Sponsored by 
Aimed at managers and HR folks, Anna Farmery and Daniel Wain take us through some practical ways in which to help employees better engage with their employer brand and hence realise their full passion and potential. As a former HR director and someone who is passionate about this issue, as evidenced by her excellent blog and podcasts, there’s no better source than Anna for this valuable advice. And in his inimitable style, Daniel shares his views, tips and initiatives from RI

 STARRING 

• Anna Farmery, The Engaging Brand
• Daniel Wain, Director of Learning and Development, Research International

PODCAST
Please let us know what you think of this podcast.

Timeline [32m07s]
00m00s Introduction.
01m31s Rationale for The Engaging Brand.
02m10s Training 2.0.
03m00s The role of HR, managers and employees.
03m32s How to engage employees.
07m32s Recruiting the right leaders and managers.
09m28s Is the MR industry sufficiently attractive to new recruits?
13m12s The three rules to getting the best out of people.
15m50s Delivering on internal brand promises.
17m48s Roles and responsibilities.
18m59s RI’s approach to training and development.
22m42s Effective training on a tight budget.
26m08s Using modern tools to connect with employees (blogs, podcasts, wikis).
29m28s Anna’s hoped-for legacy.

NOTABLE MENTIONS
Hallmark.
Harvard Business Review.
Royal Mail.
Sir Richard Branson.
Southwest Airlines.
Virgin.

QUOTES
On the rationale for the blog and podcast: “It’s all about getting that fun and experience into the workspace.” (Anna).

On how the research industry sees training: “I feel very strongly that we think about learning in a very narrow definition of training …and it being something that is done to you.” (Danny).

On being resourceful with the training budget: “There is a huge amount of resource on the Internet that is absolutely free.” (Anna).

On the crucial reason for engaging employees: “…if people are engaged they deliver higher performance … I don’t care what it is, whether you are making a product or a service, it’s people that deliver the experience to the customer … the first port of call is give the person in the company the experience themselves.” (Anna).

On the need to engage all employees: “The salary maybe reflects the experience or the technical level of the job, but that does not mean that the person is not valuable to creating the company vision. Where companies really succeed…is that seeing every part of your company as an extension of your customer or corporate brand.” (Anna).

On being authentic: “If what you’re trying to do is portray to the outside world an innovative, creative solution, then you need to create that culture within … if it’s one where no individual can ever make a decision without going to the CEO, then that’s not necessarily innovative, creative to that individual.” (Anna).

On attracting talent: “I don’t think that within the industry we have enough role models and also I don’t think we think about developing people as ambassadors for the whole industry.” (Danny).

On what makes a good manager: “The further up you go [in an organisation], the more the emotional intelligence actually comes into it and the more it is about getting the best out of people, and that isn’t the best market researcher.” (Anna).

On nurturing: “In order for people to be ambassadors they’ve got to actually feel it.” (Anna).

“You join a manager, you leave a manager.” (Anna).

On effective recruitment: “Word of mouth marketing happens with employees as well … people start to join companies that people are talking about as a great place to work.” (Anna).

On not being so defensive about MR: “If you just keep flagellating yourself in public [that MR doesn’t seem to attract people] then you shouldn’t be surprised if the only people you attract are masochists. Why would anyone want to join an industry that is constantly beating itself up?” (Danny).

On poor marketing: “I made a joke at conference this year … we might as well put an ad. in the paper saying telepaths wanted, you know where to apply. We should be, of all people, the very best at identifying our core market … and then getting them in.” (Danny).

On engaging people: “Do some research on what they want from an employer … that needs to be a dialogue … get down to the individual level.” (Anna).

On being authentic: “Nothing matters unless people are walking the talk.” (Anna).

On delivering on the internal brand promise: “There is nothing wrong in being a dictatorial, lacking creativity, being a completely inflexible organisation!” (Anna).

On managing engagement: “HR are partly to blame, because HR actually quite like controlling the management of people … but at the end of the day, the management and the motivation and the inspiration of people is purely and utterly down to the leaders and managers.” (Anna).

On RI’s coaching programme: “Once upon a time we were known as the university of market research … and so [we now] offer training in client relationship management, business development, negotiating, people management, IT skills, e-learning, mentoring, coaching…” (Danny).

On RI’s coaching programme: “What I would like to do … is that we actually get to the level where we have a number of what I would call milestone development programs in place, which before e.g. someone becomes a line manager, they have to have gone on our people management essentials programme.” (Danny).

On training on a tight budget: “Most of management is on the job … if you have good managers and you have good leaders, they will be able to develop people to be a manager without necessarily going on a training course.” (Anna).

On training on a tight budget: “I used to look after 3,500 people and at one point we had a [training] budget of £20,000 … if you’re crafty you can do it.” (Anna).

On employee blogging: “Some people use blogging as a way of improving communications that are bad within an organisation - No! You’ve got to start with communication skills at the top of the organisation.” (Anna).

On employee blogging: “[employees ask] how do I get my ideas back up the organisation? And blogging can be a tool that can be used to help that dialogue.” (Anna).

“For all the technology in the world, I still come to human-to-human contact.” (Anna).

Music courtesy of: 2006 Pl@stic Soul and The Blue Mile from the PMN

Thanks to K D Consulting for sponsoring this podcast.

(tags: market research marketing)

Series:MarketingTalk
Series:Skills
Series:Sponsored