Employee Story Strategy Template 👈

1. Make sure the timing is right.

If you want to add employee stories to your recruitment marketing and candidate experience toolkit make sure you are set up for success.  Ideally, answer yes to all of these questions.

• Leadership has set a tone where the voice of employees matters.
• Leadership has committed to do more to enhance the employee experience.
• If culture is not where it needs to be, we are committed to improving it.
• Our employer brand and reputation is a priority this year.
• We have clear values and want to do more to reinforce them.
• We have someone who will own our employee stories effort.

2. Clarify key roles and work as a team.

We highlight 5 main objectives for your program.  Knowing who is thinking about each and taking action is important.  It could be one person or a team.  In cases where you have more than one person involved make sure everyone is clear on ownership of key roles.

• Task: Document roles and confirm with stakeholders the roles each party plays.

5 Key Roles

1. Planning - prioritizing content needs and timing for campaigns.
2. Collection - responsible for engaging and coaching employees as storytellers.
3. Internal Sharing - ensures stories are leveraged across departments.
4. External Sharing - ensures approved stories are promoted for recruiting, sales, etc.
5. Leadership Support - ensures that leaders encourage involvement from employees.

Role Ownership

3. Create internal champions by linking to goals.

Review plans, documents, and resources to find clear links where employee stories can help other departments and teams. This can boost internal support for your program. Below is a list of some of the most likely company documents that will give you clues.

• Task: Inventory existing plans, surveys, KPIs, OKRs, and Scorecards from different teams and departments. Find opportunities to align employee generated stories with company priorities.

Strategic Alignment

4. Have a plan to deliver value ASAP.

One of the biggest barriers to sustained leadership support for employee story programs is not delivering immediate measurable value. Show how the stories you collect will be used internally and externally to enhance existing processes and functions.

• Task: Document the things you will do with stories to make an immediate impact.

Value and ROI Checklist

5. Create a calendar for key campaigns.

After aligning with company goals plan-out specific campaigns and when you will run them, and for how long. Some may be promoted to all employees, others to specific audiences. For example, if you expect a hiring surge for creative accountants January start collecting stories from creative accountants in September ahead of tax season!

• Task: Build out your calendar and share it with key stakeholders who will benefit most. When ready, consider publicizing your calendar for employees to see. Helps build excitement.

12 Awesome Recurring Campaign Ideas

1. Celebrate Success - monthly campaign to collect stories aligned to values.
2. New Hire Heroes - campaign to collect stories about new hires and their impact.
3. Day in the Life - campaign highlighting an employees' day (by staff level).
4. First Month Wrap - Invite new hires to share highlights from their 1st week or month.
5. Anniversaries -  campaign to collect employees' proudest moment for every year.
6. Intern Impact - seasonal campaign to capture stories about intern work experiences.
7. Campus Recruiting - capture stories alumni who attended schools you recruit from.
8. Career Transition - collect stories to spotlight successful transitions from another industry.
9. Candidate Journey - campaign to capture stories about the candidate journey.
10. Mentor Moments - campaign to spotlight mentor and mentee relationships.
11. Corporate History - invite long-timers to recall pivotal moments and why they matter.
12. Training Time - invite employees to share a success related to prior technical training.
13. Day, Week, Month Celebrations - Administrative Professionals Month, etc. See All.

📅 Campaign Calendar

6. Other critical success factors

In addition to planning, you need the right tools and processes in place. Below are some of the key tactical considerations to help ensure success and value from your efforts. Another outstanding resource to aid your planning is shared by Rally Recruitment Marketing HERE.

• We have a centralized way to collect and leverage stories so they are easily accessible.
• We know that leaders set the tone and have a plan to get stories from key leaders.
• We know the metrics we want to achieve and how we will measure determine success.
• We have identified channels to send consistent reminders, i.e. email, text, newsletters.
• We have a small group of ambassadors who will publish first stories and encourage others.
• If employees are sharing stories to help recruiting, we will approve them fast.

🎥 WEBINAR: Engaging Reluctant Employee Storytellers for Recruitment Marketing.

Duplicate this guide in Notion.so  (Notion is free), or download pdf.
How to Increase Employee Story Program ROI.pdf

MEET GOODSEEKER:

Our talent and candidate engagement platform connects talent to culture, gives remote teams visibility, and helps employers show candidates what it’s like to work on their team. The original Employee Story Generator makes it extremely fast and easy to collect, manage, and share employee stories for recruitment marketing, culture building, engaging remote employees.

Easily bring employee ambassador and referral campaigns to life with stories and ensure that the content your capture also supports priorities like DE&I, activating your EVP, and improving the candidate experience. Every story is an extension of your career site and SEO juice for recruiting.

We also invite you to get started with FREE account on GoodSeeker.