Promoting apprenticeships on the corporate site
February 10, 2011
Are you focused on Valentine’s Day or apprenticeships this week? In case it had passed you by in the all-pervasive wash of hearts and flowers, I’ll just point out that this is Apprenticeship Week here in the UK, and apprenticeships are back in fashion.
Providing apprenticeships is a great way of demonstrating social responsibility in action, by providing training for the young, the future workforce. A few companies explicitly draw this connection out, such as Mulberry and Rydon, who do so on their corporate websites, and Asos, where the Head of Corporate Responsibility commented in a press release on their new apprenticeship programmes.
With reportedly 280,000 Britons joining apprenticeship schemes last year, and another 100,000 places anticipated over the next three years, I thought I’d see how well this was typically conveyed on the corporate website, starting with those of companies reported in the press to be increasing their apprenticeship options this year.
I looked at a range of corporate websites, including several of those identified in the news as providing apprenticeships; disappointingly, some didn’t capitalise on the publicity by providing information about apprentices on their site, still less on the home page.
I also did a Google search to see what came up in the UK if I searched for ‘apprenticeships’. The top result (at least for me) was to the Apprenticeships site, a helpful site covering apprenticeships in general. The first corporate to come up was BT.
The Google result was for BT’s corporate site, but in fact this is a single page, leading to a separate dedicated minisite about apprenticeships, BT4Me. This site has a very different design style to the main corporate site, as such recruitment-minisites often do, and includes video diaries and other films. Unusually, this site leads to a Facebook page for BT Apprenticeships: a good place to promote apprenticeships.
A very different approach is taken by BAE Systems, which headlines Apprentice Week on its home page (they’re training over 1,000 apprentices in the UK), and the link on the hero image goes to a dedicated multi-page section within the corporate site.
This section contains an extensive range of content, from a foreword from a senior member of staff and details of the apprentice programmes, to profiles of apprentices, benefits and how to apply. It’s well done, and mirrors the quality and quantity of material usually assigned to a graduate section, with strong impact. BAE Systems clearly take the apprenticeship option seriously.
Jaguar Land Rover (also focusing heavily on apprentices) has a separate careers site, with a dedicated Apprentice section within that site, with videos about the apprenticeships and lots of information about the programmes, benefits and application process, including hints and tips and FAQ explicitly for apprentices. Here the design of the apprentice section mirrors that of the site as a whole (unlike the BT minisite), so looks more corporate. Look out for the video filter, which means the visitor can identify the apprentice videos out of the entire set of careers videos: a neat little extra.
The Tata Steel (UK) website has a dedicated apprenticeship section within the corporate site, with the same type of explanatory information about the programmes, benefits and so on – but also has some older employee profiles, not just recent apprentices, showing the career progression for those individuals after their apprenticeship, which could be reassuring to prospective employees.
Rolls-Royce have a dedicated section too, on the corporate site, at the same level of hierarchy as graduate programmes and general careers. The landing page for this section includes a persuasive quote from an apprentice, explaining the benefits of an apprenticeship over university study. An extensive range of programmes are explained, along with details of benefits, profiles of apprentices and video diaries, and details of how to apply. Most apprenticeships seem to be in the technical industries: this was the first site I looked at where business and finance apprenticeships were offered.
Of course, it isn’t all technical apprenticeships: McDonalds (UK site) has an apprentice section – and I expect that if you’re UK based, you’ll have seen adverts for the McDonalds training. And just below BT on my Google search results page was the NHS, offering a range of health-care, hospitality and catering apprenticeships. Tesco offers apprenticeships in retail. And of course there are apprenticeships in many other fields of work – including new media.
In summary, I’d say that if you are offering apprenticeships, these should be given the same weight as any other type of candidate in your corporate careers section – and certainly, it should be possible to find some information about them, and the more the better. These sites listed here all have good ideas about how to attract potential apprentices, and what information they need to provide.
But the site of the week award has to go to BAESystems, for including a link from their home page in this, Apprentice Week.
A Nice Place to Work . . .
January 27, 2011
Last week Katherine Ratkiewicz, a Senior Research Analyst at the Human Capital Institute, published a thought-provoking post on one of the HCI blogs. Ratkiewicz recaps recent events in the U.S. that have prompted a national discussion about civility, and suggests the discussion should extend to workplaces as well as political institutions.
Office politics can be just as intense as any election campaign, and there’s no doubt that once toxic talk gets started in an organization, it can easily spread. As Ratkiewicz points out “nothing is worse for an organization’s productivity and effectiveness than toxicity”–yet all too often there is no plan in place for recognizing and reshaping problematic situations.
For example . . . what happens when a project is behind schedule, or a particular unit is underperforming? If the response is blame-shifting, finger-pointing, and/or scapegoating, the result is likely to be harmful to morale, and not particularly productive. When this is the norm within an organization, there will be a lot of unhappiness.
These days, social media can alert job-seekers—and desirable passive candidates—to toxicity in organizations. If there is negativity in the company environment, HR may or may not be able to surface the problem, and may or may not be able to foster a solution. But if your company has a positive environment . . . how can the Careers website communicate that?
Just proclaiming that you have a happy workplace may not carry much weight. Even employee testimonials, video diaries, event snapshots, and similar online promotions won’t convince most visitors that your company is a little slice of Eden. In fact, it’s important to avoid the impression of overselling the environment, lest it appear there is something to hide.
A better strategy is to ensure that everything on the Careers site maintains a pleasant, respectful tone. And design also sends subtle signals—a frenetic look (too much color, needless motion, etc.) can suggest a nervous environment.
For more thought-provocation about workplace communications, check out a new book from experts Vincent Waldron and Jeffrey Kassing: Managing Risk in Communication Encounters: Strategies for the Workplace. Despite the somewhat daunting title, this brand-new text is practical and readable—and it covers territory that is often left out of happy-talk manuals. The focus here is “risky interactions that threaten identities, relationships, and sometimes careers, including voicing dissent, repairing broken relationships, managing privacy, responding to harassment, offering criticism, and communicating emotion.” Worth a browse!
(Thanks to the Yorck Project for this image of Giovanni di Paolo’s fifteenth-century painting Paradise.)
Economies of Scale: Small Business Resources for Big Business Ideas
November 8, 2010
I usually make time to watch MSNBC’s early morning weekend show Your Business. And just about every week, I see something interesting and think “I should blog about that”—but then I think . . . small biz/SOHO/entrepreneurial ideas aren’t very relevant for a corporate audience.
Now that I’ve turned it over in my mind several times, though, I’ve decided that some “small” ideas really do apply well to “big” companies. Two of the regular features from Your Business that provide useful ideas for recruitment and corporate communications are Elevator Pitch and Top Five.
To see videos from these (and other) segments, scroll down the web page and select from the Features dropdown list. A couple that are worth viewing: Top Five Apps for Monitoring Social Media and the IndiCustom Elevator Pitch.
It’s really fun to see what the Pitchers come up with, and how the volunteer venture capitalists respond to their presentations. But beyond the entertainment value—what I’ve realized by watching these segments is how much the Careers website is like an Elevator Pitch! Basically, there’s a very limited amount of time to capture a visitor’s attention and persuade him/her to “take a meeting” (i.e., find out more about your company).
For a speedy refresher on the elevator pitch, try this classic Fast Company article. Rule number one for crafting the perfect pitch? “Assume short buildings.”
Speaking of Fast Company–it’s not very corporate, but it is full of ideas about getting things done creatively in business. Why not just flip through it occasionally? Ditto for Wired. Yes, it’s (almost) terminally techie—but if your company ever hires anyone under thirty or needs a steady supply of IT wizards, then it’s worth a few minutes every now and then to check out what the target group might be reading.
And here’s a blog that’s chock-full of interesting news and information, but you might miss entirely because of the name: Small Business Labs. FYI: It’s future-focused, wide-ranging, and sometimes surprising, so . . . what’s not to like?
(Thanks for the scales, Mysid.)
The Global Gender Gap Report
November 3, 2010
The fifth annual Global Gender Gap Report from the World Economic Forum (WEF) “assesses 134 countries on how well they divide resources and opportunities amongst male and female populations.” The report measures the gender inequality gap in four areas:
- Economic participation and opportunity
- Educational attainment
- Political empowerment
- Health and survival
Good news: The United States has finally broken into the Top 20, after hovering around 30 for the first four years of the report.
Bad news: The United Kingdom has tumbled from a ranking of 9 in 2006 to #15 this year.
Great story: The tiny Kingdom of Lesotho has advanced from #43 in 2006 to (drum roll, please) #8 in 2010. Lesotho has just two million people and only a modest economy—but its literacy rate is among the highest in Africa.
More good news: Looking across the board at progress made since the first report, it turns out that gaps are closing in health and education, with current data showing that (in the 134 countries covered) 96% of health gaps and 93% of education gaps have been closed.
More bad news: Only 60% of economic participation gaps have been closed.
WEF also publishes a Corporate Gender Gap report, which is based on a survey of HR execs from 600 major employers in twenty countries, representing sixteen industries, and ranging in size from 1,000 to 30,000 employees. The survey’s 25 questions assessed companies on:
- representation of women within their establishments
- the use of gender-equality practices such as measurement and target-setting, work-life balance policies and mentorship and training
The survey also gathered respondent opinions on:
- the biggest barriers to women’s leadership
- the probable effects of the economic downturn on women’s employment in their countries and industries.
The resulting report is not only informative but actually very interesting. It provides detailed summaries of the findings by country and by industry. From the report website you can download the whole report or a summary chapter.
High-level observations from report co-author Saadia Zahidi: ”The findings of the report are an alarm bell that the corporate world is not doing enough to achieve gender equality. While a certain set of companies in Scandinavia, the US and the UK are indeed leaders in integrating women, the idea that most corporations have become gender-balanced or women-friendly is still a myth. With this study, we are giving businesses a one-stop guide on what they need to do to close the corporate gender gap.”
My favorite factoid: Averaging all respondents, the top two “barriers to women’s rise to positions of senior leadership in your company” were identified as
- General norms and cultural practices in your country
- Masculine/patriarchal corporate culture
And amazingly enough—those were the top two choices in the US, and two of the top three in the UK. Something to think about . . .
(That snow-covered landscape is the Afri-Ski resort in Lesotho!)
The (In)Famous Candidate Experience
October 5, 2010
HR provocateur Gerry Crispin asked some good questions recently in The Candidate Experience: Is it just Smoke and Mirrors? The point of his post: seems like people (on both sides of the process) would take the quality of the candidate experience more seriously if it were really important. There followed an interesting exchange of opinions from commenters!
Summing up for the majority was recruiter Jerry Albright who puts it this way: “Know what experience a candidate wants? To be hired. The rest is over-hyped.”
The main argument put forth by the minority: Badly treated candidates will have a bad opinion of the company. The majority response: So what?
Looking over the discussion, I notice that it’s all pretty much about filling positions. And several people point out that a badly treated candidate who doesn’t get the first job they apply for with Company X will very likely apply for another job at Company X if they think they might get it. Which is probably true.
Someone notes that a good candidate experience will make for a better employee attitude on the part of the person who does get hired, which also is probably true—but how long will that difference last, and how much of an investment would it be worth?
Another person brings up the golden rule and common courtesy, but there’s not much support for that view either.
A different perspective can be found in Overcomplicating the Candidate Experience, an article posted on the Human Capital Institute blog by talent technology guru Peter DeVries. His contention: “Too often, companies create career websites that overcomplicate the candidate experience, making it difficult for candidates to complete one of the most critical activities on a company’s career website: applying for a job.” DeVries points out several problems . . .
- Too many companies still bury the Careers link three or four clicks away from their corporate home page.
- Too many companies use unbranded third-party ATCs for the job search and application processes—which means the candidate effectively leaves the corporate site as soon as they start trying to find a job.
- Too many companies rarely update the information on their Careers site because the process is too cumbersome.
- Poorly designed applications discourage candidates—and don’t even gather good information.
DeVries has some good advice for dealing with these issues. In fact the advice is so good that it’s worth another post. So coming up soon, some alliterative alphabet magic: from the potent potential of APIs for ATSs, to the powerful productivity of the CMS.
(Thanks to metoc for the hand-drawn maze.)
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