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Simply put, 60% of strategies are not successfully implemented in business. The irony to this figure is that strategy execution is often rated as the number one or number two challenging issue facing corporate business today.

Managers will generally define strategy execution as the “successful implementation of a strategic plan” or “working to see the strategy completed in an organization”. Either of these definitions is valid though they do not help in understanding what strategy execution is.

Execution speaks to a core set of processes that will affect a company’s people, strategy and operations. These three points were first promoted in business by Larry Bossidy (retired CEO) and Ram Charan (management consultant) as a discipline in exposing reality and act on it.

Strategy Execution, to take it one step further, is a system of implementing these processes to help organizations realize their planned goals. Robert Kaplan (Harvard Business School) and David Norton (Palladium Group) noted that Strategy Execution can be outlined in six stages for a business.

1. Develop the strategy

2. Plan the strategy

3. Align the organization

4. Plan operations

5. Monitor and learn

6. Test and adapt

The former strategy execution plan offered up by Bossidy and Charan was seen as too simplistic by many businesses. The Strategy execution sequence laid out by Kaplan and Norton gained a large following but due to the 26 sub-activities involved, it was seen by many businesses as too complex to manage.

While there is no perfect solution to completing strategy execution, a combination of the above models outlined has shown its best promise. The following steps below are the result of this combination.

Strategy Visualization

One of the key challenges to business is understanding what the strategy is. Illustrating the strategy is an effective way to explain the important elements of the strategy and how each relates to each other. Strategy Map by Kaplan and Norton is used as a good example of this.

Strategy Measurement

Easily understood performance measures are identified in the key elements of the visualized strategy. From here, you will have a dashboard, a balanced scorecard or other framework in place for the reader to determine whether there has been progress made toward completion or notify of a shortfall.

Strategy Progress Reporting

Treat strategy reports the same way as budget reporting. Schedule regular intervals to review with an eye toward results versus controlling performance.

Strategy Decision Making

No amount of planning will foresee every event as your execution is underway. In coordination with regular reporting, assessing the environment and making course corrections along the way as conditions change will still be required. Keeping the strategy current and corrections implemented will be based on decisions made by the reporting stakeholders.

Strategy Projects Identified

Given the fact that corporations have many projects running concurrently, it is critical to have these captured as part of the strategy plan as well as the focus on any individual strategy execution plans running in a line of business that may impact or be impacted by the execution of the larger execution delivery.

Strategy Projects Aligned

Once captured, these strategy projects must be aligned. Only the ones directly impacting the overall strategy should then be resourced and continued.

Managing Projects Strategy

Executing strategy effectively is the result of assigning or enlisting a project management central office or officer to control and coordinate responsibility to monitor and report progress on each.

Strategy Communication

Executing strategy properly only works well when it is communicated and understood from all levels of the organization. Leaders must communicate the visualized plan to their workforce and make time to answer questions so they may understand not just the ‘how’, but also the ‘why’ the strategy execution is being done.

Strategy to Align Individual Goals

It is critical for this stage to be completed. Senior leaders must ensure all employees can articulate their contribution and where their place is within the context of the Strategy Execution. If every employee understands their purpose and worth, their continued support for the change in business will grow long term.

Strategy of Rewarding Performance

In management, it is understood that what gets measured gets done. When looking at Strategy Execution, we can take this one step further to say that what gets measured and rewarded, gets done faster. Senior leaders must include and manage an institute of incentives with the goal to drive behaviors consistent with the strategy.

Summary

Strategy Execution is not an easily managed process and can be difficult to manage as a practice. While the above may not be a perfect solution for your business, it will serve as an excellent guide to base your company strategy execution plan on. The main impediment to seeing execution to completion is the fact that many leaders have little to no experience in how best to approach the concept of Strategy Execution.

When we think of ‘branding,’ odds are high, the first thing that comes to mind is something from the marketing dept.

Things like logos, company branded messaging, how a company is perceived to its customers even. This is where most of the budget goes in advertising, so it’s not uncommon to miss out on the value of employer branding.

Times have changed in the way companies recruit and retain employees, mostly due in large part to technology advancements, including social media and career review sites that make I easier for job candidates to find information.

Without a positive employer brand, your company will miss out on top applicants. This means potentially losing money and affecting other areas of the business.

First things first: employer branding explained

This is simply a company’s reputation, both as an employer and with the value that it brings and offers to their employees. It goes without saying that positive branding means great attraction from talented applicants and employees who wont leave. This is absolutely the secret sauce to the success and growth of any business.

Quite often, companies will focus on consumer-facing brand advertising. That’s how your company is perceived by customers and prospects.

Missing out of this picture is employer branding itself. It’s the business identity of your company. It’s what makes your business stand out and comes across as unique to candidates who are on the market for jobs. It’s what will improve your companies’ recruiting team’s ability to attract an awesome talent pool.

By not giving any space to employer branding, your company can quickly sabotage your teams hiring efforts, making the best talent a hard target to reach.

Why is strategy important to employer branding

The best way to explain why employer branding is important and why its strategy matters starts by using real world stats. Let’s take a look:

• 84 percent of job seekers say when making a decision on where to apply, a company’s reputation was number one on their mind.

• 90 percent of job candidates would only apply to an employer who has an actively maintained brand.

• 50 percent of job applicants say a company’s bad reputation would stop them from applying, even if it’s for a pay increase.

So why does this matter? Take a look below at why employer branding is valuable for companies to focus on.

The job pool of qualified candidates increases: With a solid reputation and a genuine interest in employee’s lives, your unique work culture will have no problem attracting top talent. Instead of spending vast amounts of time dedicated to sourcing candidates, your employer brand itself will afford you the opportunity to chill a bit and watch the applications pour in. In short; Selling is your push, Branding is your pull.

Saves money for your company: How can this be you ask? Well for starters, saving on promoting your open positions on various job sites. These can get pricy with no guarantee of success. When your employer brand is positive and proactive, a posting on your own company website or a social share is all you need. You can also save on salaries while still being fair. If your company has a bad rep, you can be sure to pay a bit more for top talent after you find someone. Even then, the salary alone may not be enough as the culture may make them leave after a while.

Social media perception matters: 25 percent of job seekers use social media as the preferred tool of use for job hunting and research. You should know that number is growing. Keep in mind that people trust family, close friends and colleagues over anything else posted online. If they are talking smack about their company brand or culture, those job hunters are going to see it.

Positive employer branding affects other aspects of the business

There is an inevitable trickle-down effect from the recruiting and talent acquisition part of the business.

Consumers want to work with and purchase from companies they know treat their employees fairly. All it takes is a bit of seeing consistent negativity online to make a customer think twice about doing business with your company. They would be thinking, “If this is how they treat their staff, then how I wonder how they treat their customers?”

Revenue and lead growth are impacted in this one example alone.

Establishing your employer brand strategy

Content for candidate personas

Just like marketing will create campaigns based on buyer personas, your team can build content to reflect candidate personas as well:

• Blog posts on company events, work culture, the hiring process and benefits of working there are all examples.

• Social media posts cannot be underrated. Internal work-life, employee highlights can be done using blogs written by employees, photos videos etc.

• Video testimonials go a long way when its authentic and your employees (new and former even) are sharing a positive experience.

Becoming proactive on career sites

Companies often forget about site like Glassdoor, which allows employees to be very candid in their appraisal their experiences and your company. This can raise the red flag if attention to your company brand is neglected.

Address the comments, both positive and negative. Don’t come off as defensive, address it head on politely and show your company is making strides on improving the experience. That alone will show you care.

Always encourage employee training and growth

If you want to keep your employees, one way is to ensure they have opportunities to learn and grow within their careers.

This could be anything from training sessions on new skills in the company to outside certifications etc. It is equally important to make sure not just your employees but also your candidates know about this.

Showing that as a company, you are willing to go the extra mile to see your employees grow, shows just how much you value your teams to anyone interested in working there.

Being active on social matters

Social media is huge in job hunting. Think LinkedIn and how huge this outlet is for a company o see if a potential candidate is a good fit; not to mention the reverse as well.

We talked about it above and can’t stress enough how important this one is. People talk, family talks, colleagues talk. Those closest to you will definitely have an opinion you care about and if it’s a negative one about a certain company, rest assured it will make an impact.

One way to build your employer brand with social recruiting, is to leverage employees as brand ambassadors. If your company is doing some great things, your current employees are more than willing to share those same things on their social media sites. Prospective candidates will take notice.

Final thoughts

You can’t control everything with your company brand 100 percent. However, you can control the narrative and ensure your employees and customers have a positive view of your company’s identity. It will not only benefit employee retention; it will also attract talented candidates and that positivity will spin off to other aspects of your company as well!

It’s not just wages that will decide your job candidate’s choice of employer. What you deliver for benefits or perks will be the biggest influencer in their decision to join or move on.

Getting their ‘buy-in’ depends on how you differentiate your benefits and perks from your competition. Apple does it well, so does Starbucks.

How do they do it? They’ve got good branding!

First things first: employer branding

This is your company’s reputation, both as an employer and with the value that it brings and offers to your employees. Positive branding means great attraction from talented applicants and employees who won’t leave. This is absolutely the secret sauce to the success and growth of any business.

Your brand is what people say it is

If you want to understand your benefits brand, you will need to know your employee’s perception of it. All the good and not so good feedback is needed. Whether they like it or don’t, whether it matches your vision or not, you need to know why and why not.

Depending on what company your run, you can get this information from a survey, or an online comments board. Nothing though beats open live discussions. Hold a few focus group meetings. Let your employees openly discuss their thoughts on your company benefits program. You will quickly discover how close or not so close you are.

The best brands convey their values

Use a strong mission statement to clarify exactly what your company is trying to accomplish for your employees. With a mission statement, you’re giving your benefits program direction and intent. This is what your employees will need to hold you accountable. Making it clear and concise and as a natural extension of the greater company values should be your goal.

It has to come from above

Getting buy-in absolutely has to happen from senior leadership. If you don’t already have this, you will need an evangelist in the C-suite.

The key to branding of your benefits is authenticity. Without executive buy-in, it wont work. Employees want to see and hear their leaders ‘talk the walk’, all on the same page before they will do the same.

Make it perfectly clear to your senior leadership or board, that this will define whether there will be stability or loss in your current talent pool. They will leave if they don’t believe you, plain and simple.

Consistent communication

All successful brands know the key to their continued success is consistency. The more consistent, the more recognizable your employer brand will become. This in turn creates greater engagement amongst your employees.

Consistency in communication means what you say, the tone it is said, the language used, images, logos, color and styling.

If you want their loyalty, ‘get them’

Understand what it is that your employees want. Make sure the plans you offer are communicated properly so your employees see that they are understood, and their concerns are met. Take advantage of new technology that personalizes their benefits experience. This could be through targeted campaigns, and new enrollment tools available.

Live it, breathe it

Employer brands must be lived. Your benefits pro must walk and talk the benefits brand wholeheartedly from start to finish. Their words and actions need to mirror your mission statement. The brand needs to be front and center (of course within reason) at all times as much as possible.

Special events, strategic meetings, employee engagement events are all good examples of open-air discussions of benefits.

Active branding never stops

Keeping a pulse of your employees needs or wishes for benefits is something that can be done over the course of a year. Surprises are less, inclusion is more, and your employees will be thankful knowing your company is actively listening.

In all of this, keep the branding fresh. When it appears that a focus-group is needed, hold one and pivot if changes need to be addressed in the future.

Final Thoughts

Communicating your benefits programs clearly, framed around what’s most important to your employees, with a clear ROI, will boost program participation and buy you employee recognition that you truly do care about them and are offering meaningful programs to support their lives.