What happens when your company website and social media platforms claim, “Best Places to Live and Work,” but Glassdoor and Indeed show a company rating of 2 stars? How do you convince residents to renew their year-long lease when you can’t keep a maintenance tech for longer than a month? Seemingly overnight, your company “brand” has come to encompass not only what residents know, see, and say about you, but also what employees know, see, and say about you.
Company brand is more than just how an organization wants the prospective resident customer to view them. First of all, a customer can be a resident, prospective resident, investor, vendor, or job seeker. Secondly, they are looking for you in more places than just your website. Your various customers are reviewing your social media, rating and review sites, LinkedIn, job sites such as Glassdoor and Indeed, and even talking to other customers!
The question has become: with so many platforms and so many audiences, how do you ensure that your company is connecting the dots between company-branded messaging and the employee experience, especially when it comes to recruiting and engaging employees?
The answer? One of the most successful new approaches I’ve seen is to bring two traditionally separate operational functions – HR and Marketing – together to craft and broadcast the brand message. While HR is able to communicate specifications, expectations, culture, and benefits about a job opening and the employee experience applicants can expect, Marketing is able to package and broadcast the information in a way that ties in seamlessly with the brand and accentuates and enlivens the message in a fun, eye-catching, and engaging way. This is where we get the best of both worlds and form the exciting new “It Couple”.
One property management company I look to for inspiration is RedPeak, based out of Denver, Colorado. They place a priority on authenticity. RedPeak is proud of being Denver-based and Colorado-focused. They really like their people, and it shows. Lori Snider, the Head of Learning and Experience, emphasizes the importance of “speaking human” in everything they do.
Take a look at their careers page, and you’ll feel the energy and authenticity right away. One thing they know about job seekers is that while the job description itself is important, it’s also important to know who you’re going to work for and work with. That’s why you’ll see job recruitment posts like this one:
Another go-to company for promoting the company brand from every angle is AVE by Korman Communities. One amazing collaboration by Ashley Cerasaro, VP, Communications and Digital Media, and Jamie Capodiferro, VP of Talent Acquisition and Development, is their “Day in the Life” role videos. They wanted to provide true insight into what it’s like to be a maintenance tech or a community manager, for example, so they filmed candid interviews with some of their best performers that really provide a look behind the scenes at what the job is really about. Take a few minutes to check out their day in the life role videos on their career page for some true inspiration.
What if the reality is that your company culture is simply not living up to the brand image it is trying to project? You can change the culture! And it’s the “It Couple” of HR and Marketing who can help facilitate that change. Use Marketing’s expertise on ratings and reviews to look for themes that keep coming up as a negative on Glassdoor and Indeed. Armed with that info, Human Resources can work with leadership to address and improve those areas of concern. It’s to the benefit of both departments to share information and keep each other in the loop, because resident retention and employee retention are intimately connected. The happier the employees, the happier the residents, and the easier it is to maintain and promote the brand!
By working as a team to not only build and maintain brand integrity, but also find and recruit team members who will complement and enhance that brand, Human Resources and Marketing provide an undeniable synergy that can serve their company well. Think outside of the silo of your own department and start a conversation with your colleagues to see how together you can become your company’s, and your brand’s, newest “It Couple”.
