Authenticity! This is what advocates La Poste Group in terms of employer branding. 💡 Ultra-competitive job market, search for meaning, changing aspirations... More than ever, businesses must stand outHow to build a strong and engaging employer brand?
To find out, we went to meet Pierre Salcio, Director of HR Communications at La Poste Group and member of the Club We Are COM. 🚀 Corporate culture, innovation, commitment, internal mobility, well-being at work… For him, authenticity always comes from within.
Pierre talks about a strategy with three ambitions: attract, retain and inspire. 🤓 Focus on authenticity and attractiveness in business!
Hello Pierre, to begin with, what would be your definition of employer branding?
Before defining what is employer brand, it is appropriate to define what the brand is! A brand is an entity that distinguishes itselfIt stands out for its products and services, its attitude, its corporate culture, its social climate... and more broadly, its signature.
So, I would say that the employer brand is the brand of the employer, this rather complex distinction which is based on four main dimensions:
- The purpose and values of a company,
- The perception that we have of it internally, which is not always homogeneous,
- The perception that we have of it externally, particularly concerning the feelings of future candidates,
- The HR corpus, that is to say all the concrete assets that a brand can offer its employees.
Finally, the employer brand must be authentic. Only transparency and sincerity can legitimize a company's employer discourse, especially when it directly impacts the lifestyles of employees and future employees..
I would say that employer branding is the employer's brand.
By the way, how is your HR Communications department positioned within the group? What topics does it cover?
We have a unique feature within the group, since our HR COM department is attached to the HR department. This is no coincidence, because HR communication is structured around HR systems and aims primarily to inform employees and support them in change managementWe explain how to generate buy-in to the proposed HR system offerings.
At the same time, Our communications are designed to promote the women and men of the group, their careers and their initiatives.. Valuing internal resources means both transforming employees into fulfilled players in the company and encouraging mobility and retraining.
Finally HR COM is the starting point of the employer brandWe need to engage internally, generate pride of belonging, and then extend this positive energy externally.
Promoting internal growth means transforming employees into fulfilled players in the company and encouraging mobility and retraining.
La Poste Group has been certified as a “Top Employer” by the Top Employer Institute. In your opinion, what are the qualities of an attractive company?
What a difficult question! I would say that an attractive company is one in which employees are proud to work, in which they flourish fully and not only in relation to their remuneration..
And who says fulfillment, says future. To be a top employer, it seems to me that you have to offer good internal development prospects..
Finally, innovation is also an essential criterion. An attractive brand is a brand that innovates, in tech of course, but especially in social, to be as close as possible to what people experience.
In other words, the main criteria for employer brand attractiveness are the social climate, a company's ability to care about the future of its employees and perpetual innovation.
You recently unveiled your new employer promise. Can you tell us more about it? What does it consist of?
We have revealed our new promise, which is also our very first promiseLa Poste Group is the oldest French company, dating back to the reign of Louis XI. Throughout the centuries, we have innovated and supported industrial and societal developments, thanks to our communications service: the exchange of correspondence. Until now, formulating an employer brand promise was not necessarily necessary.
However, since the advent of the digital, communications have changed and so has our core business. We had to reinvent ourselves by diversifying our initial economic model.Today, La Poste Group is banking, insurance, mail, parcels, data, local services... and almost 600 subsidiaries, including international ones, which represent more than 45% of our turnover.
now The most important thing is to combine our history and culture with the developments of society and its needs.To achieve this, we propose to approach the future with enthusiasm. It is by meeting our employees internally in the field, by listening to them, by surveying them, that our promise emerged: “All your aspirations for tomorrow will be fulfilled by working within the La Poste group.”.
An employer promise is a story that should speak to everyone, to our talents as well as to our future talents. Through our campaign slogan, "With us, experience what will be like tomorrow. Tomorrow will be us.", we want to further evoke aspiration, evolution, and the future, to bring as many people as possible on board with optimism.It is the possibility of living one's desires, one's aspirations, one's needs, whatever they may be, even if they change or evolve.
An employer promise is a story that should speak to everyone, to our talents as well as to our future talents.
Who are your main targets and how do you communicate around this promise?
Our targets are numerous. First of all, we have the internal one of course, because this is where an employer promise must be lived before existing elsewhere. To do this, we communicate via a number of fairly traditional internal communication media.
Externally, we communicate with our future recruits : fairs, exhibitions, Social Media… More specifically among young people, in order to rejuvenate the average age of the group, which is 47, and experienced talent to develop our sectors of activity, which are still too often unknown to the general public. In terms of data, for example, we have not yet established ourselves as a leading company, even though we are not only a major player in data (particularly with our subsidiary Docaposte) but also quite simply a leading economic player with numerous activities and needs in this area.
Finally, our targets are work-study students and internsAs a responsible and committed company, we are committed to contributing to and developing these apprenticeship systems and facilitating youth employment in France.
Beyond employer branding, how can you build employee loyalty? What HR communication strategy do you implement internally?
Our HR strategy is based on three fundamental pillars: it aims to be attentive, qualifying and committed.
- We show ourselves attentive to the health and safety of our employees, as well as their quality of life at work. Along with remuneration, it is the base of Maslow's pyramid as an employer.
- We propose a continuous qualification to our employees, by means ofa very dense training catalog – a large number of which are subject to recognized certification – andregular accompaniments. Based on the observation that when jobs disappear, others are created, we encourage internal staff to participate in our certified training courses and to follow our retraining programs.
- We are committed, in our privacy CSR, but also in social dialogueWe strive to constantly develop this dialogue, to guarantee a quality social climate.
Our HR strategy (…) aims to be attentive, qualifying and committed.
In your opinion, what will be the major challenges and changes in employer branding in the years to come?
I'm convinced that the main change in the employer brand will concern the recommendation processToday, candidates and companies are still interested in labels and other crude measures of brand attractiveness. But increasingly, word of mouth will prevail.
Like TripAdvisor, the employer brand will be directly nourished by the opinions of employees. So, the communication strategies and other statements in the media will lose their impact if the employer's promise does not correspond to the recommendation of the employees.
Word of mouth will increasingly prevail.
Before you leave us, do you have any final advice for We Are COM readers?
For anyone who would like to launch an employer branding campaign, I have just one piece of advice: start internally! Listen, analyze, consult verbatim reports and barometers, compare points of view, ask specialists for advice... A promise must speak internally to be authentic, do not neglect the opinion of your colleagues.
I would even go further and say thata promise not fully and truly lived internally, it is a very negative boomerang effect guaranteed.
3 things to know about Pierre Salcio
His daily inspirations? Pierre is passionate about radio. He enjoys this medium, which is both extremely heated with its news formats and very cold with its podcasts and in-depth analyses. More generally, Pierre enjoys observing, feeding off everything, and making connections between elements that – on the face of it – have little to do with each other.
Her favorite communication campaign? Without hesitation, "Le Parisien is better to have as a newspaper." Remember!
His passions ? Music! A guitar and bass player, Pierre is also a regular concert goer.
