Employer Brand Management conference 2017

Registration and breakfast

Tea and coffee will be served and this time offers delegates, sponsors and speakers the opportunity to network with each other.

Welcome and opening address

Employer brand journey

The Employer Brand Management conference will be punctuated by a series of short sessions in which delegates will be taken on a brand’s journey. 

We will hear from Fujitsu RunMyProcess’ chief strategy officer Ian Thomas. Created in 2007, RunMyProcess uses its innovative technology platform to help its customers digitally transform the way they work. Following its acquisition by Fujitsu the team at RunMyProcess undertook a complete rebrand, transforming staff into brand ambassadors by focusing on their role as ‘digital problem solvers’. As a gold winner at the Employer Brand Management Awards 2017 for ‘Best use of the employer brand in customer marketing,’ the RunMyProcess team are experts in the field.

Searching for the silver quota

The session will focus on managing and attracting multiple generations within the workforce, specifically the over 50s. With GLL’s recent talent attraction campaign staring 74-year old David Hall dubbed ‘Greywatch,’ Melanie Silverman is joined by Rekha Elaswarapu to discuss the importance of capitalising on the older worker to fill the growing gap in the skills market. In 2016, the government created the ‘Business in the Community Age’. Providing an opportunity to support employers adaptation to the needs of an ageing population through better retention, retraining and recruiting of older workers. Many businesses, including Aviva, Barclays, Boots and the Co-op, have set the target of increasing the number of workers aged 50-69 in the UK by 12% by 2022.

This will be a panel session with Q&A from our audience.

Tea and coffee break

Employer brand journey

For our second brand journey we are joined by Benoy's HR director Penny Illston. Founded in 1947 and now boasting 11 studios with a global reach of over 80 countries, independent firm Benoy specialises in architecture, master planning, interior design and graphic design. Producing multi-award winning work Benoy operates in an increasingly competitive marketplace. Recognising the need to build its future from the inside out, Benoy developed a new internal brand position that resonated with each and every Benoy colleague across the global business. 

Gen Z vs Millennials

Realistic vs optimistic. Independent vs collaborative. Digital natives vs digital pioneers. Role-hopping vs job-hopping. These are some of the stereotypes and differences between Gen Z-ers and Millennials, the demographics that by 2020 will make up 40% of the workforce. How can companies best target their specific characteristics? For companies interested in tapping the full potential of Millennials and the emerging Gen Z workforce, it is necessary to learn some of the key contrasts differentiating the two generations. Attracting Gen Z-ers – many of whom see becoming an online influencer as a career choice on par with graduating with a relevant degree – to a workforce requires companies to adopt new talent attraction strategies. In this session, two experts discuss how to win the generational battle.

This will be a panel session with Q&A from our audience.

Brand alignment

Employer brand management is about developing your reputation as an employer, with employees often described as an organisation's most valuable asset. Potential recruits are, by extension, the intangible assets of the future, so there should be a clear line of value in the investment an organisation makes in its employer brand. How much emphasis do organisations put into aligning their employer brand with their consumer brand? This session explores questions on how to attract, retain and engage the best talent using strategies that treat employees as customers, and how to ensure consistency in that brand message.

This will be a panel session, moderated by Synergy's Nicky Clarke, with Q&A from our audience.

Networking lunch

Future Makers

VR head sets and popcorn will be provided for the delegates as they sit back and enjoy this session, delivered in surround vision. Since the global activation of Siemens Future Makers campaign, Siemens has been using its 360° app to allow prospective employees to step inside employee’s stories to experience their lives and the work they do. In this session, Rachel Wilson will explore the internal and external, global and local alignment processes required for the development of stories at the core of Future Makers.

Narrative and storytelling

Companies are turning to storytelling to communicate their employer brands. An increase in narrative-based imagery shows multiple brands attempting to establish a narrative to attract potential employees and build their employer brand. In a market saturated with employer brand stories, how can companies subvert the traditional model of storytelling to rise above their competitors and attract the best talent? This session provides delegates with compelling examples of employer brand storytelling that cuts through the masses. Delegates will hear ideas about rewriting existing narratives, of handing the storytelling over to the employee and the use of VR to place prospective employees directly inside the narrative.

This will be a panel session with Q&A from our audience.

GE and the brand ambassador story

Introduced four years ago to combat the crisis of what candidates were seeing online before coming in for an interview, GE’s brand ambassador programme has grown to a 13,000-strong body. Katie Dalton, employment brand leader for Europe, shares GE’s journey with us.

Tea and coffee break

Corporate culture and the fight for gender equality

In a post-Miramax/post-Westminster era, most companies will need to show that diversity and inclusion run through their employer brand. But words are not enough - what will bring an end to gender oppression is for companies to adopt a culture that drives a genuinely diverse talent attraction and retention atmosphere. 

This session is moderated by Phill Lane from ThirtyThree.

The Brexit session

A Google search on the word ‘Brexit’ leads to 130m pages and articles. Not since the Y2K bug has a subject been as discussed and debated prior to its effect being known. Over a year after the referendum results, companies are still learning how to deal with its impact. With free movement of labour under threat, it would be impossible to avoid holding a session discussing the impact of Brexit on talent acquisition and retention of employees, and strategies to combat this.

Sheila Parry and the PRIDE Model

When you look at league tables of the world's most attractive employers, you can see a direct correlation with market value, consumer brand awareness and spend on recruitment. Inevitably, when it comes to creating a successful employer brand, a company with a great reputation has a massive advantage. Yet, of the 31 million people working in the UK, only half of them work for organisations that anyone has heard of. How can you build pride in your brand when you simply do not have the reputation of a FTSE 100? 

In this quick-fire session, Sheila Parry, will present a snapshot of the PRIDE Model, a new approach to employee engagement and performance, that identifies five key factors that will build successful organisations, and turns the spotlight onto the importance the individual in the workplace.

Employee experience

Onboarding is a company’s opportunity to deliver a great first impression. Integrating new employees into the culture of a company is vital to ensure it is strengthened, rather than diluted, with the introduction of new people. Companies like Facebook and Google have perfected the onboarding process, with Facebook holding a six-week engineering boot camp for new recruits prior to even entering the office. Other companies are following in their footsteps, establishing their brand through onboarding, using established and innovative strategies to create a unique company culture for their employees. We explore companies that are getting it right.

Conference wrap up