by publicly empowering your star employees on your corporate website, or take a leaf from AT&T’s book by promoting community outreach efforts. Whatever you do, just make sure to focus on the various people that make your company thrive.
Did we miss anyone on this list? Leave a comment if you know any other businesses with diverse corporate cultures.
Alice Williams has an MA in Communication Studies with an emphasis on organizational and corporate communication. She writes extensively on business, tech and social media and is a regular contributor to BusinessBee.
Based in the UK?
Exactly how will your company be affected by the result of the referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU—whichever way it goes?
This is going to be a big issue over the next year or so, depending on when the date of the vote is set to be. It may even be this summer, according to comment over the weekend, which means less time to prepare than you might think… Communications professionals will need to set aside their own personal views on this topic, and think through what the stakeholders of the businesses they work for need to know—and we’ll need to plan for either future, whether it is In or Out.
Not every business will want to take a public position on this; but some might. And whether or not they want to take a position, CEOs are bound to be asked probing questions by journalists on this topic, and so will need to be prepared.
Investors will want clarification on key issues and risks (financial and operational); and the volatility leading up to the decision (and afterwards, if the decision is to be Out) is certainly a risk.
There’ll be internal communications to consider too: if the decision is to be Out, then this could have significant implications for employment law. Employees will want reassurance that their jobs will be safe, and their employment contracts still workable—and no doubt this could affect your employer brand too.
There’s a lot to think about, so Communicate have organised a conference to help senior communications professionals develop their strategy for the EU referendum. It will give people the opportunity to talk to their peers in confidence and to hear expert advice and relevant case studies.
There’s a great lineup of speakers, including a session with communications professionals who helped their clients through recent referenda in Greece and Scotland (remember those? That should be fascinating…)
Called Referendum Ready?, it will be in London on 26 January – find out more on the Communicate events page.
I invited Ron Stewart, who runs the Jobs4Group, to write a post for us today on recruitment marketing.
Have you ever posted job offers on social media or set up a campaign to attract candidates to your business? If so, then you may have inadvertently tried your hand at recruitment marketing. When a company is looking to sell a job vacancy to the public, they will usually come up with strategies to attract and connect with applicants and these are the main driving force behind recruitment marketing.
In a saturated job market, recruitment marketing can be the difference between standard and quality hires. With around 75% of internet users operating some kind of social media account, there is a clear advantage to social recruitment. In fact, 78% of recruiters using social media have made a hire through it (pdf), making it one of the most effective ways to discover new talent. But, as with all strategies, only approaching candidates from one angle can damage your chances of finding the best person for the job. In order to unearth genuine professionals, you need to ensure you’re covering all your bases.
Let’s start with the biggest goldmine. Since social media is responsible for so many hires, it’s important to find a way of routing out the most suitable candidates. Recruitment marketing shouldn’t just be about posting adverts on LinkedIn and waiting for the responses to roll in. Although the social networking service is geared towards business connections, your ideal candidates won’t necessarily be looking for jobs when you post them.
Since there are varying degrees of passivity, you need to look at the whole spectrum. According to LinkedIn (pdf), only 25% of candidates are actively seeking their next employer, which leaves 75% either open to talks with recruiters or simply not looking at all. Obviously, this means there is a much higher chance that the ideal candidate for your company is hiding silently somewhere in the depths of social media. So how do you connect with them?
Your main priority should be convincing people that your company is a better place to work than the job they are currently in. On average, passive candidates require 17% less skill development than active candidates, which makes the time you invest in attracting them extremely advantageous. Putting together a recruitment marketing strategy on social media can increase your chances of tempting passive candidates towards your doors. Network with like-minded people across all social platforms (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc.) and begin to learn the interests of your target candidates. Knowing exactly what candidates are looking for in a job will make the whole process a lot smoother.
With your social media network covered, you can begin to think about the way you present yourself in other areas. Recruiting marketing is more than just a hit and hope philosophy, so, whilst your social media activity might help entice a few passive candidates to the role, you can’t afford to forget about those actively seeking employment.
Many businesses see job boards as an outdated method of recruitment, but they are still responsible for 18% of all successful hires. This is mainly due to the fact that they are still extremely popular amongst active candidates. But standing out amongst hundreds of job listings involves some careful thought. Candidates tend to search for very specific keywords, so you need to become clued up on what your audience is typing into the searchbar. SEO can become a powerful tool for companies looking to push their adverts to the top of the pile, since keyword optimisation makes it a lot easier for jobseekers to find them. Taking the time to tailor your ads to your audience, rather than simply reeling off a list of requirements can really give you an edge over your competitors.
But it’s no use directing candidates to your job listing or website if you can’t hold their interest. Job descriptions need to be concise and appealing. In order for recruitment marketing to work, you need to sell your company by attracting candidates, not interrogating them. Clearly lay out your business philosophy in the opening paragraph and indicate exactly what the role can offer to the candidate, as well as what they can offer to you.
If your company is struggling to make the quality hires they are after, then investing a little more in the development of strong recruitment marketing strategies could be the way forward. Discovering talent should be a thorough and well-conceived process, as finding a small group of consummate professionals will put you in much better stead than filtering through reams of ill-suited CVs.
Ron Stewart has worked in the recruitment industry for 30 years, having owned companies in the IT, Construction and Medical sectors. He is currently running the Jobs4Group, including medical job board, Jobs4Medical.
