Inward Strategic Consulting Announces A New "Talent Branding" Practice to Coincide With Its 10th Anniversary
New partner Jeff Cordes to drive practice and joins Phil Hornthal in the Chicago office
READ JEFF'S NEW ARTICLE ON DRIVING RESULTS THROUGH TALENT BRANDING!
Boston, December 11, 2008. Inward Strategic Consulting, an international internal/external brand, communications, and market research firm, is proud to announce on its 10th anniversary the launch of a global Talent Branding practice. Attracting and retaining the best talent is a strategic imperative for organizations that strive to create a competitive advantage in the marketplace.
In making his announcement, Allan Steinmetz, CEO and founder of Inward Strategic Consulting, said, "Without doubt, one of the more important issues we hear about from our global clients is how to effectively communicate with their staff to ensure their loyalty and long-term retention while recruiting the best and brightest in the marketplace." The Talent Branding practice compliments Inward's internal branding, external brand, team alignment, and market research capabilities. According to Steinmetz, "With this service line we can finally help clients integrate all their brand initiatives, from their recruitment and retention messages to external marketing and advertising efforts, with their internal brand. We now have all the component parts to provide a full-service suite that senior HR and marketing executives require."
Inward's Talent Branding practice will be championed by Jeff Cordes, a seasoned, highly recognized talent-acquisition professional. Jeff is the President of talentRISE LLC, a full-service recruitment outsourcing and talent optimization company. Prior to talentRISE, Jeff launched and was the Managing Director of CareerBuilder.com's global talent acquisition consulting division. Jeff has more than two decades of experience with such companies as IBM, Home Depot, and Ryder Logistics. Jeff was also Chief Talent officer for Xpedior (an Inward Client), Apropos Technology, and NCI. At IBM Global Services, and James Martin, he led the recruitment and HR consulting practices.
Steinmetz continued, "I have been aware of Jeff for several years and would often ask his advice and counsel informally. Now, to be able to have him as a partner and to offer his capabilities to clients directly makes me feel complete. Jeff's credentials and experience will help clients deliver results, especially in today's economic environment where managing talent is a priority. He is a terrific person and a gentleman who truly cares about employees and will add substantial value to our clients HR issues."
To help launch this new Talent Branding practice, Jeff Cordes has written a thought leadership article discussing the components and integration of successful employment branding.
Please click on the following link to read this insightful thought leadership:
http://www.inwardconsulting.com/docs/Talent-Branding-Drives-Results.pdf
The new Talent Branding practice will be located in Inward's Chicago market, where Jeff will work closely with Phil Hornthal, Managing Director of the Chicago market. Hornthal continues to provide a full suite of capabilities within the area. "Phil's integrated marketing and strategy experience, coupled with his sports marketing knowhow, makes him an ideal choice to expand our presence further in the Chicago market," explained Steinmetz. "Phil has the right strategic insight and creativity combination that clients appreciate."
Phil has worked for some of the most prestigious and respected consulting firms in a variety of integrated marketing roles. At Accenture (then Andersen Consulting), he was a member of the worldwide marketing group that served the consulting-practice area and marketing director of the Central Region. At AT&T, Phil helped launch a new consulting practice; generating qualified leads and revenue for the AT&T Solutions division. He also worked in sports marketing sponsorships, sales and marketing leadership training, and experiential-event marketing.
"I am very excited Jeff is joining me to partner in the Chicago market. I've seen how Inward's participatory workshops help organizations accomplish their objectives. Adding Talent Branding brings incremental value to our suite of brand offerings," said Hornthal. "I'm looking forward to continuing growing Inward's presence in Chicago with Jeff's and Allan's help. We will become a critical resource for Chicago-area companies with recruitment, external branding, internal change communication, marketing organizational alignment, and market-research needs."
Jeff can be reached at jeffcordes@inwardconsulting.com or (630) 561-7390. Phil is at phil@inwardconsulting.com or (312) 560-9000.
ABOUT INWARD STRATEGIC CONSULTING
Inward Strategic Consulting has offices in Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, and Orlando. The company specializes in marketing strategy development, change management, external branding and internal change communications, and now, talent branding. Inward also offers a full suite of qualitative and quantitative market research including benchmarking, employee brand/engagement surveys (called ChangeFX), and best-practices research. The firm conducts both public and private workshops and training. To learn more about Inward, please go to www.inwardconsulting.com.
Friday, December 12, 2008
Friday, October 31, 2008
Stop The Negativity
There's no question about it. The unpredictable rise in energy costs is having a dramatic impact on every industry and every individual. For both service providers and customers, it is causing frustration, tight budgets, lost jobs, and escalating pricing. But most of all, in my opinion, it is affecting how employees and customers are reacting to the circumstances and treating one another. Companies must address this and reverse this negativity to preserve goodwill and create loyalty.
Companies need help reversing this negativity to preserve goodwill and create loyalty. Employee marketing programs and behavior need to be closely coupled with external consumer marketing programs. It's long past time to retrain employees how to treat customers. Whatever happened to "the customer is always right" and "say it with a smile"?
Airlines: the best (or worst!) example
The airline industry is probably the best example of this negativity, causing havoc among the consuming public, shareholders, and airline employees.
Like many of you I am a frequent domestic and international traveler. We have all witnessed angered customers and ticket agents coming close to throwing punches, impatient gate agents curtly corralling customers like cattle (no eye contact, no thank you, no have a nice flight), baggage claim managers who laugh at customers with lost luggage woes. Perhaps most startling of all, we overhear flight attendants, right in front of customers, badmouthing their own employers for a lack of appreciation. Employees wear strike buttons and tell customers that the airlines don't know what they are doing.
And airlines don't make it easy on their employees. JetBlue's recent announcement that the airline will charge passengers $7 for a pillow-and-blanket kit, even though it comes with a $5 coupon to any item from retailer Bed, Bath & Beyond, will be a tough sell for flight attendants.
"Replacing our old, recycled pillows and blankets with this state-of-the-art, high-quality take home kit is an eco-conscious, health-conscious and customer-conscious decision," is how Brett Muney, general manager of product development for JetBlue, spun it. "We are constantly seeking ways to enhance the in-flight experience for our customers, and providing them the option to purchase the world's cleanest travel pillow and a fleece blanket at an affordable price delivers on that promise."
State of the art? Customer- and eco-conscious? World's cleanest? Does JetBlue really think we're falling for this self-serving line? It's painfully obvious the airline figured that charging for pillows and blankets would add incremental revenue to the flight, plus reap a bonus by blending the charge with a promotional coupon through a sponsor. Flight attendants will have a tough sell ahead of them, and the negative effect of trying to sell this program to passengers affects the attendants' ability to be positive brand ambassadors. I bet the whole idea will be abandoned when JetBlue gets an all-too-predictable backlash from its customers.
Are your customers, employees, and shareholders facing a similar situation?
Confidence is broken in the airline business on all sides. There is an urgent need to instill employee engagement and reverse this unfortunate situation. Many will ask, how can you afford to do this in an era of cost cutting and unexpected oil-price increases? My question, however, is this: How can you not address this urgent situation and make your people brand advocates and emissaries for what you need to achieve? Companies who recognize that employees are the face to the brand and manage effective internal communication and advocacy provide an incremental 19.5% shareholder value, according to a recent Watson Wyatt study.
Inward Strategic Consulting is a leader in successful change management and behavioral communications. We help companies transform their employees into customer advocates and change their behavior to support brand values. The experiential methods we have designed are creative, and they work.
If you and your team would like to learn how to achieve internal and employee branding that changes behavior and wins over your own people, please contact us. Put a stop to the doom and gloom by recognizing that your people are the face of your brand, and that their behavior needs realignment.
Companies need help reversing this negativity to preserve goodwill and create loyalty. Employee marketing programs and behavior need to be closely coupled with external consumer marketing programs. It's long past time to retrain employees how to treat customers. Whatever happened to "the customer is always right" and "say it with a smile"?
Airlines: the best (or worst!) example
The airline industry is probably the best example of this negativity, causing havoc among the consuming public, shareholders, and airline employees.
Like many of you I am a frequent domestic and international traveler. We have all witnessed angered customers and ticket agents coming close to throwing punches, impatient gate agents curtly corralling customers like cattle (no eye contact, no thank you, no have a nice flight), baggage claim managers who laugh at customers with lost luggage woes. Perhaps most startling of all, we overhear flight attendants, right in front of customers, badmouthing their own employers for a lack of appreciation. Employees wear strike buttons and tell customers that the airlines don't know what they are doing.
And airlines don't make it easy on their employees. JetBlue's recent announcement that the airline will charge passengers $7 for a pillow-and-blanket kit, even though it comes with a $5 coupon to any item from retailer Bed, Bath & Beyond, will be a tough sell for flight attendants.
"Replacing our old, recycled pillows and blankets with this state-of-the-art, high-quality take home kit is an eco-conscious, health-conscious and customer-conscious decision," is how Brett Muney, general manager of product development for JetBlue, spun it. "We are constantly seeking ways to enhance the in-flight experience for our customers, and providing them the option to purchase the world's cleanest travel pillow and a fleece blanket at an affordable price delivers on that promise."
State of the art? Customer- and eco-conscious? World's cleanest? Does JetBlue really think we're falling for this self-serving line? It's painfully obvious the airline figured that charging for pillows and blankets would add incremental revenue to the flight, plus reap a bonus by blending the charge with a promotional coupon through a sponsor. Flight attendants will have a tough sell ahead of them, and the negative effect of trying to sell this program to passengers affects the attendants' ability to be positive brand ambassadors. I bet the whole idea will be abandoned when JetBlue gets an all-too-predictable backlash from its customers.
Are your customers, employees, and shareholders facing a similar situation?
Confidence is broken in the airline business on all sides. There is an urgent need to instill employee engagement and reverse this unfortunate situation. Many will ask, how can you afford to do this in an era of cost cutting and unexpected oil-price increases? My question, however, is this: How can you not address this urgent situation and make your people brand advocates and emissaries for what you need to achieve? Companies who recognize that employees are the face to the brand and manage effective internal communication and advocacy provide an incremental 19.5% shareholder value, according to a recent Watson Wyatt study.
Inward Strategic Consulting is a leader in successful change management and behavioral communications. We help companies transform their employees into customer advocates and change their behavior to support brand values. The experiential methods we have designed are creative, and they work.
If you and your team would like to learn how to achieve internal and employee branding that changes behavior and wins over your own people, please contact us. Put a stop to the doom and gloom by recognizing that your people are the face of your brand, and that their behavior needs realignment.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
A Tribute to Michael Hammer 1948-2008
The business world lost one of its best and brightest business gurus this past week. Dr. Michael Hammer unfortunately passed away at an early age as a result of a devastating brain bleed. He was a visionary who shaped the reengineering revolution in the late 90s with his book "Reengineering the Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolution". He was a counselor and mentor to many of the most successful CEOs and helped countless corporations improve performance and efficiency while attaining the highest levels of quality and throughput. He trained armies of thousands of people through his public workshops and training programs with a focus on process redesign and organization transformation. His ideas and processes touched many.
On a personal level, Michael was a dear and close friend of mine as well as professional mentor. Ten years ago at a Labor Day BBQ at my home, he encouraged me to establish our firm and create a proprietary approach to engage and enroll employees around change, effective communication and process redesign. He said at the time, "That unless companies motivate and inspire employees to accept change, the company will never be successful at obtaining buy-in and accelerated performance." Indeed, in a 1996 interview with the Wall Street Journal, he admitted that he and other reengineering proponents hadn't paid enough attention to people. "I wasn't smart enough about that," Dr. Hammer said, "I was reflecting my engineering background and was insufficiently appreciative of the human dimension. I've learned that it's critical." After the millennium, he often talked about the importance of employee buy-in and acceptance of change suggesting focusing on the advocates of change and the eradication/elimination of the opponents of change.
He was the brightest person I have ever met with a wide variety of interests and curiosities. He enjoyed antiquities, ancient maps, modern architecture and design, global exploration to his far off places and Jewish biblical scholarship and study. He was a pillar within our close community and a very generous yet private philanthropist. Most of all he was a loving husband, father and a good friend. I will miss him dearly.
-Allan
On a personal level, Michael was a dear and close friend of mine as well as professional mentor. Ten years ago at a Labor Day BBQ at my home, he encouraged me to establish our firm and create a proprietary approach to engage and enroll employees around change, effective communication and process redesign. He said at the time, "That unless companies motivate and inspire employees to accept change, the company will never be successful at obtaining buy-in and accelerated performance." Indeed, in a 1996 interview with the Wall Street Journal, he admitted that he and other reengineering proponents hadn't paid enough attention to people. "I wasn't smart enough about that," Dr. Hammer said, "I was reflecting my engineering background and was insufficiently appreciative of the human dimension. I've learned that it's critical." After the millennium, he often talked about the importance of employee buy-in and acceptance of change suggesting focusing on the advocates of change and the eradication/elimination of the opponents of change.
He was the brightest person I have ever met with a wide variety of interests and curiosities. He enjoyed antiquities, ancient maps, modern architecture and design, global exploration to his far off places and Jewish biblical scholarship and study. He was a pillar within our close community and a very generous yet private philanthropist. Most of all he was a loving husband, father and a good friend. I will miss him dearly.
-Allan
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