Cielo Talent is launching new employer value proposition, 'Imagine Better'. Andy Curlewis, Cielo managing director, explores how the campaign will be a 'breath of fresh air' for company culture.

In the current economic climate, with top talent scarcer than ever, your employer brand is a vital tool for both retention and attraction. And your own people are the ideal megaphone for amplifying that brand in a way that’s authentic, credible and cost-effective. It can deliver a significant reach and plug you straight into key professional networks.

So here at Cielo, we’ve been practicing what we preach with the development and launch of a brand-new employer value proposition (EVP), ‘Imagine Better’, unveiled alongside our new corporate brand by a network of our own employees, or 'Brand Pilots'. 

Launching our new corporate brand and EVP simultaneously was a sizeable challenge. But we were also delivering the launch across the world, to an audience with different cultures and different needs – all operating in different time zones. Although English is our main business language, it was important to make sure that this wasn’t just a top-down marketing campaign but a movement that represented people from every region of our global business in their own voices.

These were all reasons why we wanted our employees to be a key part of our activation, sharing their own authentic stories of our EVP in action, as well as pre-created content, to connect with their colleagues and potential new Cielo recruits. 

We equipped our internal influencers with a mix of assets, from static images with striking visuals, to videos, carousels, animations and roundels that they could add to profiles and cover photos. 

Most importantly of all, we encouraged them to share their own stories, in their own cultural frame of reference – and to post them at times which were appropriate to their own time zone. We created hashtags that would trumpet the main themes of the new EVP. As well as #ImagineBetter, these included #GlowTogether, to highlight stories of the way Cielo takes care of its people’s wellbeing, and #Energize to emphasise the empowering, energising Cielo culture. 

This was augmented by a series of digital and in-person events, experiences and moments. There were two key points of focus: global citizenship and wellness. Initiatives here included a push for digital detoxes and beginning every call and meeting with a deep breath together, to deliver a lift of positivity. Highly appropriate for a company that’s new brand promise is ‘a breath of fresh air’.

From China to the UK, the Philippines to the US, our people’s personal stories came flooding in on topics from everything to our Global Away Day, to being made to feel like a VIP on a work anniversary. Because they were being written by our people themselves, they were truly inclusive, with the diversity of our workforce clearly represented. Across LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Yammer, the story of our new EVP is now being told by the most important people of all – our employees.

The results have already been impressive. To date, the organic results show that the launch has resulted in an 800% increase in our average rate of impressions. We’ve also already notched up a 5% engagement rate - more than double the average rate of 2%.

Empowering our employees to share, and create, brand content that provides an authentic, behind-the-scenes look at what it means to work at Cielo is already reaping dividends. Together, we’re sharing our message far and wide, living and breathing our new employer brand to #ImagineBetter.