If you’re reading this blog (thanks, by the way) then you likely don’t need to be sold on the value that People Teams provide to an organization, you’re living and breathing all the hard work you put in on a daily basis. There’s a good chance, however, that if you’re reading this blog you’re well aware that marketing your value internally isn’t always the easiest box to check.
Despite that fact, it’s vitally important that People Teams get some shine for the immense value they provide. With an ever-growing emphasis among leadership on demonstrated value and ROI, marketing your team internally will help build credibility within your organization, boost team morale by recognizing individual and team efforts, and allows you to communicate your value so that leadership becomes more willing to invest in People Operations.
Tip 1: Connect data to money
The art of using data to market your team’s successes is about more than just providing proof for your efforts, although that’s a large part of it. It shows a level of sophistication in your processes and can build trust across your organization that People Operations is being driven by data, not just anecdotes.
Using data is a highly effective method for sharing your value with your leadership team and anyone in charge of your budget. Being in leadership is a busy job, so distilling down the successes of efforts you’ve worked on with clear, easy-to-digest bits of data will go a long way in making sure your value is both heard and understood.
While you’re in the business of supporting people, tying your data to revenue is the best way to shine a light on your wins. Provide metrics on things like turnover improvement and keep track in real dollars of how much having lower turnover has saved your organization year over year. Shout about your uptick in employee engagement levels and show how costly it is to run an operation with unengaged employees. You’ve made your talent acquisition process easier and more efficient? Show them in dollars what that means to be able to hire top talent in a few weeks instead of months.
Tip 2: Celebrate successes loudly
The old adage “sharing means caring” typically infers that if you want to show someone that you care for them, you share with them. In the context of marketing your wins, however, it means that the only way you’ll get people to care about your People Team is to share your success stories in a way that sticks.
Have you implemented a health and wellness program? Did you champion flexible work arrangements for your employees? Or what about employee development programs? All of these initiatives are wonderful additions to any employee benefits package and are ripe with opportunities to share their successes internally.
Whether an employee has improved their health, work-life-balance, or got a Master’s Degree thanks to the programs your team has put together, shine a floodlight on these successes by including them in newsletters, promoting them on social media, writing an article on your intranet or include them in any leadership presentations you have the opportunity to be a part of.
Tip 3: Seek feedback…lots of it
Some of the data we suggested you acquire and leverage in Tip 1 will require tracking trends over time, but there is plenty of data that you can mine from employees today that will give you a snapshot of information about the health of your organization in real-time. It’s important to know your year-over-year turnover trends, but it’s also important to tap into the minds of your people as they are right now so you can be proactive and data-driven in your approach to improving those turnover trends.
If you notice that employees sometimes aren’t returning when they take a leave of absence, for example, you might survey your employees and see how they feel about your existing leave of absence process, or what they’ve heard from others if they themselves haven’t taken one. Further, you might want to get a sense of how many employees plan to take a leave of absence in the coming year, of course, many LOAs pop up unexpectedly.
This could help you better understand your risks for higher turnover, and also give you the data-driven insight you need to help improve the LOA process, improve turnover, and be a bottom-line hero to your leadership team.
There are conflicting theories on how many surveys are too many surveys, or how long they should be, but a few good rules of thumb is to make sure you’re conducting employee surveys at least once a year, short pulse surveys throughout the year, and if you don’t have a plan to use the feedback to help improve your organization, don’t send the survey. Be tactful with your approach to surveys and you’ll have the insight you need to demonstrate how valuable your team is to overall success.
Tip 4: Collaborate across departments
Sometimes it gets lost in the shuffle of deadlines and target goals that People Teams aren’t alone when it comes to making their efforts a success. Be a part of cross-departmental strategic planning sessions so you know exactly what the other departments in your organization are trying to accomplish, and they know your goals as well.
If you don’t have a tight relationship with marketing today, set up standing meetings monthly so they can help you promote initiatives and celebrate wins. Does your internal comms team send out a weekly newsletter? Make sure they include new People Team initiatives and since you’ve planned right alongside them, your initiatives will have a better chance of reverberating positively throughout your organization.
When People Teams help other departments retain employees, improve engagement, enhance benefits to be more attractive to top talent, and support their team when they need it most, you’ll find that outward praise of your department won’t just be coming from you, but from everyone who feels your real value.
When you win, everyone wins
Whether you’re looking to improve employee engagement and decrease turnover, or you’re looking to prove your worth as a department within your organization at large, marketing your team wins effectively is as important as getting the wins in the first place. Through data, storytelling, collaboration, and celebration, People Teams can clearly demonstrate their value across the organization while building credibility with other departments and stakeholders.
About Tilt
Tilt is leading the charge in all things leave of absence management through easy-to-use tech and human touch. Since 2017, our proprietary platform and Empathy Warriors have been helping customers make leave not suck by eliminating administrative burdens, keeping companies compliant, and providing a truly positive and supportive leave of absence experience for their people.
