Gender Gap

Fast facts

How do men and women differ in their career goals?

Look at this week’s fast facts about Swedish students (source: Swedish Student Survey 2012).

Students are asked to choose 3 career goals from a list of nine. Here are the biggest differences between the sexes:
• To be secure or stable in my job: selected by 47% of women versus 33% of men (14% difference).
• To have work/life balance: selected by 53% of women versus 39% of men (14% difference)
• To be a technical or functional expert: selected by 10% of women versus 23% of men (13% difference)

*Headline taken from John Gray’s Book: Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus

By Christopher Van Mossevelde, Editor of Employer Branding Today

Luis Gallardo - Global Brand, Marketing & Communications expert at ThapGroup (previously Managing Director of Global Brand & Marketing at Deloitte)

Meeting with Luis Gallardo, one of the speakers at the Universum Awards in Sweden, one couldn’t help but acknowledge the charisma and warmth of this man. Luis is the founder and CEO of ThapGroup, a consultancy that helps companies adopt the: Think Holistic Act Personal business philosophy. Previously, he was managing director of global brand and marketing at Deloitte and has a wealth of experience in the field. Luis held a session entitled “Build your Future Employer Brand” and the audience bought into the main idea: What does a brand stand for? What does it want to be known for? As he rightly pointed out, so many professionals in the field don’t know the answers to these questions and if they do, they might just be off track.

Our mission as branding professionals is to be focused on the bigger picture and always strive to get people aligned. Yet what’s more important is that it’s really about people relationships and how that builds the reputation of the company. As he rightly pointed out, Philip sells to Mathew an experience at Company X and it’s that, ultimately, which creates the brand.

A compelling story of why people matter

However, having a personal conversation with Luis, he told me a dramatic story about how the Deloitte office in Madrid burnt down. Watching it on the news, breathless with shock, his first concern was if everyone was safe. Families were contacted and fortunately nobody was injured – Deloitte’s people were out of harm’s way. Worried clients called from everywhere and were relieved to hear that Deloitte’s people were secure. Amazingly, the firm received an overwhelming amount of sympathy and solidarity, as clients offered to help in any way possible: by providing temporary office space, computers and other essentials – a competing firm even kindly lent their boardroom to Deloitte. Read the rest of this entry »

By Christopher Van Mossevelde, Editor of Employer Branding Today

Steve Fogarty, Recruitment Innovation & Strategy, adidas Group

Well-spoken, relaxed, genuine, and generally funny, Steve grabbed the audience’s attention at the Universum Awards in Sweden. Steve Fogarty, responsible for recruitment innovation and strategy at the adidas Group, presented: “Shaping the Future of Sport”. He began with a quiz: what three brands form part of the adidas Group, who founded the company and where are the headquarters located?

For the lucky winners in the audience, those who answered correctly, he threw across the amphitheatre, like a true American football player, free adidas giveaways – the session began with fantastic energy.

Presenting his session from an adidas Group perspective, Steve spoke about the importance of delivering a phenomenal candidate experience and explained the purpose of the group’s employer branding manifesto, a document that guides and gives purpose to their work. Having a one-on-one session later on with Steve, I picked his brain on how a company, which receives over 300,000 applications per year, works with community management – did they have a crisis management plan in place and how exactly did that work?

But first, let’s see what the adidas Group stands for. Read the rest of this entry »

Making the best out of your communication budget comes down to good planning.

First, one needs to decide on the amount of communication needed, taking into account how competitive the environment is and how sought after are the target groups you intend to recruit.

Second, one needs to decide how to allocate resources between channels, i.e. the communication mix, based on corporate goals and overcoming key challenges.

Third, one needs to evaluate and adjust current messaging to ensure that targets are being reached and that recruitment needs are and will be fulfilled to achieve the company’s business plan.

Read the rest of this entry »

For the 10th year in a row, IKEA is the first choice employer for Swedish business students in the Universum career study known as FöretagsBarometern. For the first time ever, IKEA also came in second place among civil engineers.

“Ikea’s top position is the result of its strategic and long-term efforts in employer branding”, explained Daniel Wägerth, EB specialist at Universum.

The results of FöretagsBarometern were released last Tuesday, during the Universum Awards–the prize ceremony to recognise and celebrate attractive employers.

Learn more – news in Swedish

The talk of the week shows that Gen Xers have three key advantages:

1. Experience (50%)
2. Emotional maturity (38%)
3. Confidence, entrepreneurial, motivated if given career development opportunities (31%)

Gen Xers have been defined:

“The generation born after that of the baby boomers (roughly from the early 1960s to mid 1970s)” and are typically perceived by Baby Boomers to be the “disaffected” and “directionless” generation.

Unlike their previous cohort, generation X has been judged discontent and disloyal, specifically towards government and authority. However, they do believe they can change the world and influence others via economic, media and consumer action.

Many things define this generation. To name a few, Gen X “was introduced to home computing, video games, cable television and the Internet.” They’ve alternatively been dubbed the MTV Generation.

When compared with previous age groups, Gen X represents the beginning of a more heterogeneous world, embracing diversity of race, class, religion, ethnicity, and sexual orientation, much more so than their older peers.

To conclude, Gen X is the important link between Baby Boomers and Gen Y. As the older cohort begins to retire, Gen X will run the show and will train the young to follow in their footsteps. Gen X will have a strong impact on how the world is shaped for the years to come.

Click on the infograph below to see the results of this week’s poll.

1. Wikipedia: Generation X http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_x

By Elisabet Welinder

Is social media for all businesses? Is it really for free and must all organizations be present? The myths about social media are many, and so are the questions on how to best integrate the channels with your communication.

Students’ use of communication channels

On February 22nd in Stockholm, Universum held a seminar about social media and HR ”Do you have to be on Facebook?” Universum´s Director of Nordic and Eastern Europe, Claes Peyron, started by welcoming the audience and presenting data on students use of communication channels when they look for information about potential employers. On average a student uses 6.6 communication channels, including everything from career magazines and recruitment brochures to social networks and live webinars with employers. The different channels have different purposes, depending on if you want to become more visible or get more applications.

Trends in social media and HR

Next speaker out was Universum´s Jacob Andelius, an employer branding consultant who has investigated how companies use social media. Jacob linked macro trends, such as globalization and women’s advancement, to social media and HR. One trend he pointed out is the importance of trust when you build your employer brand; to be successful you need media and candidates to trust your company. Overall, HR is becoming more strategic, measured and market-oriented, a development driven by new technology. In some age groups, almost half of the Swedish population surf on a mobile every day and Facebook has users of all ages.

Martin Dahlgren, CEO at Besedo, presented numbers on how big social media has become. If Facebook was a country it would be the third biggest in the world and over 500 000 comments are posted on the network every minute. He moved on by talking about the benefits of taking an active role in social media and how to listen, understand and act. Martin´s conclusion was that if social media is a threat or opportunity depends on your actions – don´t be passive!

Myths about social media

When Jacob was back on stage, he told us there are hundreds of social media sites today and it´s important you learn to know your target group and where they are. For some companies, recruiting on Facebook isn´t the right thing, but many can get a lot out of it. The myths about social media are many and not always true: social media isn´t enough – you often need more channels to reach your audience; social media isn´t safe – think of the BP scandal, etc. To clarify, social media is a new communication tool, but it doesn´t replace others, it just adds another one to the mix. Moreover, traditional media, as in print, is perceived to be more credible than the online chatter. Jacob ended the session with a discussion on how to build a social media strategy, emphasizing the importance of engagement.

Five social media tips:

1. Use your employees
2. Use all accessible channels
3. Use your recruiters and make them visible
4. Make someone form the marketing team responsible
5. Secure long-term support from the management team

Last week, we looked at Gen Y and the contributing factors they bring to the workforce. Today, we look at what Gen Xers have more of than the other generations. Poll closes on Friday, March 2nd, at 08:00 CET. Please take part in the conversation.

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Every generation looks at the other with critical eyes. We are all too familiar with the generation gap: the lack of communication between one and another, especially between the young and the old, due to differences of tastes, values, outlook, and different world experiences.

Gen Xers and Baby Boomers often criticize Gen Ys, dubbed the Peter Pan, Trophy, Boomerang generation and more. They’re seen as delaying adulthood and have a greater sense of entitlement, wanting to be praised, thanked and rewarded for everything good that they do.

True, generations differ by region, depending on social, economic and cultural factors. Yet, Gen Y has been defined by the revolutionary progress made in communications, media, and digital technologies. In most parts of the world, Gen Y has also had an upbringing influenced by neo-liberalism, both political and economic.

If we look at the positives and exclude the negatives, what does Gen Y bring more of to the table that Gen Xers and Babyboomers might not necessarily excel in?

From those that participated in the Universum talk, one in two people see that Gen Ys are extremely tech-savvy and this enables them to be extremely productive.

Being entitled the “Net Generation”, they’re enthusiastic users of social media, giving them a strong competitive advantage in networking potential and they also embrace globalization, being more culturally adept than any other previous generation (according to 35% of voters).

Lastly, but not least, being the social media generation, they’re also perceived as being more open, a given for young people nowadays that have no qualms about publicly exposing themselves.

Gen Ys top three competitive strengths in the workforce are:

1. Productivity due to being tech-savvy
2. Networking potential & global mindedness
3. Openness

Click on infograph to see the results of this week’s poll.

Gen Ys benefits brought to workforce

By Neville Henderson, principal consultant at Pasfield Curran

Article was first published in HRZone.

As uncertainty over the Eurozone crisis continues to dampen confidence and fears of a double-dip recession continue to loom, it appears that UK organisations will need to keep on tightening their belts for some time to come.

And as downsizing strategies go, few measures ever seem to receive the same amount of airtime and column inches as job cuts, which have become the very public face of the economic downturn.

The rationale for redundancies is easy to understand when the workforce can account for anything up to 90% of a business’ total fixed costs. But are employers simply taking the easy way out?

There is mounting evidence to suggest that significant efficiencies – amounting to millions of pounds in cost savings – can be achieved just by managing the workforce more effectively. Cutting headcount is not a cheap proposition and it is an agonizing process in any organisation. Worse still, losing important knowledge and skills can come back to haunt you in the longer term. Read the rest of this entry »