My guest in this episode is Susan LaMotte, founder and CEO of exaqueo, an employer brand consulting firm and agency. Susan and I have known each other for over a decade, and I am excited to have her on this episode to talk about employer branding strategies and much more.

In this conversation, we talk about what employer branding really is, what it isn’t and why it’s so important for HR leaders to be the stewards of their employer brand. I love this conversation because Susan and I also talk about the importance of being human in the workplace and what that means beyond the buzzwords.

The Starr Conspiracy

Punk Rock HR is proudly underwritten by The Starr Conspiracy. The Starr Conspiracy is a B2B marketing agency for innovative brands creating the future of workplace solutions. For more information, head over to thestarrconspiracy.com.

What Is Employer Branding?

“Employer brand is the branding and marketing of the entirety of the employment experience,” Susan explains. “So, from the time someone is even aware your organization exists all the way through departure, either through internal mobility into another role in the organization or departure out of the organization.”

It’s pretty standard for people to confuse employer brand with candidate or employee experience — and there is a bit of overlap — but they are two very different terms. The term “employer brand” was first coined in the late 1990s, and people have been adapting it over the years to be what they want it to be, Susan notes.

Employer brand is about branding the entire experience, from every touchpoint employers have with an employee or candidate. This includes what you say to candidates, how you say those things and what channels you use to communicate. By contrast, candidate and employee experience are more about the journey.

“Employee experience and candidate experience is that experience you have along the way, so it really sits underneath. Employer brand is at the top,” she shares.

Similarly, some people use employer brand as a synonym for recruitment marketing, but they aren’t the same. The concepts are inexplicably linked, but they serve different purposes within and outside of organizations.

“Employer brand is branding and marketing the whole experience, and it’s the strategy of doing that. So employer brand is the umbrella, recruitment marketing is one thing under that umbrella,” Susan explains. “So is DEI marketing. So is employee experience. All of those things fall under the larger employer brand umbrella.”

Is Employer Branding HR or Marketing?

Employer branding sits at the intersection of marketing and HR, which often leads to debates about where it properly belongs in the organization.

“Employer brand as an industry, as a function, is about people and is about the people that are working in and for your organization,” Susan says. “And consumer brand is about the customer. So there’s a lot we can learn from consumer brand, but ultimately, employer brand has to sit within human resources.”

Susan argues that the employer brand is HR because, ultimately, the employer brand belongs to the brand’s chief people officer. “Your consumer brand or your master brand is a sibling to your employer brand. It’s not just how you talk about yourself. And it’s certainly not just recruiting,” she says.

So while there can be an overlap in employer brand and marketing, everything surrounding employer brand should fall under the leadership of human resources. Everything we do in HR is a touchpoint in the employee experience.

The Intersection of DEI and Employer Brand

The notion that your head of HR is also the steward and head of your employer brand is great for businesses seeking to drive diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

“When you are an employee in an organization, your experience is based on who you are, right?” she explains. “However you identify, ethnicity, gender, anything, sexual orientation — that defines your every relationship in your life, including your employment relationship.”

Click-to-Tweet: “Employer brand as an industry, as a function, is about people and is about the people that are working in and for your organization,” ~ @SusanLaMotte. Tune in to this episode of #PunkRockHR to learn more about the employer brand!

People in This Episode

Full Transcript

Laurie Ruettimann:

This episode of Punk Rock HR is sponsored by The Starr Conspiracy. The Starr Conspiracy is the B2B marketing agency for innovative brands creating the future of workplace solutions. For more information, head on over to thestarrconspiracy.com.

Hey, everybody, I’m Laurie Ruettimann. Welcome back to Punk Rock HR. My guest today is Susan LaMotte. She’s the founder and CEO of exaqueo, an employer brand consulting firm and agency. Susan and I have known one another for over a decade, and I’m excited to bring you this conversation today about what employer branding really is, and what it isn’t, and why it’s so important for human resources professionals and HR leadership teams to be the stewards of their employer brand. I also love this conversation because Susan and I talk about the importance of being human in the workplace and what it means beyond the buzzwords. So, if you’re interested in the world of human resources and how to communicate why it’s so absolutely great to work at your organization and how well you treat your workers, especially in this era of the Great Resignation, well, sit tight and enjoy this conversation with Susan LaMotte.

Hey, Susan, welcome to the podcast.

Susan LaMotte:

Hi, Laurie. Thanks for having me.

Laurie Ruettimann:

Oh my goodness, it’s my pleasure. Listen, you and I are buddies, we’re friends, we go way back, but for those who don’t know you and how wonderful you are, why don’t you tell everybody who you are and what you’re all about?

Susan LaMotte:

Sure. So I run exaqueo. We are an employer brand consulting firm. I have spent my almost 25-year career at the intersection of where business meets behavior. So I’m fascinated by people at work, how they work, but then also how we make money off of people that work.

Laurie Ruettimann:

Well, lots to unpack there. Listen, I want to know a little bit more about Susan when she’s not working because, for me, that’s where the rubber meets the road. What do you like when you’re not doing all this important work? What are some of your passions?

Susan LaMotte:

It’s funny you say that, Laurie, because we ask our clients, and in research, we ask this all the time, “Where do you get your energy from outside of work?” is the way we ask the question. And for me, it is from people. So first and foremost, my family. I’m a working mom, so that in and of itself during COVID should tell you something. There’s not a lot of time to focus on other things. I also get energy from my dad, who’s been fighting Alzheimer’s for seven years. And then energy from the people in my community, because so much of what you do at work is so connected to the people you work with. And that topic for me, it’s incredibly refreshing to connect with people who do things completely different from what I do or live completely different lives. That to me gives me a lot of energy. And I love bourbon, yoga, football, maybe not in that order.

Laurie Ruettimann:

Yeah, I know what ranks pretty high up in that list. We’ve had a couple of late nights out, so we’ll just leave it at that. Well, let’s get started talking a little bit about the work you do because you got your start in the world of human resources, and like so many really great, wonderful, talented women, you didn’t quite stay in that role. So tell us a little bit about your career journey.

Susan LaMotte:

I think with most people, my career journey is not defined by what I set out to do but by those stops along the way. I’ve had 32 jobs since I got my first W-2 when I was 13 or 14. And so, my journey started in traditional HR. I was a staffing manager. I was a recruiter. I worked at the now-defunct Arthur Andersen, so that was an interesting journey. I transitioned into HR consulting and then into being an HR consultant and contractor, working in career services as a career coach, and ultimately realized I just didn’t know enough about business. There was, I think, a real opportunity to say, “Hey, how can you see the value of HR if you don’t understand how capitalism works? If you don’t understand how business works?” And so I went and got my MBA and then went back into the corporate world. That’s where I really started digging into this intersection of all of this opportunity that HR has, as you think about recruiting, employee experience, candidate experience. So I spent some time with Marriott International and their portfolio of brands, and then ultimately started exaqueo about a decade ago.

Laurie Ruettimann:

Well, the journey from HR to entrepreneurship is never easy for anybody. Did you know that you were an entrepreneur back in the early days of working in human resources? Or is this something you discovered along the way?

Susan LaMotte:

There’s a really interesting, I think, intersection between independence and entrepreneurship. And so, I think people always think like, “Oh, I’ve always been an entrepreneur. I sold things.” But a lot of it has to do with how independent you are. I’m a middle child. I like to do everything myself, no one could ever help me. So for me, I think that’s where my path to entrepreneurship came from, because when Marriott offered me a promotion, an executive one at that, I turned it down because I didn’t think they could help me in the way that I wanted to. I didn’t think I would still have the independence I had when I was running employer brand because I owned something that no one else knew anything about. And that’s, I think, what’s interesting and sexy about it, right?

Laurie Ruettimann:

Well, I love that you just use the word employer brand, because for me, when I think about you, if I did the old-school Wordle, one of the words that would come up and come up big would be employer brand. So can you tell us what that word is and what it means?

Susan LaMotte:

Sure. So employer brand is the branding and marketing of the entirety of the employment experience. So, from the time someone is even aware your organization exists all the way through departure, either through internal mobility into another role in the organization or departure out of the organization.

Laurie Ruettimann:

So employer brand, a lot of people might confuse it with employee experience, but I think there’s an overlap there that’s natural, but the two are different, correct?

Susan LaMotte:

They are. There’s so much confusion in our space. Employer brand as a term was only coined in the late ’90s. And so, I think there’s a lot of professionals that have been adapting it over the years to be what they want it to be. The difference is that employer brand is branding that whole experience, so every single touch point you have with an employee or a candidate, how and what do you say to them, both verbally and non-verbally and in what channels. Employee experience and candidate experience is that experience you have along the way, so it really sits underneath.

Employer brand’s at the top. It’s like if you look at the marketing organization, the CMO owns and stewards the brand. If you look in the HR organization, that’s what the chief people officer should do, is own and steward the brand. You and I both know HR’s structured very differently, but that’s what it should be. And then the experience, like the customer experience, should follow at the very bottom of that funnel. That’s the output.

Laurie Ruettimann:

Well, before we talk about that funnel in human resources, let’s talk about the overlap with marketing, because a lot of people believe that recruiting should report into marketing, and some even say that the marketing and management of people should somehow fall under the marketing department. So where does employer brand and consumer brand touch, and where do they differ?

Susan LaMotte:

Employer brand as an industry, as a function, is about people and is about the people that are working in and for your organization. And consumer brand is about the customer. So there’s a lot we can learn from consumer brand, but ultimately, employer brand has to sit within human resources. I would argue that employer brand is human resources, that your chief people officer should be your chief employer brand officer, because that’s ultimately what they’re doing.

Now, that being said, your consumer brand or your master brand is a sibling to your employer brand. They have to be part and parcel. They have to work together. It’s not just your reputation. It’s not just how you talk about yourself. And it’s certainly not just recruiting. For me, the perfect place for employer brand is the leadership of human resources. Everything we do in HR should fall under that, because everything we do in human resources is a touch point along that candidate or employee experience. But very few organizations think that way. It took me five years to convince Marriott that internal communications belonged under employer brand. And after I left, they finally made the change. I think they’ve seen the results because they realized that’s what internal communications is. So there’s real value to thinking about it that way.

Laurie Ruettimann:

Well, I love this notion that your head of human resources is also your steward and head of your employer brand. Can you give me an example about how an initiative or something really important, like diversity and inclusion, relates to employer branding?

Susan LaMotte:

When you are an employee in an organization, your experience is based on who you are, right? It’s whether however you identify, ethnicity, gender, anything, sexual orientation — that defines your every relationship in your life, including your employment relationship. So that is part of your employee experience. And so, ultimately, let’s say, I identify as a Caucasian woman, I’m going through an employment experience as a Caucasian woman. So every time the organization talks to me in any way, shape or form, I’m receiving that as a Caucasian woman. Take, for example, the email that was leaked that introduced the new Peloton CEO. That email referenced two white male instructors, and it referenced all the founders of Peloton, all of whom were men, not a single woman. So if I identify as a woman, or even nonbinary, and I’m reading that email and I’m an employee at Peloton, one of the lucky ones who wasn’t laid off, I’m immediately feeling, “Gosh, here’s a white male CEO, he hasn’t referenced a single female in this email.” That’s employer brand. Some people would say it’s corporate comms, some people would say it’s marketing, some people would say, “Oh, it’s the CEO, he wanted to write that email himself.” All of those things are true, but it’s still employer brand.

Laurie Ruettimann:

Do you sometimes feel like Sisyphus rolling a boulder up a hill when you talk about employer brand? Because I think people get it but yet they’re like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, but employer brand is part and parcel of these other things that we do.” It’s not primary language, it’s secondary language.

Susan LaMotte:

I think for two reasons. The challenge one, because employer brand has been linked so closely with recruitment marketing. And everyone uses them as interchangeable terms, and they’re not. So recruitment marketing is, you’re selling jobs. You’re doing the act of marketing, activation, content. You are selling a job. You are branding and marketing a job and the attraction of talent to that job. Employer brand is branding and marketing the whole experience, and it’s the strategy of doing that. So employer brand is the umbrella, recruitment marketing is one thing under that umbrella. So is DEI marketing. So is employee experience. All of those things fall under the larger employer brand umbrella.

Laurie Ruettimann:

So the first challenge as you’re rolling that boulder up the hill is the co-mingling of employer brand and recruitment marketing. What are some of your other challenges?

Susan LaMotte:

I think another big challenge is that there are no industry standards. And so, you’ve got a burgeoning industry that all of a sudden is needed like it’s never been needed before. And you have a lot of voices, many of whom have a different definition of what employer brand is. Many of whom believe that employer brand is just for recruitment or talent acquisition, many who see employer brand — especially some of the newer professionals that just started doing employer brand — as really about activation, really about content marketing, sharing stories and getting the content out there in order to attract the volume. And that’s probably the final challenge is: You’ve got a number of organizations, particularly Fortune 500 companies, who are trying to solve a problem. That problem is butts in seats, right? And because they’re trying to solve that problem, they’re looking at employer brand as a way to solve that problem — not for what it really is, which is our people strategy.

Laurie Ruettimann:

We’ve talked about some of the challenges with employer brand. Can you give us a case study or two of organizations that are doing it and doing it right? Who do you admire? Who do you work with? Who do you want us to know about? Who’s a shining example of what employer branding could be?

Susan LaMotte:

I’ll give you two examples. The first is GDIT, or General Dynamics Information Technology. We share that example often, they’re a client of ours. The reason we share it is really interesting, not because they’re the sexiest brand that exists, but because they were in a market — government contracting, multi-billion-dollar company. All of the government contractors look and feel the same. And if you work for government contractor, or any contractor, right, oftentimes, your relationship is more with the agency you work for than with your employer.

What GDIT did really well is when they went to rebrand their master brand, the CMO and the employer brand leader saw the value of doing the employer brand at the same time so that they could launch together, so that when they created a new brand for the organization, they were not just talking to customers, they were also talking to candidates and employees. And that unification, that timing was really powerful.

They also really believed in the research. And so they invested a lot in truly understanding what was different about them as a government contractor, and then being willing to own was authentic, and that’s the hardest thing. Get a bunch of CEOs in — or a bunch of executives — in a boardroom, they all want to make the employer brand sound the same. “Opportunity for growth. We’re diverse.” And then before you know it, they all sound the same.

GDIT was willing to truly own what made them different, which was this idea of initiative. So their employer brand is opportunity-owned. And they’re selling the fact that, unlike traditional consulting where there’s seven levels, you know what you need to do to climb each level and it’s super-simple, at GDIT, you have to own your opportunity. So from the get-go, talent will self-select out because they’re not that initiative-driven, and they’ll find another government contractor to work for.

Laurie Ruettimann:

Well, I love that example, and I love that you brought up this idea of research. Because I think so many people don’t understand that when you’re coming up with a consumer brand or an employer brand, there’s a tremendous amount of research out there. It’s not just going and looking at your competitors. I mean, to me, the environmental landscape might be the easiest thing to do. Some of the hardest work that I know you must do is talking to existing employees or candidates who have self-selected out and having honest conversations about the brand experience. So can you talk to me a little bit about the research you do?

Susan LaMotte:

The research is such an important part, and I love that you use the term “honest conversations,” because this is where we have a lot to learn from marketing. In HR, the data we typically collect from our employees is the time from when they walk in the door to the time they leave. We don’t get to know them as humans, who they are, where they spend their time, what matters to them, who the influences are in their lives, what kind of relationships do they have that influence their decision to take or keep a job. So when we do our research, the idea is that you need to do it more often. You need to do it focused on the employee. Engagement surveys are about us as employers, right? Are you engaged in my work? So it can’t be ego-driven, and you have to do it on a regular basis, just like we do in market research. Every consumer products company collects market research data every day. Engagement surveys on the employment side, we do them once a year.

Laurie Ruettimann:

I think part of the challenge with employee research is that you don’t want to bother and ping the employee too much because they’re busy working. Do you have recommendations to any listeners out there if they want to get to know their workforce and start to do this research? How do they talk to them? When do they talk to them? And do they do it, or do they find an expert like you?

Susan LaMotte:

Finding an expert is hard because it costs money. If you talk to your marketing teams, go ask them how much they spend on market research. It’ll be a really scary number that it may be your entire budget, let alone enough budget to do this work. If you’re doing it on your own, the two pieces of advice I always share. One is, do it in a really unbiased way. Don’t go to the organization and say, “Oh, Laurie, she loves to talk. Let’s bring her in a room and see what she says.” At least hire an unbiased facilitator to facilitate the conversations, even if you’re doing the rest of it yourself.

The second piece is to do it frequently and to tell employees why you’re doing it frequently. We always assume employees don’t want to be bothered, but the reality is when we do our research, 99% of the time employees say to us, “No one’s ever cared enough about us to ask us these questions.” So part of it is the frame. It’s just like academicians do, it’s how they frame up the study. Why are we doing this? What are we going to be focused on here? And ultimately, what will happen with the data? It’s all about how you structure the conversation.

And then it’s also about the tools and mediums you use too. I think every HR professional thinks, “Oh, focus groups are easy. We’re just going to ask some questions about how you work, why you work, and we’ll get everybody in a room, and we’ll ask these questions and see how it goes.” But the reality is, data collection is a practice. It is an industry. It requires years of experience to be able to facilitate correctly, structure discussion guides and questions that’s right, and that’s not something that just everybody can do. So if you can invest in it, it’s really powerful.

Laurie Ruettimann:

Well, Susan, you mentioned that you had two examples of companies that are doing employer branding right. What’s the second?

Susan LaMotte:

The second example is Baxter. Baxter is a health care company out of Chicago. Their employer brand leader, Allison Kruse, has done a really wonderful job with consistency. And I say that because oftentimes with employer brands, we do lean heavy on content, but it’s just on getting content out there without a strategy. Allison’s been doing this long enough to know that you’ve got to have a strategy behind it, then your content activation will land because it’s a consistent message over and over and over again.

So if you go search the #ThisIsWhere on LinkedIn, you will see the Baxter employer brand campaign, “This Is Where,” over and over and over again. And that’s the value of it, because most organizations have never done an employer brand before. So they need some sort of anchor to anchor their content. Now, if you unpack “This Is Where,” it’s not just a great line or a great way to organize content, there is thousands, tens of thousands of data points behind how they got to that and the actual strategy behind it. That’s where most organizations fail, is they don’t put that thought leadership that Allison and her team did in order to build the employer brand.

Laurie Ruettimann:

One of the themes that keeps coming up, Susan, is a theme around the human at work. It’s so important, right, that we focus on the human. This is something you and I have been talking about. This is something that you’ve brought up several times. Can you talk to me a little bit about what that means beyond the buzzwords? Because right now everybody is trying to get human and get radically human, but I think you have some particularly unique insights on what that really means.

Susan LaMotte:

When we think about work, we think about it as a transaction, we always have, right? It’s you’re getting money to do a job. When we treat it that way, it takes away the value that work can actually bring. Not suggesting people spend their whole lives working, but when we humanize the employment relationship, it just means thinking about the fact that you’re not in a transaction. You’re not buying something here, you’re not trading something, you are entering into a relationship with another group of human beings. And so, the idea is — and we’ve spent the past five, seven years focused on relationship theory — so if you look at relationships, romantic relationships, collegial relationships, your friends, family, they’re all based on centering the strength of the relationship around common goals. You know, what is important to us together, but also in getting through those hard times.

And so, in relationship theory, they call them strong-pair bonds, right? So that’s what underscores a successful marriage, is a strong-pair bond. Think about that with employment. If we think about it as a transaction, right now everybody’s throwing money at candidates, right, to get them to come. We just think about it as a transaction. We don’t think about what’s actually going to bond this human to the workplace and to the other humans that they’re now in relationships with. And a transaction, the money is just not going to do it.

Laurie Ruettimann:

Well, I wonder how you keep things radically human at your organization. You’re not only doing this work for others, but you’re constantly working on relationships within exaqueo. So how do you keep it human? How do you get people to really buy in to your brand and what you’re offering day in, day out?

Susan LaMotte:

I think that comes from the inside out. I think part of it is recognizing that we are all human beings, and it’s creating a workplace that allows for humans to be humans. Now, we have a lot of working parents at exaqueo, so it starts there, offering flexible schedules, trusting people to get work done, giving them the grace when they need it, but also making clear that, when they have the time and energy to lean in, to help other colleagues that might need that grace. So we’ve been virtual for a decade, since the day we started. Originally, it was a business decision because there wasn’t a lot of employer brand talent because the industry was still burgeoning, and so I knew there would be no one city that I could start the firm and find the talent we needed. As we’ve evolved over time and as all of our team members have had more and more kids, have had familial challenges, or just pursuing passions outside work, we’ve realized the importance of that kind of flexibility. That’s not just schedule, but it’s actually human flexibility. The sort of intuition to say, “I can tell Laurie’s going through a really rough time right now, let me lean in and help her.”

The other thing we do is as we’re hiring people, and we’re in the midst of doing that right now, we have something partway through our hiring journey called the experience conversation. And what that is, we turn the tables. And so, if you were a candidate, we would say to you, “The next interview, if you will, or the next time we talk, that conversation is yours to lead.” And we share with them the four relationship dimensions we use in employer brand, which are the organization, the leaders, the co-workers and your work. We say, “Come prepared to that conversation. Ask us anything about those four topics because that’s how you’re going to really dig in and understand what the human relationship is going to be like.”

What’s my relationship going to be like with this organization? What about my leaders, what are they like? What are the things they do that are annoying so I can decide if I can deal with that. Same with my co-workers, who are they as people. And then the work itself. So that conversation’s really valuable because it puts the human at the center because they’re trying to make a decision, too. And so it allows them this platform to say, “Hey, we’re open, we’re vulnerable. We’re authentic. This is not a show. Ask away.”

Laurie Ruettimann:

Well, as we wrap up the conversation, I wonder if there are things you’d like to leave our audience with regarding whether it’s employer branding or working women during COVID. What are some of the things that are on your mind that you want to make sure that you convey at this moment?

Susan LaMotte:

I think there are so many trends happening in relationships that we need to pay attention to. And so, if you step back and you look at your own life, you look at the relationships that are strong, the relationships that are maybe not so strong, it gives you an opportunity to compare that to work. Ask yourself, “Why is this relationship in my life so strong? What is it about my husband, my wife, my partner, my spouse, my best friend, my parents — what is it about that human that makes this relationship strong?” And then apply that to work.

One of the really interesting trends coming out of relationship theory is that, in the past couple of years in relationships, people have decided that they want more sexual partners than just one. So monogamy is starting to fade. And part of that is, if you take out the core principles of evolutionary psychology, it’s this desire to have multiple opportunities. And so, when you look at that, and you compare what’s happening in the gig economy, there is a direct parallel. For me in HR, instead of spending time on the latest cool piece of tech that’s going to allow us to get more people into our pipeline. Gosh, stop for a second and look around you at what’s happening. Your best relationships are the people who stuck by you during the worst times in your life.

So if you circle it back to HR, and I just keep people for pay, and I think I’m going to attract and retain more talent by giving them more money, forget about it. Because guess what’s going to happen: The economy’s going to tank again at some point. We’re going to have to stabilize salaries, and people are going to remember that. They will say, “You promised me this, and now you’re taking it away.” Imagine a romantic relationship that behaved in that way; it would never last. So that’s what’s exciting to me.

Laurie Ruettimann:

Oh my God, Susan, I could talk about this stuff all day long. I’m so honored that you came on the podcast today. It’s been a long time coming. And if people want to learn more about you and what you do for a living, where can they find you?

Susan LaMotte:

They can find us at exaqueo.com, E-X-A-Q-U-E-O.

Laurie Ruettimann:

Well, Susan, thanks again for being a guest on Punk Rock HR.

Susan LaMotte:

Thanks for having me, Laurie.

Laurie Ruettimann:

Hey, everybody. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Punk Rock HR. We are proudly underwritten by The Starr Conspiracy. The Starr Conspiracy is the B2B marketing agency for innovative brands creating the future of workplace solutions. For more information, head on over to thestarconspiracy.com. Punk Rock HR is pretty and edited by Rep Cap, with special help from Michael Thibodeaux and Devon McGrath. For more information, show notes, links, and resources, head on over to punkrockhr.com. Now, that’s all for today, and I hope you enjoyed it. We’ll see you next time on Punk Rock HR.

Categories: Podcast, Punk Rock HR