GlaxoSmithKline
Global Employer Branding
SITUATION
In a market transformed by talent scarcity, and a sector that has long seen the 'people factor' as critical to company performance, GSK needed to define a distinct employer brand that would positively and appropriately encompass what the organisation stood for to current and potential employees.
Yet defining GSK's employer brand was far from just a marketing exercise. It needed to reflect GSK's employment experience—what it's like to work there, the prevalent attitudes, its values and the company culture.
We started this project when the newly merged company was just one month old. At that time, opinions as to what GSK meant to people varied significantly—by location, by function and by virtue of there being two 'legacy' companies with their own employee experience. Finding what was common to all these stakeholders was to prove the key objective of the work that we carried out. It would also be our opportunity to unite this diverse organisation behind one common objective.
More than anything, though, the results had to be both aspirational but believable. The employer brand was one of the first outward signs of GSK's proposition to the marketplace, and so it needed to resonate beyond recruitment and inform anyone who came into contact with it.
STRATEGY/SOLUTION
We designed and delivered a programme of global research—both internally and externally—that involved 70 focus groups and 100 individual interviews, at 20 locations and across all business functions.
We asked existing employees what it's like to work at GSK, what made them proud, what needed to change and how they saw their 'new' employer.
Most were inspired by their colleagues—“it's all about the people that you work with, and always will be,” was a sentiment that resonated throughout the company.
Yet the biggest source of employee pride, and the one that cut across all employee groupings, was the impact that GSK makes on humankind. Within this, employees felt that they had an important personal contribution to make to this mission.
Talented individuals outside GSK expressed concerns about the effect of the merger, and many simply did not know enough about the 'new' GSK. As one of the world's leading pharmecuetical companies, GSK's brand awareness was high—most knew who they were—yet their brand substance was lower—many really did not know what they did.
These target employees were asked what they looked for in an employer, and the feedback was consistent—a work experience that is meaningful and positive, with an employer that would recognise and reward the contribution that they made to the business.
We used the research results to build a series of messages that made a positive and definitive statement about why people should work for GSK, or why they were offering them continued loyalty. These messages were encapsulated in a 'signature'—Together we can make life better—an implicit promise of a positive and rewarding employee experience with GSK.
GSK recruiters and the Bernard Hodes Global Network now work with guidelines that encapsulate the employer brand essence and guide copywriting, the use of imagery and layout—all of which is supported by 'brand champions' that can offer central support in both GSK and Bernard Hodes Group.
THE RESULT
We secured complete support for the “Together we can make life better,” positioning and the task of developing a consistent, powerful employer brand for GSK across the globe.
The employer brand is now well established in North America and the UK, with an implementation plan that will see it become standard across Western and Eastern Europe, and in Asia Pacific, during the first half of 2002.
“Together we can make life better,” features in all recruitment marketing activity—whether this is on recruitment advertising, literature and online postings, or within GSK itself, on emails, presentations and at recruitment areas on GSK sites.
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