Employer-Consumer Brand Connection: Insights from Gui Neves and Elle LeBourg

Hello and welcome to the Hiring Excellence podcast. This week's episode was originally broadcast during our recent Social Talent Live event when I chatted with Guy Neves, global talent acquisition, sourcing and solutions manager at Nestle, and Elle Laborg, global head of talent acquisition at Hilti Group, all about the connection between employer and consumer brand. If you missed this free event when it was broadcast live, be sure to sign up for the next one over on socialtalent.com live. Enjoy the show. What we'll move into our final panel now where I'm really, really excited to welcome Guy Neves and El Laborg to the screen to dive straight into our discussion about the connection between employer and consumer brand. So you're very welcome, Elle, and you're very welcome, Guy to our final panel. So maybe, Elle, if I start with you, would you maybe introduce yourself and introduce Hilti to our audience if they're not familiar with the power tool business and maybe secondly, if you can share your opinion and experience on that connection between employer and consumer brand.

Yeah, absolutely. My pleasure. So I work at Hilti Group, which, you know, I was unaware of their existence too until I started working here, which is actually part of our issue with candidate experience sometimes. But we exist to make construction better. There's not a human being on this planet that this industry doesn't touch. Everybody drives on a road, hopefully lives in a home. So it's relevant to everybody. And the way that we see candidate experience connecting to the customer experience is that they're one and the same. We maintain a very premium product that is high touch. We have a one to one direct sales model and with that comes like very targeted support to our customers. And we want to make sure that our candidates feel that from us because that's ultimately what they're going to need to provide to the customer. So while you know, we are always striving for improvement, we want to leave our candidates just better than how they started interacting with us. Wherever that looks like in the process.

Guy, hopefully most of our audience know Nestle, but some might know your brands more than the product. Same to you. Could you maybe introduce Nestle your role and your view on that connection between consumer and employer brand?

Yeah, of course. Thank you. Thanks Johnny for having me here. Hi El. Hi everybody. Again, I was working at nestle for almost 20 years now. I guess you all know Nestle. We started back in 1866 producing milk products especially for children. And nowadays I would say it's the largest food, not only food, I would say, but fast moving consumer goods. Organization and Nestle. I'm responsible for global talent acquisition, strategy for sourcing and solutions. And yeah, so like El said, I think the brand is essential point of connection between our candidates and the company. The interesting facts for big companies with so many different brands is how we do that link as Nestle, of course, we have our purpose and values and each of our brands target a different audience with different ways of communicating. So this is one of the challenges that not only Nestle, but many other companies face. But I think there's a merit and there is probably lots of benefits in making those connections because the consumers have a lot of connection, emotional connection with the brand, brand itself. So leveraging that connection and then emotional attachment that they have is for sure very important.

Al, I'm going to go back to you maybe to ask you about, you know, what have you seen in your time at Hilti that has really helped drive that kind of experience in the right direction? What initiatives have your team experimented with and have you seen that really matter? Maybe you might have some similar to our first panel or to what Tom shared, but what's working for Hilti? What's working for you at the moment?

Yeah, lots of different things. And it really depends on the market that we're in because, you know, we, we clearly don't have the brand recognition that a Nestle does. You know, and even, even the smaller brand umbrella is underneath that company. So for us, you know, we have regions that have strong brand awareness and somewhere it's just not at all or it's certain products only, not the flashier power tools that we have, the stuff you can't see when you're making a building. And so for us, the first thing was just breaking those strategies apart because it's definitely not a one size fits all. And from a global perspective, you would love to have a one size fits all. But instead you're dealing with 12 separate markets, very different starting points and different. They need all different outcomes. So the first thing was just understanding the differences within the market of the brand itself. And then our second piece was starting to think about the Personas that we're hiring and the experience that those candidates are expecting. But also that would be really surprising and delightful for them to remember us as an organization. And so we've done a lot of, or I should say starting to do a lot of deep research, Persona based, based on again, the type of market of brand awareness that we have and then devising a strategy that's going to speak to that particular person and that's It's a lot of legwork. Right. It's. It's better, it's easier, rather to throw something out there and hope that it sticks. And it speaks to everyone, but at the same time, you know, you're not really speaking to anyone specifically. So for our team, it's been playing with those segmented Personas and creating a strategy where it's really going to target that one specific candidate who thinks we're speaking to them. Right. And then that's where it hits home.

And you've mentioned before that in your business, a lot of the candidates, whilst they might not be a direct buyer of Hilti's products, because you're hiring from the industry that uses your products, they're referrers, they're people who would advocate for the products, might use it.

They're.

And so their opinion of the brand is super important. So. So when you think about Tom's point around the people, the people, the processes, the technology, you know, you know, Tom shared that in Accenture, it's very much the people seem to be what's driving the difference. They're less about the process, maybe the tech. Has that been your experience or do you have a different experience there?

No, 100%. I mean, it's. As soon as we can get somebody talking to a Hilti person, like, they get it, they fall in love with the company. I mean, that's all the time. Technology is a great enabler for that kind of conversation, but it will never replace the feeling that you can get by talking to somebody about the culture and their experience and, like, why they stuck around for 40 years. I mean, that's such a huge differentiator that we would really miss out on if we didn't create those connections.

Guy for Nestle, you know, you mentioned, obviously, the mission and it's there in the background, be a force for good. How have you been able to connect that mission with that, you know, effort to try and drive a better candid experience and maybe to give back to those candidates who, you know, I imagine your application volumes are similar, if not higher, than maybe what Tom discussed. And again, everyone is potentially a consumer of Nestle's products.

Yeah, I guess the challenge is similar to what else were mentioning before. While Nestle is so big, our presence is so different. And what people understand from Nestle in different countries and regions are also very different. So we partner with corporate communications. We created our. What will be kind of the global overarching purpose of our company as a brand or our employer value proposition. But then the really connection happens in the regions, in the locations itself as the brands and the context of the market is so different, so unique. But definitely there was a huge partnership that we built with corporate communications. To your point, Nestle at Nestle received more than 6 million applications a year, which is a lot to manage. And we also leverage a lot technology like Chatbot and AI for helping us organize interviews. And what we did was connecting all these EVP values and elements to every single point of contact with those candidates, especially those that are massive connection, like the Chatbot and career sites, the career site itself, our page on LinkedIn, so on and so forth. And then on the market level, they need to be equipped, also trained to deliver against what our EVP is promising. So they need to deliver that experience once they actually are in touch with the candidates. But only a very tiny fraction of that makes to final interview stage. Large majority of all those candidates unfortunately cannot be connected with us as a company just because of the number is so large. But we have to ensure that at least they can feel our Nestle values in all those connection points, in the way we communicate, engage in the way they are rejected. Even so that's how we've, yeah, we've landed so far.

And Guy, you know, you've begun to look at some different projects that can tap into what Tom talked about in terms of the peak end rule, that psychology around how you basically leave somebody with something that they don't expect after being rejected that I think aligns to the values. Well, in terms of education, maybe can you share a little more about, you know, your, your view on education and how that can be a differentiator in terms of experience?

I think it comes to also how, how are we creating expectations from the moment we start engaging with the candidates, giving a lot of clarity and very transparently what we are able and not able to promise and to achieve at the end of the process and something that we started doing in piloting in different locations that have been very positively received by the candidates is giving them something else. So beyond only providing the feedback to how they've performed during the interviews, we are also providing with specific training as content that we are giving them as something that we want them to remember from this process with Nestle to be extremely positive and they feel that they're learning and gaining experience from, for other career opportunities with Nestle or with anyone else. So this is something that we've been doing for almost a year now. Not everywhere, in just a few markets like in Brazil, and the feedback has been Just amazing.

I love that. Giving them something, perhaps they don't expect that is relevant to the application process and the career, the pain that they're feeling at the moment, which is wonderful. El, you've been leveraging talent communities to try and help drive our candid experience. Can you maybe chat to us a little bit about how they operate? You know, what the benefits of being some of the feedback you've had from candidates?

Yeah, I would say we're still pretty early in the journey, so, you know, we're. We're learning and figuring things out as we go. But we have found that, again, giving people more touch points, like quality touch points, not just junk quality, is going to get them to consider applying so much faster. Right. Again, very logical, very common sense. But it's the consistency of that that is really difficult because you have to put content out there. It has to be good. And then, you know, I think candidates might have some fatigue on, like, you know, here's this awesome thing our company is doing. What they really want is to hear from the people that work there, the leaders that they could potentially be working for. So getting your hiring managers involved in those types of activities are really critical. And, you know, you see better attendance when it's a topic that's like, hey, I'm this leader at a company that's very reputable, and I'm struggling with this challenge. Can we crowdsource some kind of solution or what's your experience? I mean, those things I would think would do very well with candidates because they just feel so authentic. And again, they get a taste for what it's like to work here. You know, being really collaborative, being interested in what people are. Are thinking about. You know, give us your ideas so we can make them come to life. But obviously not a requirement because they're not working here yet.

Leading with that human experience, leveraging the culture. And you mentioned, you know, once they have that conversation with a Hilti person, they're. They're hooked. But, you know, that culture works. You know, the engagement works. So it's getting them in there and then maintaining that over time. One last question, just for you, Al, regarding the kind of measurement piece we've had Cheryl talk about measuring. Obviously, Kevin's organization helps organizations measure as well, and Tom talked about how they went back to the data. What's your perspective on measuring? What are you doing today and how are you looking to evolve that in terms of trying to measure candidate experience, roi, all those things?

Yeah. Right now, I think we're kind of in the foundational point of that, which is a consistent global survey of measuring the candidate's experience at whatever point they finish. In our process, we would love to do the pulse checks along the way. We would love to expand that also to a hiring manager experience survey, a recruiter experience survey. I think there's a lot of information to be gathered in those things. And yeah, I mean just like, just like we, we put so much emphasis in serving again our customers. Like tell us your experience with us so we can go and fix it. Part of it is also closing the loop and that's the one thing that we haven't really cracked yet in an anonymous type survey of okay, you gave us this feedback. Now how can we show you that we did something with it? Because I think that's where there's a lot of meaning, you know, where even if you weren't chosen for the job, you could still re engage with the company if that feedback is handled in a really nice way.

I think that you look at behavioral psychology, it's one thing being able to share, but knowing it's been heard, which usually means that you have feedback which could be that we weren't able to implement your recommendation, but thank you for it or this is what we did three months later and thank you for giving us that feedback that has a huge, huge benefit for folks and drives that positive candid experience. One last question for you in terms of, you know, a lot of folks here who are very passionate about candid experience on this stlive here today. You know from your experience, what are the top maybe one or two drivers that you think matter when driving a global candidate experience? And I know there's challenges multi brand, multi, multi geography. But what has been the consistent thing you've seen through your career in Nestle that really matters to drive candid experience?

Let's say having consistency in the, in the. How we present ourselves as the, the employer of choice or the employer brand throughout all the different brands and the different locations. How we keep that consistency telling them a story that the candidates can understand and connect the dots. Oh so I've for instance I've accessed now the Nespresso webpage and then I see these amazing job opportunities here and apply and, and then how we explained the Nest. The Nespresso is actually part of Nestle family. So telling the candidates the story and how we are all connected with those different companies and brands with the same purpose and values I would say is the number one point for a candidate experience and engagement with us.

It goes to a point that Ian Perlman made in the chat a few minutes ago seems like common sense but being thoughtful about what you are promising as EVP matches what you were delivering on so you know promise something. Deliver upon us. Put that human experience here again. It's fascinating how consistently we come back to the same topics. They're not terribly complicated but they're not, they're not necessarily practiced by many employers. It is great to see both of you practicing these, living these day to day and driving that kind of experience. We're at time folks if you can believe it. Else guy, it's been so good having you join us for the final panel. Appreciate your insights and hopefully if folks have other questions they they can want to ask you that you're okay to folks reaching out to you on LinkedIn or other places or I know there's a couple of more questions in the chat if you do get a chance to jump in that'd be fantastic.

Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you.

Sam.