Monster.com article
Storytelling is the fundamental building block of communication. In a world where people are bombarded by choices, story is often the deciding factor in whom we decide to do business with. It turns out that storytelling is equally influential in recruiting — and whether the candidate decides to work for you — or another company. Smart organizations are leveraging the power of storytelling in their employer branding. Storytelling is also a great tool to turn employees into brand advocates.
Here are some great examples of how companies are using storytelling to court their constituents.
The Power of Employee Stories
On any given day, Marriott International has up to 10,000 job openings. As the hotel chain sifts through 2 million applications a year, it must find candidates who will maintain its reputation for customer service and who are genuinely passionate about hospitality.
After studying the behavior of job candidates across 15 countries, Marriott’s human resources leaders came up with the “Picture Yourself Here” program which leveraged existing employees’ stories to attract job candidates. Marriott HR vice president Kristy Godbold told me that two key findings came out of their research: first, job candidates glazed over wordy job descriptions on the Marriott website. Instead they were attracted to pictures and videos.
Second, job candidates, especially Millennials, were more likely to find Marriott an attractive place to work when those videos showed real employees sharing authentic stories of their experience at the hotel chain.
“Our employees are the people who deliver on the brand promise for our customer. It’s critical that we get this right,” says Godbold. Marriott is just one of many global brands that are leveraging the power of story to attract the best candidates. Today, job candidates are increasingly attracted to companies with a purpose. Stories are one of the best ways to share a company’s purpose.
Story and Employer Branding
How can leaders instill a sense of purpose among their employees? Quite simply, storytelling.
In a paper titled “An Integrative Review of Storytelling,” Australian professor Robert Gill makes the case that leaders who tell corporate stories strengthen employee engagement, which improves a company’s external reputation. Employees who internalize the company’s vision through stories are motivated to become “reputation champions.” According to Gill, “Stories enable staff to identify with the narrator on a personal level, and through their interpretation take a form of ownership over how the brand is represented.”
Communicating a Sense of Purpose
The fastest growing of the Big Four accounting firms – KPMG — discovered that storytelling is a powerful recruiting and retention strategy. KPMG conducted an internal study of thousands of managers and employees and found that “a workforce motivated by a strong sense of higher purpose is essential to engagement.” Storytelling was the secret to delivering that purpose. After creating a storytelling culture at KPMG, employee turnover plummeted, morale skyrocketed, profits soared and a higher caliber of job candidates came knocking on the door. KPMG’s stories revolve around the role that the accounting firm has had in shaping historic events, beginning with an agreement to provide $60 billion in life-saving resources to the allies in World War II.
In addition to shaping history, KPMG’s videos focus on stories from some of the 8,000 employees who are the first in their families to go to graduate from college. Survey results found that, “for them, the firm is more than a great place to work, it’s the gateway to the American Dream.”
Creating Culture Every Day
Southwest Airlines is yet another company that has turned storytelling into a competitive advantage, a legacy that began with co-founder Herb Kelleher.
Kelleher built one of the most profitable brands in the airline industry by creating a unique culture based on “an audacious commitment” that put employees first, customers second and shareholders third. Unlike most leaders who give lip service to the importance of company culture, Kelleher talked about it incessantly, sharing stories about employees who went the extra mile. As a storyteller, Kelleher understood that culture is not something that a committee brainstorms once and moves on. In fact, culture is a story that must be shared every day. Kelleher is no longer in charge of Southwest, but the storytelling culture lives on, through internal videos that highlight employees and passengers sharing stories about the company and how it’s made their lives better. Herb Kelleher said the core of the company’s success is the most difficult thing for a competitor to imitate. “They can buy all the physical things. The things you can’t buy are dedication, devotion, loyalty — the feeling that you are participating in a crusade,” Kelleher said.
Do your employees feel as though they are participating in a crusade? Do job candidates want to join your cause? In business as in life, great storytellers build great cultures — and great culture attracts and motivates great people.
Remember: storytelling is not something we do. Storytelling is who we are.