“You can have the most fantastic employer branding strategy, but only having a plan doesn’t cut it. You still need to invest in connecting with your target audiences.”
As it often goes, action is the key to success. The same saying is true within employer branding. Our third speaker from Employer Branding Summit in December last year is Vasco Castro from INKA group (a part of IKEA). During his talk, Vasco unravelled how the employer and consumer brand should and will blend.
Like all our speakers, he got several questions in the event chat. Here are his answers.
What makes IKEA more attractive for a co-worker compared to other industry peers?
We have seen that one of the main reasons for co-worker pride is IKEA’s vision to create a better everyday life for the masses, creating a feeling of purpose for the work we all do. Our values such as togetherness, caring for the people and planet, and simplicity are also strong drivers for creating a rooted culture as an employer.
Do you still include the ranking position in your KPI:s, or is the image overall more relevant to measure and follow up?
Our focus is on measuring IKEA’s attractiveness as an employer within our target groups since we want to track top of mind (recall) employer desire. This top-of-mind approach is closer to what we see as our goal in employer branding. We are also using an automatic system to measure employer brand associations.
How well-known is Talent Focus Week Externally nowadays?
Talent focus week is an example of development opportunities at IKEA in which we encourage all co-workers to devote time for a deep dive into their personal development. We do not measure this externally yet, but it would be good to address it in the future.
Please explain the successor of the EVP!
Lately, we have been talking about TVP:s as a complement to EVP:s. However, more important than getting too lost in strategies is to focus on the goals we have within employer branding. To increase brand trust and desire and to shift brand associations, we need to activate our strategy. You can have the most fantastic employer branding strategy, but only having a plan doesn’t cut it. You still need to invest in connecting with your target audiences.
Can you share some of your employer branding activities?
Last year, we created an employer brand platform including a new EVP with elements focusing on tone of voice and visual techniques. The platform will have a positive effect on brand harmony globally. We are now investing in new structures and assets for our owned channels and main EB activities. The focus for now and in the coming years is on external activation. Globally we are participating in career fairs (digitally nowadays) – collaborating with various educational institutions, social media and radio campaigns, refreshing our online candidate experience, among others.
Are you focusing on advocacy? Do you encourage employees to share and generate employer brand content? If so, how are you doing it?
We have activities that focus on encouraging co-workers to share content. We don’t have anything specific for EB communication yet and will be working on that soon. So, stay tuned!
About Vasco
Vasco is INKA Groups Global Employer Branding Leader and an expert in how the employer brand blends with the consumer brand.
Save a seat at Employer Branding Summit
Fill in your info to save a seat for September 22nd. Re-watch the previous summit here and listen to speakers like Linus Jonkman, Pernilla Fischione from Saab, Fredrik Mellander from Teamtailor and Vasco Castro from IKEA.