BOBST had built a great employer brand framework. More than 50 messages, four themes, one clear vision. The challenge was how to make sure brand ambassadors knew how to use it.
BOBST has an exceptional internal culture. People stay for decades. Apprentices can move all the way up to executive committee members. Employees' loyalty is real, and so is the pride. But from the outside, the image of an old-schoo, traditional company, very different from the actual employee experience. To fix this, BOBST's HR and Communication jointly commissioned an agency to built a strong framework: an Employer Value Proposition (EVP) with more than fifty messages, organized into four themes, anchored by a vision.
The work upstream was excellent, the corporate branding and assets were brillant, and all the messages were real, backed by field observation. Nonetheless, this Messaging House was dense and daunting for untrained eyes. My role was to help brand ambassadors navigate it, and leverage it to craft compelling messages, adapted to their specific situation and context.
The challenge with a fifty-message framework is that, if do not give people a method to select and refine them, they default to two extremes. Some try to say everything. Some say nothing. Neither works. relying solely on content built centrally was not viable either:Aa recruiter in Chin, an internal comms lead in Italy, a line manager in France, and an executive in Switzerlanda do notneedht the samthingbuild the training at three levels at once, in two languages, and at scale.
An in-person session for top and executive management. The framework, the strategic logic, the communication approach. It also doubled as the visible signal from the top: this matters.
Two in-person workshops and two online sessions for HR and comms specialists. A simplified persona tool. A method to select and sequence points from the messaging house based on the audience and chosen takeaway.
Selected specialists were trained to deliver the line manager and new hire version themselves. One on-site session plus one online session. The point: the rollout had to continue across regions without me in the room.
Two modules from scratch on Articulate 360. A 15-minute module mandatory for every new hire, integrated into the onboarding platform. A 45-minute self-paced module for line managers, covering the framework and how to use it.
To make the messaging house and the method feel tangible, we created a set of physical artifacts, including a card deck of every message so people could touch them, move them, and build with them; persona templates; and canvases to be filled with the cards when crafting messages.
“Outstanding quality. Much better than anything we had until now.”
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12 to 25 future executives per edition, drawn from 6 countries. Renewed for a second year.
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200+ high-potentials trained across 5 editions and 5 international locations. The executive committee calls it 'magical.'
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