It’s About Time!
Recently, I had taken up a mission to come up with an attractive method to highlight the Company’s Employee Benefit Plan (EBP) – the target audience was to be both internal and external to the company. During the course of the mission, I was surprised by reactions when I shared benefits related information. I actually went in expecting to hear the standard response along the lines of ‘the-competitor-also-has-the-same-benefits’, but the reality was different. Benefits that didn’t sound great at first - actually ended up getting the audiences’ rapt attention. I did notice that benefits were previously highlighted keeping in mind the competitors. Now, here I was highlighting benefits keeping ONLY the target audience in mind. The benefits make sense only when they make a positive difference to YOUR audience. Competitors aren’t necessarily the only audience.
That’s a big change in paradigm and a tough one to implement. It’s a radical change in thinking and acceptance will take time.
I’ve repeatedly mentioned in my previous posts – Comparisons are a necessary evil. However, it's got a dark side to it. It can take your creativity to rock bottom levels, by aligning you to your competitor’s plans! Instead your focus should be on plans that take you and your company to the next level. It’s easier said than done. Agreed. The least you can do is to give it a positive try and the only way, will be forward.
HR isn’t just about preparing workflows, policies, processes, guidelines and every other document that may never see the light of day. It’s about making some noise about those very documents and getting the audience interested in using them. After all they are the end-users. Right? What use is a bunch of documents/systems that get either sent to the ‘Junk Folder’ or shot straight to the bin?
Think about that HRIS (Human Resource Information System) that was implemented to ease transactional activity, recruitment challenge that was met last quarter, employee relations having improved citing more transparency and credibility, customers (again both internal and external) noticing your improved services and experiencing that WOW factor – all these seem like part of your daily chores. Even if it is, it’s time to make some noise about these achievements.
Every product/service needs an endorsement, even if it’s the only one in the market with immense capabilities. Making some noise is essential to stay in business, to ensure that competitors sweat a lot more.
Go ahead, Make Some Noise!
