Message and Medium Matter

This post by Trish McFarlane reminded of this piece I wrote a couple of years ago.  I liked it back then, and still like it today.  Maybe you will too!

One of the more irritating things about living in an apartment complex are the constant attempts at outreach by merchants in the surrounding area.  These business owners rightly view our apartment community as a concentrated mecca of potential business, and they use printed media to let us know they are out there.  Unfortunately, the message is rarely delivered effectively because of the medium.

There are probably about 20 pizza places and a half dozen places to get Chinese carryout within a two mile radius of where I live.  I swear they all send me a handbill or a coupon every week.  Here’s the bad news:  I never look at them.  They get stuck on my windshield, in my door, in my mailbox, but I never read them or use them.  They are just hand delivered trash as far as I am concerned.  The same is true for all the “Yellow Pages” books that seem to arrive on my doorstep every week or so.

I am not receiving the message because the medium doesn’t work for me.  Put a coupon on my Facebook page and I might notice it.  Put in on my car, and it goes in the trash at the Hess station or Dunkin Donuts when I stop to get my coffee.  I don’t want to look for what they are trying to sell in these books.  I don’t want the damn books either!

The Yellow Pages

I know that all the different publications that get delivered to my stoop are not supposed to be referred to as “the Yellow Pages”,  but I am going to do it anyway.   So whether your book is printed by some very distant kin to Ma Bell herself or comes to me via a printer from China doesn’t really matter.  I don’t look at any of them.

Listen to this advertisers:  I get the book.  I pick it up.  I throw it in the trash.  I get extra pissed because the area where I live doesn’t offer any sort of convenient recycling.

People paid to have their ads run.  People paid to get those book delivered.  Sometimes the books make it all the way to my front door.  Sometimes, they get dumped by the communal mail area.   No matter where I get them from, all of mine wind up in the trash.

Why? Because somebody somewhere came up with the idea to send me something I didn’t want or need.

I will concede that some people, perhaps even many, use these books to find services or shops that they wouldn’t have found otherwise.    So there may yet be a place in the universe for books that will let you “Let you fingers do the walking”.   If there wasn’t some utilization, I doubt whether people would pay to advertise in these books, the companies who sell the ads wouldn’t print them, and the dudes who dump the damn things on my steps wouldn’t get paid to do so.  All that is great, but…  I. Don’t. Read. Your. Damn. Books!

You are sending me something I don’t need or want.

Lots of Human Resources departments are just like the Yellow Pages

10 things to hate about HR? Start by fixing one!

I think that HR has allowed itself to become like the yellow pages.  Somebody somewhere thinks they are making a good project or providing a valuable service.    The companies they work for pay them to do this.  People still get paid to make sure the the product or service is placed in the hands of the organizational customers.

And when they get, the customer isn’t exactly sure where it came from, why they needed it in the first place, or what they exactly they are supposed to do with it.  If they act like me when I get a advertisement on my windshield, they look for the closest, most convenient trash receptacle, dump the unwanted item without really giving it much attention, and move on.

Is this happening to you?  Probably!

Give the Customer what they want!   (most of the time)

So here are some ways for HR peeps to start fixing their departments if they are broken like this.

1. Give your customers what they want more often than giving them what you think they need!
2. Tell them what you are giving them.
3. Tell them why.
4. Tell them what they are supposed to do with it.
5. Explain the freakin’ value proposition!  They need to know “WITFM”?  (What’s in this for me?)
6. Review your customer communication channels.  Check to see if messages are getting through.
7. Check the trash for discards and figure out why that happened in order to fix it.

Now, go get some shit done!

Related articles

• The State of the Yellow Pages Print Industry (webpronews.com)
• Yellow Page Industry Sets Up “Do Not Deliver” Site (mikemoran.com)
• Will Yellow Pages Face a Sales HR Issue? (blogs.praized.com)

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Touchpoints define your brand

What is a touchpoint?   A touchpoint is occurs each and every time your brand comes into contact with a customer, an employee,  or a vendor.

When combined, these interactions combine to form the aggregate impressions of your business that  is typically referred to as your brand.     Companies with great brands work diligently at managing these touchpoints and use them create a significant brand advantage with their customers, and even their employees.  Brands known for doing this exceptionally well include Southwest Airlines, Starbucks, Kraft, and PepsiCo.

Research shows that the typical brand can experience anywhere from 30-100 daily touchpoints.   Examples of touchpoints in the retail business, or in the restaurant industry would include things such as advertising,  store location and design, customer service, and item availability, amongst many others.  You can see the full spectrum in the graph below which depicts the Brand Touchpoint Wheel.  The concept of the brand touchpoint wheel was developed in 2002 by Scott Davis and Michael Dunn.

From Drop Box

Image source: Integrated MarComm

Touchpoints in Human Resources

Even though the names of the functional interactions inside human resources may be different, the concepts of the Brand Touchpoint Wheel can easily be applied to the candidate/employee experience .  It is not difficult to think of an HR model for touchpoints like the one above.   I am just thinking off the top of my head, but it might consist of three slices, just like the model above:

• Pre-employment experience
• On-boarding experience
• Post hire experience

The surrounding factors are similar as well:

• recruiter contacts
• website
• recruting ads
• interview experience
• interview follow-up and response
• offer
• compensation and benefit package
• training

Of course, there would be more, but you get the idea.    Companies that practice great HR are already doing this kind of thing, even if the model is not defined in this manner.   By carefully managing and prioritizing key touchpoints, companies like those previously cited such as Southwest Airlines, Starbucks, Kraft, and PepsiCo create the same kind of employment / employee brand that they enjoy with consumers and customers.  If your company is looking for a way to gain competitive advantage in human resources, consider doing an analysis of your HR touchpoints, and start to manage those that are key with strategic care.   It will be noticed!

Here is the secret sauce

If you want to fully maximize your efforts, make sure you add the human touch.  There was a lot of discussion at TRU USA about the alarming lack of human contact that takes place as part of the recruiting process.   Most companies make little or no effort to manage key touchpoints like acknowledging receipt of a resume, or providing feedback about when a position is filled.   Some utilize auto-responders in their ATS to help with this, but the really good companies reach out in person.   This helps to build goodwill with candidates, and differentiates you from many competitors.

To quote David Armano, writing about the changing nature of the Web,  “what we’re really craving is more humanity itself”.    The same thing holds true in the changing world of human resources.

From Drop Box

Image  source:  Critical Mass

And that is the formula for building a better HR brand, including the secret sauce:

1. Analyze your HR touchpoints using the model above
2. Focus on those you deem will yield the most value
3. Manage them diligently
4. Remember the human touch

Acknowledged by many, accomplished by few.  Go do it , and make your business better!

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Free: The Future of Business

This is an old video featuring Chris Anderson of Wired talking about the idea of “Free”. His idea was so compelling that he wrote a book about it this year. He also gave it away for free when he first released it. In the video, he mentions numerous business models who give away a lot of their content or product for free. They subsidize this by selling advertising, or offering additional paid services, or any number of other revenue generating sources.

Free HR Community:  the Future of SHRM?

Here is a suggestion for SHRM that takes advantage of this proven and successful business model for digital content.

Open the walls on SHRM Connect!

Let anyone with proper career credentials in the HR field have a FREE basic user account in SHRM Connect.

Why?

1. It would create free access to SHRM that doesn’t exist today.
2. It would enhance the value of SHRM Connect, which is lukewarm right now by creating a true open social network for HR professionals.
3. It would create a safe zone for HR people who don’t want to do Facebook to dabble in social media, which is something many in the profession seem to need.
4. It would provide exposure to the members of SHRM.
5. It would offer SHRM the opportunity to offer premium member services such as research or the job board in different ways.
6. It would increase membership over time
7. It would force SHRM to think within a different paradigm.

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Think your plan through

This morning I heard an advertisement on WDAE 620 am in Tampa.  It is a major sports talk station here in central Florida, and generates a lot of revenue for Clear Channel.   The sound spot I heard was for a local restaurant chain.  In the ad, one of the hosts of  the radio show explained how to get to a web site to make reservations for your holiday event.   It went something like this:

“Go to the web site. Click on the menu and it will take you to the reservation page.   Click on group events and then fill out the form and we will get back to you in a couple of days!”

This set of instructions struck as being way too complex for a radio host to be giving in a drive time radio show.   The restaurant should have invested a few bucks for a radio button that they could place on their main page.  The customers could click on the big button with the holiday colors and click right through to the appropriate page.   And the radio host could have said: 

“Just go to our web site and click on the big holiday themed radio button for reservations!”

Keep Your Messages Simple

Applying a little thought to this process in advance would have:

1. given the message in the ad a cleaner delivery.
2. made the message in the ad comprehensible, since listeners would only have to remember the web address, not a complex series of instructions that they can’t write down while driving.
3. delivered better overall results and maximized the ROI.

These same lessons apply to recruiting and career web sites.  I’m just sayin…

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