Measuring What Matters: The Real ROI of Employer Brand

Leandra So if you kind of look at all those three areas and connect those, you should be in really good shape because we all know what gets measured, gets done right. Like that's where people are going to focus. So if you're measuring the wrong things, you're not going to see the impact that you need to see with this work. Speaker Welcome to Blu Thread Conversations.

Employer brand has largely gone unmeasured, and when it is measured, it's typically through a talent acquisition lens: application volume, time to fill, quality of hire. Legitimate numbers; but they're measuring the pipeline, not the brand. Corporate brand has had measurement rigor for decades. Brand equity.

Perception tracking. Sentiment analysis. Continuous monitoring. It's treated as a strategic business asset.

Employer brand shapes what candidates, customers, investors, and partners believe about your ability to attract, keep, and develop the best people, rarely gets the same discipline. And that gap is becoming a business liability. Because that perception is now being formed and discussed before anyone visits your company career page, before anyone reads your EVP, and before any human makes a decision to engage with you. Today, we're talking about what it means to finally measure employer brand with the same rigor as culture and corporate brand.

What the metrics most organizations rely on are really telling them. And why in a world where your reputation is being scored constantly, whether you're watching or not, measurement isn't optional anymore. Stacy Hello Leandra Hello, Stacy Parker. It's been a minute.

Stacy It's been a minute since we've done one of these, hasn't it? Leandra Yes, I missed it. Stacy Did you? I think because I've been doing the other series.

I feel like the podcasts are never ending, but they're fun. And I love that some of our team is starting to participate and share their insights, too. It's really awesome to watch. Leandra I know, I love that too.

A lot of great topics too, right? Like we got three coming out, which is amazing. Amazing work Stace. Love it.

Stacy Talking about showtime. How was this weekend? Another dance competition, dance mom? Leandra Yeah.

So, Stace, you and I both dance moms. Your former dance moms. Stacy Former. Leandra We'd like to.

I think we should give a shout out if we have any listeners who are dance moms. Stacy Yes. Leandra We love you. We see you.

We respect you. And you're going to get through it. Stacy It's a special time of life. Leandra It is a special time of life.

And you're going to get through it. Stacy Yeah. Leandra Yeah. Sending you lots of love.

Stacy Yeah. That's really sweet. So podcast topic today: measuring employer brand. You know, like, as a theme, it's kind of like, oh gosh, do we want to talk about it?

But it's something that I think we're really good at and something that the industry has been increasingly curious about. We see it on search trends, and it happens to be something that companies need to get on top of if they are going to get any kind of return on investment. Leandra And I'm so curious, Stace. I mean, you and I have been so passionate about this topic, and naturally we would be because we do work for our clients where we want to see an impact.

If we can't, that's our motivation, right? We want to see an increase in performance. How do you think, like why do organizations get away up until now - I think we're going to see more - with not measuring the impact of the investment they make in employer branding? Like, why do you think that happens?

Stacy Yeah, I think there's a few things. That's the big question of how it has been ten years, right? Leandra You spend money. Like you spend money on, you know, several things.

And it may not be the same dollars that you would spend on a marketing campaign, but it's still significant for HR leaders; the investment they make on their employer brand. And it's an important investment. Yet, many, to your point, are not measuring it. Stacy Yeah.

I think there's a few reasons. One, I think by nature of the term employer brands there becomes this uncomfortable, ‘who owns it?’ We seen since we started Blu Ivy some 15 years ago the debate on who owns employer brand. Is it marketing?

Is it talent acquisition? Is it HR leadership? And I think by nature of that, that lack of definition, how it's measured and what measured improvement is a confusion and there's no core stakeholder. And then I think the other thing is a little bit of by nature of our industry and the way that we recognize great employer brand launches, the awards, that are in the system.

And I think there's been such a value on get an MVP to launch, and the big exciting launch, that those factors have all led to this moment where clear KPIs, clear return on investment has been lacking. Leandra And we've even, right Stace, I think I think we've talked about this in previous podcasts, where we're now having former clients come back to us and say, okay, you did great work, but in our eyes it was- and in the executive team eyes, it was like, okay, you did a launch.

You did it. We have an EVP. Done. Onto the next.

Stacy And it doesn't take hold within an organization because there hasn't been clear measurement like an employer brand system. So I think when I- like when I look at, what has happened and what I always want to do mentally is go back to like, why? Why employer brand strategy became a thing in the first place? Why does it matter for the business?

And, you know, and how do you measure what matters for the business? And when I started looking first at, like, culture. So culture or measuring culture is inherently natural to organizations now. And I think, like- well actually, let me ask you, as a former CHRO, what do you think the most common, most reliable sources of measurement of culture are today?

Leandra Well, common and reliable. Like I think, you know, I'll answer common. When I speak with HR leaders, what they are assessing when it comes to culture. And first, it's a multitude of metrics and they're not connected.

And I can just imagine what they're CEO- what they think when they get this scorecard with just so many metrics. Not consistent in the way they're measured or the frequency. So let's talk about engagement surveys. So, at most organizations will do that, what?

Four times a year? Stacy At most. Most of them I talk to at least once a year. Leandra So they're measuring engagement surveys four times a year.

They're looking at turnover which is a lagging indicator of culture performance. They're looking at when it comes to culture referrals. Right? So if they get more referrals.

But that is a tricky metric as well because you may not be hiring. And referrals- people are only going to refer for roles that not only, you know, do they want to promote the company but are also a good fit? Some companies, but very few, measuring kind of advocacy. So how often are their employees talking about the organization?

But that's very, very few. So I would say predominantly it's engagement surveys and turnover rates. Stacy Yeah. And that's when I talk to board executives, that's what they always point to is engagement surveys; we love to see the benchmarking, trends over time, turnover, it gives us a sense of whether things are falling apart.

But like you said, lagging. And what was interesting. So I was like, well, when did engagement surveys become The Thing? And it really wasn't until like the late 90s where it started to really hit.

So I know A Great Place to Work was something that you always loved because it touched on trust. And it was- Yes- a really good barometer to use internationally. But it really wasn't until like the late 90s that took off. And I'm curious, from your experience working with CEOs, do you think that they took off because of the awards associated with it.

Like from a business lens, what do you think mattered most to the CEO in that engagement survey? Was it key metrics that showed performance, or was it the awards to be recognized as a best workplace culture? Leandra Yeah. So I mean, gosh, I remember when I was a HR leader, there's a lot of importance put on the awards.

And as you both, you and I both know, not all awards are created equal. Like there's awards out there where you don't even have to have your employees participate in the award and give their feedback, which just, so was just based purely on marketing and what type of programs and practices you have, which you and I both know you can have the best maternity top up, you can have benefits for your pets, you can have treat day every day, but if there's no trust then that will impact productivity.

But yeah- for sure. But there were some great awards like I love Great Place to Work. But once again, it's one point in time. Stacy Yeah.

But I think like that, it is interesting. Like the awards is my organization seen as a best workplace. We can call it advantage. There's depth to it.

But in some ways a vanity metric. That's why kind of post 90s early 2000s, it started to become deeply entrenched to an executive. Because to say I have a best workplace, as is evidenced against all of my peers, was really important to how the business was positioned, perhaps to shareholders, perhaps to your board, whatever, it mattered in that case. When you look at the employer brand, and how employer brand awards have come out over the last ten years.

And it's really, like the biggest ones are around recruitment advertising. They're advertising sorts. Leandra Yeah. Like mostly creative, right?

Like that's how you're- Stacy Mostly creative. So they're celebrating the creative launch. Look at how beautiful this creative campaign was. Look at how beautiful the landing page of a website was.

Let's look at how beautiful a social media campaign was. But the impact of the business, of leadership, performance, of advocacy, and experience, those things were not being measured or recognized. So, the industry kind of did, in this moment, the vanity metric of let's celebrate a launch, let's celebrate what the ad agency is doing, not what our business- how our business is evolving. And I think that's kind of at the core, what has got to shift now.

If anybody is looking at the sirens on what needs to happen right now with culture and employer brand transformation, to me it's like we got to move away from vanity and start talking about what the CEO is worried about when he or she is sitting with the board. It is performance. Leandra Yeah. And maybe, Stace, I think it would be helpful for you to share some metrics that you and I see from people that we've worked with that they're reporting to their CEO on a regular basis, that could give that CEO a false sense of security.

For example, like you've mentioned, I think being recognized as a top 100 employer in Canada or Top Ten, that could give you- Stacy A false sense. Leandra Of security, right? Because that's not missing- like it's missing key, you know, factors that create high performing, and highly motivated, and productive workplaces. What else have you seen that could give that CEO a false sense of security?

Stacy Well, I think engagement surveys, to be quite honest, a lot of surveys to date to me are giving a false sense of security. Because we know from all of the data that's available that globally engagement is at historic lows. Yes, globally productivity we know to be at historic lows. Yet, we often when we're talking again to board leaders, CHROs, private equity, what we hear is while we- engagement is fine.

Engagement levels have remained status quo,’so were good.’ To me, that's giving a false sense of security because all that is really designed to measure is how good are you today at making sure you don't have turnover. Leandra Yes. Stacy And in a world where job security is, you know, kind of the number one issue that we're hearing from people, you've got a lot of people that are actively disengaged and staying with the organization.

What you don't have a barometer on is how much extra energy people are willing to put in to help the company succeed, and that's what CEOs really need to hear. Leandra And engagement surveys worry me, too. Because I think it's great, like a lot of organizations are holding their leaders accountable, right, to creating a great workplace. But what they're holding them accountable often is the engagement survey results.

So then the leaders are actively promoting getting their teams to complete these engagement surveys. And we're hearing when we listen online, which is objective, unbiased, just listening to employee comments online, we're hearing more and more this fear of speaking up and psychological safety. Right. Because they're being pressured to fill out this survey.

They know that their manager is responsible for, you know, has to be accountable for a certain score. That's a lot, you know? Stacy Yeah, yeah. So their completion rates are down.

That's a really good point. We know statistically that completion rates of engagement surveys have gone down about 30%. Interestingly, the same on the customer satisfaction. Customers don't trust surveys, simply because they don't feel like the time, we hear this all the time from employees, don't feel like the time I also put into answering these surveys results in anything different.

So I if I don't trust that my voice can be heard and I'm safe, and I don't trust that the time I put into responding is going to make any dramatic change on my experience then it's not a really great single source of culture. Leandra And I'm sure to- so we've talked about engagement surveys, but I've also seen Stace, on dashboards, a multitude of metrics on LinkedIn followers, applicant volume, website visits, and I've just never seen so many metrics in my life. And once again, I always like to ask why?

Why do these matter? What is the CEO going to do with all of these? And they can also, right Stace, some of those give you that false sense of security as well, right? Stacy Yeah, yeah.

It's kind of like, I take it to like branding at the end of the day, you've got your overall brand. One of the core objectives of the overall brand. Well, they are ultimately about, positioning the organization for market share growth, for customer loyalty. And then there's marketing pieces that go underneath and every one is a layer that moves up to ultimately the brand.

And an employer brand, what I often see is to your point, it's like the lowest level of funnel are the metrics that are being reported on. Yeah. So the CEO doesn't actually care about that. The So What it's not how many more people have come to your website or how many stayed for 30s versus 15 seconds.

The So What is not how many people made a comment on a social post or shared social posts. The So What is not how different your EVP headline is than your three competitors. The So What is what's happening to the business. The performance.

The extra energy that your employees put into work. Or how much people want- are clamoring to join your organization. I always like to go back to the founder, as well, of employer brand: Simon Barrow. Like, why did he build it?

What was he trying to accomplish? And what he was trying to accomplish was this idea that there's no there's no branding your way into a great workplace. In order to do it, you have to have great leadership alignment and cohesion. You've got to be really clear on what it is that people want, like intrinsically, what do they want out of their or their work contract with you?

And that has got to be able to be conveyed externally. So it's leadership, it's experience, and it's reputation. At the end of the day, that was why Simon Barrow founded that concept years ago. And that's your management system versus the campaign.

So we need to shift away from those campaign metrics. Those- and move back into what is an employer brand management system doing? Because that's what the CEO cares about. Leandra So what would that break us down- break that down then Stace.

Like what would a valuable employer brand scorecard look like? Stacy Well, of course I'm going- I'll start with talking about how we would approach anything, right? Which is first, leadership. Like at the end of the day, an organization, an employee experience, the reputation, it starts from the top.

It starts from leaders knowing what the EVP is, knowing what it means to them, how they use it, talk to it, govern with it. So leadership, first of all. You've got a great leadership team that knows the employer brand. Delivers on it consistently.

They seem cohesive and aligned. Talent really believes in them and trusts them. You used the word trust earlier and that's it. Leandra Love it.

Stacy Yeah? Do you feel the same way about the lens or is there anything about that? Leandra And there's both. No, I agree.

And there's like, how are leaders being trusted internally? And are they also promoting- like are they the biggest advocate externally? Right. So you need both viewpoints.

Yeah. But yeah, I think you got to start with leadership. Stacy Leadership number one, I want to join great company leadership. Yeah.

Talent trusts corporate logos less than ever. Today they want to know that the leaders that they're joining and giving their best to have really clear line of sight that they can be trusted and are human focused as well. Leandra Yes. Stacy Then culture- Leandra Yes.

Stacy Is the next piece. And that to me, from a culture perspective, that is that the experiences, the accountability, the way people are working and who they're working with are top notch. Leandra Yeah, I agree, like making sure that- I always like to look, you know, we do this when we start working with clients, what are you talking about as an organization? Like what are your culture strengths?

What is your branding currently look like and what is the actual experience? If there's any misalignment, you and I both know that that's going to impact performance. So make sure that you understand what your strengths are and that when you are talking about your strengths, that it is aligned with the actual experience. Yeah that's key.

Stacy Yeah. You've got leadership. You've got culture which is really about the consistency of the experience. And then reputation is the third piece.

And that reputation, is of course, you know, how are people talking about you online. Because the generations that are the younger ones within your workplace right now or that you're attracting for a future, they are far more inclined to talk about their experience online. That's the world they've grown up with that you review, on TripAdvisor or you review on Instagram. You like their external review first.

So that source of truth on Indeed on Glassdoor, on AmbitionBox, you name it, that's their single source of truth. Leandra Yes. And making sure I mean, this is how you and I started Blu Ivy Group Stace, making sure that the head of marketing or the like- and the head of HR are working together because people don't want to work for a company that doesn't treat their employees well. They also don't want to work for a company where customers aren't happy.

So it's really important. Stacy Yeah, exactly. Like that's when I look at the value chain of employer brand, it always comes down to we're all here to deliver an exceptional customer experience. It's also got a tie to that.

And project after project after project, we can look at that value chain of leadership issues, and culture gaps, and the employer brands weakness, and then see it directly translate to the customer experience. Malcolm Gladwell, who we all love, his second book on, The Tipping Point, talked about the fact that, you need about a third of any kind of group to be absolutely in love with an experience like so that there are mad advocates. You need about a third of them to do that, to have any transformational change.

So when we think about, like engagement scores, we think about eNPS scores. Like what we need today- what leaders need for customer retention, for this employer brand advocacy, we need to make sure that all of the work we're doing is to shift at least a third of our employees from engaged to madly in love advocates. And that can only happen if we're using employer brand to shape that leadership change, that experience change, because no ad campaign is going to do that. And that's what I love about the consistency we have with the tool we have, because it can just on a single page PDF show you exactly how to transform from engaged to greatly in love advocates.

Leandra Yeah. I want to talk about AI because I think that's on everyone's radar. Why- and I think this is honestly, why another reason why the importance of measuring employer brand impact is even more important with AI because of the information that you and I know you can find online about an organization. But why do you think, you know, how do you feel AI is changing the world of employer branding?

And why is it even more important to make sure that you're measuring the right things when it comes to employer branding and culture impact? Stacy What AI proves very quickly is that employer branding is not a communications exercise. And, you know, for all of those that are focusing on, you know, getting an EVP out at the lowest and lowest price, fastest speeds. Those that are focused on making sure that the copy is slightly differentiated from competitors, that's but- that's not making a measurable shift on how AI is going to be able to govern behaviours and experiences internally.

Increasingly, you can't control the narrative as leaders because of AI. And it's moving at an incredible clip. So if you can't control the narrative, that means that your employer brand is going to be in constant transformation. So you better be listening.

Taking that data information and evolving very quickly. You better understand and have the foresight of what's coming, because it's being shared en masse. I mean, people are coming to your organization more and more through ChatGPT, and Claude, and Perplexity, Gemini, than they are from your Google search, and your website, they're going direct to your company from AI. So how AI is informed is often through your employer reputation.

That evolution, the pace with which messaging is changing, the importance of governance over communication for employer brand and culture. And then just how fast the reputation, the story of your leadership team, the story of your employee experience is being shaped to customers and stakeholders through AI search. Leandra Yeah. And what questions?

I'm sorry, I have like- what questions do you think, you know, because I think it's often I mean, Joey did that podcast on the greater why. Right. Like as opposed to I need an EVP, or I need this, or I need an employer branding strategy. What questions should people that own employer branding be able to answer for leaders?

Because I think that will shift people's thinking in metrics because, you know, for example, one question, if I own employer branding I should be able to answer for my CEO is: how are we perceived? Social LinkedIn followers isn't going to tell you that. So I think that's another test to see if the metrics that you're currently measuring are the right ones. Like coming up with those questions, because for sure, you got to be able to tell how are we being perceived?

Is the experience that employees have aligned with our promise? With our commitments? Engagement surveys won't tell you that. What other questions, Stace, would you feel are really important for leaders and employer branding leaders to understand?

To know? Stacy Well, I'll start with the fact that our view is that an employer brand management system has a really strong value chain, which is leadership, employee experience, the culture, and the reputation. And when we look at leadership, leadership has not only a responsibility to deliver great execution, and alignment, and clarity on who the organization is, why they exist, what they're doing, and what your role is in doing that. They also have, increasingly, because of AI, a massive responsibility to do that externally.

You know, platforms are favoring individuals versus corporations. The clarity of who I'm working with matters so much. So I would ask, an employer brand leader today, how much of your employer brand story and reputation and perception is shaped by you and your division? Versus the executives that you entrust to steer the clarity and strategy of the company?

I think I would also ask, what are the 2 to 3 KPIs that matter most to a CEO in the work that you're doing? Do you know what they are? Because- and how are you tracking to make sure you've got the right systems in place to track them? Finally, I think I would really want to know, from employer brand leaders that are looking to elevate, are you aware of how many employees are this top 33%?

Because engaged, again, don't do anything new for the business. Engaged means nothing. It just means they're not leaving. I want to know what percentage are those individuals that are in love with the company?

Who are advocates? Not part of an employer brand advocacy program- are self-selected, in love, advocate voices of the organization. And then what percentage of your customer base are really advocates, really proud, in love with whatever it is that you offer? Because that's where the shift happens and that's where you as an employer brand leader, matter more than the campaign, more than a cost center.

When they can see- the CEO can see that you're driving that. Leandra Yeah, I love that. So I mean, as a wrap up, Stace, I think we've like shared some lessons learned, some metrics that really aren't working when it comes to measuring the impact of your employer brand and culture strength. I think you shared some really good areas to focus on when it comes to employer branding, like starting this leadership is key.

And then culture and reputation. And third, making sure that you are answering the right questions and that you are also aligning what you're measuring to what's most important to your C-suite overall and to your see-all. So if you kind of look at all those three areas and connect those, you should be in really good shape, because we all know what gets measured, gets done right, like that's where people are going to focus. So if you're measuring the wrong things, you're not going to see the impact that you need to see with this work.

Stacy And what's the one thing that we want, to, to drive out of this? I think it is that between leadership and experience, you're ultimately turning your employees and your customers into really proud advocates that love your organization. That's the secret of growth.