Views from the Top: Trendethnography
Interview with Ida Hult, CEO and Founder Trendethnography AB.
Ida Hult was a guest speaker at the Universum Awards 2010 in Sweden, held on March 17th.
By Joao Araujo
Ethnography and employer branding
How would you define Ethnography and how is it applicable in the corporate life?
Ethnography literary means “description of a people” and derives from the Greek word ethnos (people) and graphein (to write). Ethnography is both the method and the result for the ethnographer. It is about participant observation and taking the native’s point of view. That means living for a long time with your informants, the people you want to investigate and the culture you want to explore, and trying to blend in, finding out how they structure life and finding the difference in what people say and do.
It is relevant in corporate life in its applied form. Applied ethnography can help business in many ways – in product development by living with users, in marketing by living with consumers and in employer branding by living with employers or target group to find out drivers, motivations, dreams fears and so on.
How can ethnography help companies set their employer value proposition?
Ethnography helps the organization discover and explore the real culture within the organization. It finds the uniqueness and helps the company package those values into attractive messages that are rooted in the everyday life. There are lots of great organizations out there with fantastic people, teams and resources that don’t even know it or know how to reach out to new people with their own unique way of doing things. In the war for talent, the unique and true message is the best weapon.
How can ethnography help companies find their distinctive offer to their employees?
Go native in your organization and find out what the employers really do and believe in. Find out what motivates and frustrates them; what organization values, systems and processes are cherished or irritate. Find out what’s behind the scores in your latest quantitative measuring. You might be closer than you think. With ethnography you will find out how to fine-tune the offer or to change it to be real and true.
From an ethnographic perspective, what main factors should companies consider when communicating their employer brand?
It is a jungle of out there: a constant flow of messages, total transparency, and lots of demands. Make sure people notice you - differentiate! You have to stand out. Be personal, be passionate, and communicate true and actual values and visions. Think about how to involve employees and customers and partners within the process. Remember that employer branding is not about being the best in your industry. The competition within employer branding is not your commercial competition, the industry. It is rather everyone and every company, organization, city and state. The greatest threat for you, especially if you’re a larger company is how to create an environment that attracts and develops talent so well that they do not need to start their own companies but can evolve in yours. Get employer branding to be a top priority for both management, leadership and self-leadership. Provide tools for the employees to build their own brands and become solo-stars that sing your company values in chorus. Think about starting or taking part in an industry specific branding initiative and work on your own specific employer brand. The employer brand should not tell your whole story or all the information one might need to make a decision. The employer brand should make us curious enough to keep on finding out more about you. It should be the glue that holds all of what you do, say, who you are and where you’re going, together. Don’t overload. Find the simple beauty.
What work should be done internally to incorporate the employees' ethnographic characteristics into the company's Employer Brand?
It is your unique characteristic that is the strongest part of an employer brand. Do an ethnographic study of the employees and see where those results overlap or differ from the employer brand. Get ethnographic consulting help to work with the results and the strategy. If possible, arrange a series of workshops with the ethnographers, the management and an advisory board of several different people with different competencies. Make sure that employer branding strategy is nourished by the company’s overall strategy, as well as ready to adapt to both internal and external change.
Any final advice you would like to give any company that is starting their Employer Brand work?
Go native! By deep ethnographic insight you will avoid the most common mistake in employer branding – the fake but great EB. Remember that employer branding is not about who you wish you were but rather who you are. Fake but great employer branding work will attract talents but it won’t keep them. That’s employer branding backfiring on you and creating ill-willed ambassadors. Make sure you communicate who you really are and where you want to go. Think about the old journalism saying: show, don’t tell. Also, employer branding should not be used as a way of putting lipstick on a pig. If you want to have a great image, start with a great reality. Treat your talent well, your resources like they deserve and then start communicating in a new way. And I have a few additional tips for a great EB-process to package reality into super strategies and brands:
1. Start the process by mapping out the existing culture both the quantitative and qualitative aspects (preferably ethnographic).
2. Analyze. Let this phase be the main one. Make sure you prioritize findings and ideas.
3. Put together an advisory board for the process consisting of your quantitative and qualitative supplier, people from the industry, students, seniors, employers and management and work together with brainstorming.
4. Start implementing and evaluating, measuring certain parameters both before and after.
Good luck! See you out there!