Brenda Burch Dumont's Blog

Brilliant Bill Boorman from Britian

When Recruiting Pied Piper, Bill Boorman suggests you have a look at anything, smart people generally do.  When he tweeted me that British ad agency AndSome had created four ‘brilliant  (Brits like the word brilliant)  social recruiting campaigns for their clients, I checked them out.

Before going further, to simply call AndSome an ad agency, doesn’t really capture it, to say the least.  A view of just the main page of their website immediately illustrates they don’t see themselves as a big agency a la Madmen.  Here are the links and short overview to the four campaigns.  Three of the four are up for industry recognition, three of four use social media to recruit in really innovative ways, and all four are, well…. brilliant.  (Note, I’m sure AndSome has created many more than four campaigns for their clients! These are just the featured ones.)

How we put the social into recruiting…..Runners for ITV – a great campaign for UK TV station ITV.  Runners are the part-time retail sales associates of TV. The client wanted a more committed, wanting-to-progress type of  candidate to strengthen their internal organizational chart.  The multi-faceted campaign complete with competition was unique.  The numbers achieved here are astounding.

How we put the social into recruiting…..Engagement for Paul UK – Paul UK would be the Canadian equivalent of Cob’s Bread or a bakery version of Whole Foods.  The opening sentence in the blog is -

Employee engagement in retail can be seen as the Holy Grail. How do you involve and communicate to a workforce who aren’t sat at a desk and tied to a computer? The development of an internal communications based on the Rubik’s cube (and without social media) is a great read.

How we put the social into recruiting…..StoryLiners at ITV ITV produces Coronation Street and wanted to find story writers to appeal to a changing audience.  A whole new community was born that still exists after the selected candidates started their new job.  Really, talent hub building at its best.

How we put the social into recruiting…Poaching for Zizzi – How a Polaroid has greatly assisted a leading UK restaurant in their direct approach recruiting…or poaching.  (I used to call it mall crawling many decades ago)

Without a doubt not all retailers nor restaurants can afford full campaigns to strengthen their employment brand, internal communications or satisfy their recruiting needs. These campaigns illustrate, however, how engagement is changing the way we achieve results. Many thanks to Bill for the heads up and congratulations to AndSome and their shortlist inclusions for the RAD Awards. I hope you win!

For the few people reading this blog post who aren’t aware, every year the National Retail Federation, the United States’ largest retail association, holds their annual conference in New York in January.

They bill it as Retail’s Big Show, and it really is.  World Class speakers, a gigantic trade show, networking opportunities, the works.  This year was their 100th convention and over 20,000 retail professionals attended.  Yes, 20,000.

Every major retailer participates at some level and, of course, many retail consultants of all stripes attend.  Most of the senior executives attend. I have never attended and regret that and will try to rectify that in 2012.

For those of us unable to attend, however, we were treated to a steady stream of updates on various sessions, seminars, new introductions, etc.  Using blogs, Twitter, and LinkedIn either individuals or groups kept those of us back at home well informed.  Many bloggers came home and expanded on what they saw.

Or what they didn’t see.  I read two blog posts that disturbed me from two retail social media connections I admire and respect – Doug Stephens, The Retail Prophet and Carol Spieckerman, a retail genius from the merchandising side. This blog discusses Carol’s view, Doug’s is here .

Carol Spieckerman describes herself as a Retail Speaker, distiller, and activator and I’d say she is a must-follow for all things merchandising, particularly private label, trends, and retail channel challenges.  She tweets as @retailxpert (there is no ‘e’) and her blog for newmarketbuilders, The Right Brain of Retail is must-read for most in the retail vertical. She is considered an expert on Walmart and their strategies. Here’s her bio, she’s a cracker – Carol Spieckerman

Carol went to The Big NRF Show and her first apres-show blog is
here. Carol’s retail focus is not necessarily on the people but here was her observation of the lack of attention paid to what I am calling the Retail Employee Experience.  When you read the blog you’ll see that Carol noticed, like Doug in the previous blog, there was a real lack of seminars, conversations, presentations on the retail employee, whether it was engaging, retaining, recruiting, training, or sourcing him/him.

What she did notice, regarding head office turnover in the buyer category, was enlightening if not downright scary.  Does Target really move their merchants around every two years?  Here are Carol’s takeaways and some of my comments………

Takeaways:

• We’ve been telling our clients for a while that rapid turnover at retailer HQ isn’t a flaw in the system, it’s intentional and often institutionalized.  Really? Intentional? For Goodness sake, why? Every HR principle would go against this decision in terms of employee competence, retention, and development.
• Even if you believe all the grousing that retail isn’t a relationship business anymore, you have to accept that it is a reputation business – and the only way you can secure yours is by building contingency contacts and courting both decision-makers and influencers.
• You have to know your business and your brands inside out because the person across the table may or may not.  Maybe because he/she has only been there for a few months?
• Doors are spinning on both sides of the retail table. Again, why?Don’t let your story get “lost in transition.”

Retail has been slammed over the years for their high turnover largely referring to in-store hourly positions.  The turnover occurred as a result of Retail not being thought of as a Career (certainly in Canada), low wages, long hours, poor training leading to poor performance, non-standard hours, and poorly trained managers plus perhaps and probably – poor hiring practises.  All of those often added up to a poor Retail Employee Experience.  Hopefully some improvement has been made because the overall stratospheric rate of turnover in Retail in North America has been reducing over the years.

But, in a (hopefully) more stable Head Office working environment, why force turnover by constant re-assignment?  The reference in Carol’s blog to a ConAgra Senior Exec who has seen such turnover in his era there, that he joked that ‘If the boss calls, please get his name’ is just sad.

The only reason I can think of to move around Store Management or Buying personnel any sooner than 3-5 years is because its a white-hot category that demands brand-new views constantly or the Store Manager is an expert in new store openings.

We no longer live in a world where it is considered preferable or even beneficial to work for one employer in one job for the majority of a career.  In fact, not only aging baby boomers, but also Generation Y and Z loathe this approach.  But I believe something is wrong when you can’t even get a well-thought out program executed with a Head Office buyer because they have been re-assigned, fired or they quit.

Could anyone help me and my readers with why turnover is forced at these major retail Head Offices?  Target is coming to Canada and I hope they share their two-years-in-a-category position with the buyer candidates before they hire them.

My sincere thanks to Doug and Carol for sharing their observations at NRF’s Big Show.

For the few people reading this blog post who aren’t aware, every year the National Retail Federation, the United States’ largest retail association, holds their annual conference in New York in January.

They bill it as Retail’s Big Show, and it really is.  World Class speakers, a gigantic trade show, networking opportunities, the works.  This year was their 100th convention and over 20,000 retail professionals attended.  Yes, 20,000.

Every major retailer participates at some level and, of course, many retail consultants of all stripes attend.  Most of the senior executives attend. I have never attended and regret that and will try to rectify that in 2012.

For those of us unable to attend, however, we were treated to a steady stream of updates on various sessions, seminars, new introductions, etc.  Using blogs, Twitter, and LinkedIn either individuals or groups kept those of us back at home well informed.  Many bloggers came home and expanded on what they saw.

Or what they didn’t see.  I read two blog posts that disturbed me from two retail social media connections I admire and respect – Doug Stephens, The Retail Prophet and Carol Spieckerman, a retail genius from the merchandising side. This blog discussses Doug’s view, Carol’s comes next.

Readers of this blog know Doug Stephens The Retail Prophet Doug went to NRF’s Big Show and took a different approach to attending.  He attended some sessions but interviewed other attendees as well.  Read all about it here

Doug makes the point in one of his posts from NRF  ‘Our Greatest Assets’ as he refers to the NRF overall program that everything under the sun for the consumer was covered and lots and lots on the latest social and technological advances, but just about nothing about engaging, retaining, and developing retail employees.  Just about nothing.

“What was conspicuous by its absence however was any meaningful mention of the value or importance of the retail employee in actually delivering or supporting this experience.”

Doug interviewed Caitlin Kelly, the author of Malled – my unintentional year in Retail We can’t get the results of the interview until the book is released April 14th, but Caitlin will reveal what she sees as being the fatal flaws in the industry’s staffing paradigm.  And why companies so often refer to sales staff as their greatest assets but so rarely back it with action. I have already pre-ordered my copy.

From the time I worked in HR for the now-defunct Woodward’s Stores Limited in Western Canada in the ’90′s until today, there has ALWAYS been talk of the working experience in retail, particularly at the hourly level.  Some aspects of working in retail will not suit everyone.  If you work on a Merchandise Allocation crew then yes, you have to stock shelves all your shift.  BUT, does anyone ask if you have other aspirations?  Would they listen if you had a better way to do some of the stocking? Can other skills be learned a portion of a working week so that the move up could be more easily achieved?

It’s not an easy topic, and there are definitely retailers – large and small – who have worked hard to improve the working experience in retail.  But why, in a conference with 20,000 attendees, weren’t there more sessions and emphasis this crucial area???

Particularly in Canada, we talk a great deal about Retail as a Career.  The labour shortage is again beginning to return with a vengeance.  Why not more time spent on employee relations, retention, and training and development and a little less on ‘engaging’ immigrants?

How do you like me so far?  Seriously, its a very good thing that I’m going to an all day WordPress training course this weekend. Yesterday’s blog on Bill Boorman’s excellent list of HR Recruiting / Social Recruiting blogs to follow included a spelling error in the title, and not one, but two incorrect links.  My apologies, here is the blog post again with everything working properly.  Could I blame this on Blue Monday?  I’m sure the first thing they will tell us on the weekend is proofread about 10 times before hitting the ‘publish’ button.  My apologies…

More than anything, this blog might serve as yet another example of the outstanding value of social media in general.

Bill Boorman is one of those incomparable Brits who seem to have such a firm and enlightened handle on the evolution, progress, and future of using social media to recruit.  He is one of the founders of UnConferences (@radicalrecruit in Canada), TRULondon which is a huge recruiting conference in London, England featuring guest ‘team leaders’ from around the world – all world-class in their niche.

Bill Boorman’s blog is The Recruiting UnBlog and by checking his website you can learn all about Bill and his brilliance.  I strongly suggest you hook up to his RSS feed or have his blog sent to your email inbox when produced and you can follow Bill on Twitter – @BillBoorman

One of Bill’s recent blogs is a list of 100 recommended HR, Recruiting, and Social Recruiting blogs with explanations on what the blog emphasizes, who writes it, why follow, etc.  This must of taken him a great deal of time, yet its up on the internet for anyone to benefit from.  This is the sort of value of social media I am talking about in the first paragraph.

If you want to begin learning online through social media, following a few select blogs is an excellent way to start and this list (even though it doesn’t include my blog!) includes just about anyone who does a good job of covering the HR/Recruiting/Social Recruiting topics today.  Get ready, here’s the link:

100 HR/Recruiting and SocialRecruiting blogs