Level 5 Blog

Things may be in a global swell, but talent, particularly in certain critical areas, is in a fierce crunch. Superstars are in short supply and employers need to dig deep into their trick bags to woo them. But in-house pool tables and flexible Fridays can only go so far. An organization’s ability to attract high quality personnel, ultimately, is a function of its ability to comprehensively represent itself to a potential hire—an undertaking that needs to be tackled at a cellular level.

In other words, it’s not enough to tend to the consumer brand and its promise to the world; employers must also cultivate meticulously the internal brand they represent to their corporate family. And take care to align the lot.

The concept of “branding” a company’s human resources—along with all the other parts of its existence—may sound extraordinary (don’t even think “new age”) to the conventional businessperson’s ears, but bear with us. Here, the “product” is the experience of working for a particular organization, and it extends across every last touchpoint between the parties.

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Paradigm shifts are rolling off automobile production lines like nobody’s business these days. And while car companies—so recently ruined and rescued and recast—may not be reinventing the literal wheel, they’re going after pretty much everything else under the hood in their efforts to surface from the near wreckage that beset their industry in the last several years.

An article in the Globe explores the details of this re-emergence, emphasizing particularly the technologic capabilities that are the new standard on a modern driving machine.

“Our vehicles are becoming much more than a transportation device,” David Mondragon, chief executive officer of Ford Motor Co. of Canada, recently told attendees of a conference organized by the Canadian Marketing Association. “They’re communication and entertainment devices.” Continue reading »

Timothy Goodman, from the Imprint design community, takes us for a ride in a recent article he wrote about archetypes and how some of today’s newer brands relate to them.

Of particular interest is his description of archetypes as “ancient, universal patterns of behavior” that represent an “ideal.” In his work he uses them to gain greater insight into the brands he works with—Harley Davidson, for example, represents rebellion, a fact that would help inform his design strategy from there on. At LEVEL5, we would add a slight wrinkle. Continue reading »

The messages are as mixed as they could be. The economy is recovering, but not as quickly, or in the particular areas, or in the precise way, that we thought. The net result is a population of employees in mid flight, poised for one reality, prepared for another. They’re tense, they’re jittery, they’re pissed off and they’re confused. And a breakroom jammed with bellyaching burnouts ain’t gonna do a thing for your bottom line.

But for all the forces outside of their control, employers enjoy absolute power over a multitude of factors with maximum influence on the potential for discouraging employee discontent in their midst.  Namely, their brand.

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Why is it that, in many organizations, the people responsible for the external brand aren’t the same ones responsible for internal communications? Could there be a more egregious example of a left-hand-fiddles-while-right-hand-burns scenario?

Traditionally, corporate communications with external audiences are carefully managed via appointed spokespeople—a select crew granted special authority to speak publicly on behalf of the brand. Internally, meanwhile, another cast of characters is often conferred permission to rally the troops with their own script.  Why aren’t both audiences managed by the same people?

What a missed opportunity to create focus, alignment and consistency. Using two different functional teams to communicate what should be very similar, if not the same, messages to two different audiences is bound to result in miscommunication, inconsistency and confusion. Continue reading »