Pivoting Your Content Strategy During COVID-19
Over the last few weeks, employer brand teams across the globe have felt the weight of uncertainty as they consider the right/ best/ appropriate/ necessary/ and most helpful content to share.
There has been a lot of uncertainty amongst Employer Branding and Recruitment Marketing practitioners regarding generating recruiting and culture content during COVID-19.
In our TBA community, questions have come up about how to pivot your content strategy, building guidelines, do’s and don’ts, how to generate content with sensitivity, etc... So, on Friday, April 10th, we decided to bring everyone together to discuss current strategies and challenges to help each other navigate through this unprecedented time.
The discussion was led by TBA board members, Audra Knight & Zakiya Nashid. Unlike most webinars, this session was member-driven with the focus on having a back and forth between participants, and sharing examples from their respective organizations. With over 42 members present for the discussion, the group could have talked for hours about this topic. During the meeting, several great examples and strategies were shared. Here are some of the member highlights:
Developing Guidelines for Your Content Strategy
Chloe Rada (Sodexo), put together content do’s and don’ts, and outlined how her content strategy will change for her organization.
Staying Close to What’s Happening in Your Organization
Zakiya & Audra shared tips on how to build your content strategy while aligning yourself with what’s happening in your organization. A lot of members resonated with leveraging internal channels, and connecting closely with key stakeholders in marketing & communications.
What Members Are Doing
Ashley Walls: “We’ve been leveraging our social slack channels. My company has a lot related to fitness, baking, sustainability at home, etc. Each week we’ve been sharing how employees are staying connected through those channels.”
Erin Johnson: “We held a pet happy hour where everyone introduced their pet! Great way to get people engaged!”
Heather Leszczewicz: “I'm crowdsourcing a couple of things from our Life channel. We did a virtual coffee date this week. Last week, we did a feature on our "new" coworkers. For next week, I've asked what is their "silver lining" during this time.”
Partnering with Marketing & Communications
While Marketing & Comms are vital partners for Employer Brand, we agreed that there are differences when it comes to the content that should be shared in the current climate. TBA member, Hailey, raised a question about how to navigate conversations about the right content to share during these times with internal stakeholders. She is looking to share more about the community work her company is doing, and her marketing & comms partners were concerned it would come off as bragging.
Key Takeaways
Pulse Check - Open up the lines of communication, and find out what concerns your internal stakeholders have. You may be able to tweak content slightly, so everyone feels comfortable with it.
Share What Competitors Are Doing - During this time of crisis, everyone’s navigating a new sense of normalcy. Sharing what your competition is doing is in a sense giving your company permission to do the same thing.
Tell Your Story - It’s okay to share what you’re doing as a company. While you may feel that you’re coming across as vulnerable, you’re actually doing your community and industry a service by sharing.
Content Topics When You are Hiring vs When Not Hiring
Although content topics will overlap if you are hiring vs. not hiring, members discussed content you can lean into if you are hiring during these times that will help provide guidance & clarity about your current hiring practices.
Segment 1
Ashley Walls (Arcadia) Shared her virtual interview guide: https://www.arcadia.com/img/arcadia-virtual-interviewing-guide.pdf
Segment 2
Alex Her (Informatica) shared content ideas to lean into if you are not hiring.
“Your EB doesn’t stop if you’re not hiring. It’s time for your EB to take center stage.”
Key Takeaways
Arm your recruiters with guidance on how to address COVID-19 - It is important that Talent Advisors have guidance on how to address candidates during this time.
Ashley Walls: “We put together a set of talking points for the TA team to leverage as they’re speaking with candidates. Especially those who were part of roles that were affected by a hiring pause”
Lane Sutton: “Arm your recruiters with different scenarios, how to address, and answer FAQs…”
Zakiya Nashid: “Make sure TA is aware of how the company is supporting employees and the community. Share community initiatives and internal employee support strategies. Unilever introduced a community initiative.”
Engaging Candidates Across Channels
Whether you’re hiring or not, you shouldn’t stop engaging candidates. Members were out in full force, sharing key messages that they’re sharing across channels outside of social media.
Key Takeaways
Lane Sutton: “Our Corporate Affairs team published a microsite on our response and we put a banner up on our Careers site: https://corporate.walmart.com/here-for-you.”
Julia Gaffney: “This is what we are highlighting this week internally and externally (if applicable) at Texas Children’s News https://texaschildrensnews.org/”
Chloe Rada:
https://us.sodexo.com/careers/employment-during-covid-19.html
https://us.sodexo.com/careers/employment-during-covid-19/employment-opportunities.html
What’s Next?
Over the next several weeks, we’ll be holding our TBA COVID-19 Series. It’s a series of member calls tackling topics that are near and dear to our hearts and the challenges that we’re all going through. To join the calls, we invite you to join the TBA Facebook Group. It’s a community of over 1,000 employer brand and recruitment marketing leaders. No sales, just insights and sharing among global peers. Click here to request to join.
Candidate Care + Experience – featuring Lindsey Sanford and Bryan Chaney (4/17/2020 @ 12pm EST)
Transferrable Skills and Career Paths for EB/RM – featuring Holland Dombeck McCue (4/24/2020 @ 12pm EST)
Leadership Conversations on Long Term Employer Brand Strategy – Bryan Chaney and Emily Firth (5/01/2020 @ 12pm EST)
Community Job Search and Current EB/RM Opportunities – the board and entire community (5/8/2020 @ 12pm EST)
Zakiya Nashid is an Employer Brand Leader at Unilever, leading the North American team. She specializes in growing the Unilever employer brand, attracting top talent to the right roles, and leading the Black Excellence Group. Along with her list of accomplishments, she also leads the Membership Committee at TBA.
Alex Her leads the Global Employer Branding and Recruitment Marketing at Informatica across 26 countries. Along with that, he's also a member of the TBA Marketing Committee.