Aramark

Employer Branding

ASSESS

ARAMARK is a world leader in providing award-winning food and facilities management services, as well as uniform and career apparel, to health care institutions, universities and school districts, stadiums and arenas, and corporations. Headquartered in Philadelphia, ARAMARK has approximately 240,000 employees serving clients in 19 countries.

In late 2004, ARAMARK conducted an internal research project which resulted in establishing the roots of an employer brand. They sought out Bernard Hodes Group to take that brand concept and turn it into a full employer brand, as well as establish metrics to measure how effective their efforts were in saturating the market. The brand campaign needed to work across a variety of professions and cultures, as well as speak to a global marketplace.

In addition to rolling out their new employment brand, ARAMARK wanted their Hodes team to manage centralized ad placement and media buying, streamline and control costs nationally, and reduce cost-per-hire and time-to-fill.

STRATEGIZE

We proposed an employer brand based on the tagline “You’re in great company”, which would work well for both retention and recruitment programs, and reach a wide audience--current employees, external professionals, college students nearing graduation and hourly employees.

Our headlines would speak directly to the reader and draw him or her into our “You’re in great company” message. The primary goal of all ads would be to communicate the message of advancement, encouraging potential employees to bring their skills to ARAMARK.

The copy would further reinforce this message, stating that people who possess the right talents, attributes and experiences are a great fit at ARAMARK:
“If you’ve got talent and ambition, you have something in common with the people who make ARAMARK an exceptional company.”

IMPLEMENT

We rolled out the brand internally first. Communication materials introducing the new employer brand and creative concepts were sent as a mini brochure and letter to ARAMARK’s Executive Leadership Council.

We then sent postcards and e-cards to all employees, announcing the new employment brand and re-launch of the employee referral program (ERP). The cards invited employees to log on to their intranet for more information.

To roll out the new brand to an external audience, we launched our message across a number of communication vehicles simultaneously: the careers Web site, the Careers & Staffing intranet, the ERP, print advertising and collateral materials.

MEASURE

To measure the success of our branding efforts, we established a number of clear goals: stipulated increases in name brand recognition, the number of hits on the careers Web site, and in the number of online applications; a reduction in turnover, an increase in hired employee referrals; the ability to use Hodes Exchange and online ad book for ad placement for 7,000 domestic locations; the ability to coordinate ARAMARK’s recruitment advertising in the most cost-efficient manner; the ability to deliver metrics to provide specific value to the employment brand project; and the demonstrated ability to internally communicate the new branding message to 20,000 exempt managers.

Nine months into the new employment brand launch, ARAMARK is continually developing materials, programs and messaging to support the new brand. Six-month results have been very favorable, achieving all of the goals we set. In addition, submissions (referrals) for the ERP increased from 1030 in 2004 to 3077 in 2005.