Culture branding is more than your employee ‘reality channel’ for three reasons: 1. Culture branding is not simply documenting what your employees are doing day-to-day, like a security camera capturing unscripted moments. Culture branding must identify the ‘higher idea’ that your employees stand for, and find ways to illuminate and enrich it. 2. By presenting a truer picture of your company to job candidates, you are effectively pre-screening them to find out who will fit in and succeed within your organization. 3. A well-honed culture brand not only excites your future employees, but also rallies and motivates your current workforce. Culture branding asks you to capture the essence of work within your organization to further enrich that ‘ineffable thing’ within your workplace. To find out more about culture branding, take a read of this ebook.

1. don’t tell me
who you are.
Show me.

2. contents
p4 Culture branding: just another social recruiting fad?
p6 Is this just another marketing exercise?
p8 Culture brand: Rackspace
p10 Sounds interesting… how to begin
2

3. It may be time to bump your perfectly coiffed
‘employer brand’ in favour of all that’s
real and human about your workplace.
Sally Hunter, director of KellyOCG’s
EMEA practice, and Bill Boorman,
founder of #Truevents, explain why
organisations should consider peeling
back their employer brand to reveal the
‘culture brand’ hiding underneath.
3

4. Culture Branding:
Just another social recruiting fad?
Just when everyone agrees strong
and clear employer branding
is critical to entice high-value
candidates, along comes a new
term: ‘culture branding’. Why?
4

5. Many employer brands are simply machinations of marketing, or glossy representations “Employer branding
of your brand that feel too scripted and too perfect. Most job candidates—particularly constitutes what you
the intelligent, leading thinkers in high-demand fields—see through those carefully think about work,
crafted messages in the same way consumers at large don’t trust advertising and whereas culture branding
marketing. ‘Don’t tell me who you are. Show me.’ refers to what you
feel about work.”
Culture branding is about rubbing off all that formality and polish, and discovering
what lies under the surface. What unites your most dedicated employees? What Bill Boorman, Founder
of #Truevents and expert
makes working for your company different from others in your industry—not from the in social recruiting
perspective of marketers and professional image-makers, but based on what your
employees feel about their daily routines and each other?
Above all, your culture brand should be true and meaningful. Any workplace can be
‘fun’ and any workforce can have ‘high integrity.’ If you look at your competitors, you’ll
find no shortage of banal phrases to describe their organisations. Your culture brand
aims to capture some true, ineffable idea about your organisation and employees—
one that both job seekers and current employees believe in, respect and want to
continue to strive for.
5

6. Is this just another
marketing exercise?
Why bother? Isn’t culture branding
just a different name for
employer branding? Just publish
some edgy, ‘reality’ interviews
and call it a good effort?
6

7. Culture branding is more than your employee ‘reality channel’ for three big reasons:
Culture branding is not simply documenting what your employees are doing day-to-day,
like a security camera capturing unscripted moments. Culture branding must identify a
‘higher idea’ that your employees stand for, and find ways to illuminate it and enrich it.
By presenting a truer picture of your company to job candidates, you are effectively
pre-screening them to find out who will fit in and succeed within your organisation.
When culture branding is done well, you can predict who is going to get a job based
on which pieces of online content they look at and engage with.
Culture branding asks you to capture the essence of work within your organisation
in order to further enrich that ‘ineffable thing’ within your workplace. A well-honed
culture brand not only excites your future employees, but also rallies and motivates
your current workforce.
Would employees and future job candidates rally around an idea like “Fanatical
Support”? Let’s look at the story of Rackspace and their team of ‘fanatics’…
7

8. Culture Brand:
Rackspace
Rackspace is a global IT hosting
company that, like many technology
companies, is continually in hot pursuit
of talented developers, designers
and engineers. They have a reputation
as an excellent employer, with deep
commitment to customer service (or
‘fanatical support’ as they refer to it).
8

9. In 2010, at a time when most technology companies were expanding their social media
machines using channels like Twitter and Facebook for recruiting, Rackspace decided
on a different tack. Says Michael Long, head of global employment branding initiatives,
“My gut told me to hold off… The majority of [social media] approaches I witnessed had
a lot to do with simply sharing jobs. While I can understand the natural inclination would
be to share ‘opportunities,’ it just didn’t seem to do justice for this much larger pursuit of
sharing our culture.”
Give that Culture
Brand Some Space
What Rackspace wanted to do was to capture such an authentic snapshot of what it (Online)
Rackspace created a
is to be a ‘Racker’ (the nickname for Rackspace employees) that candidates would
content-rich ‘Rackspace
immediately know whether they fit in. culture’ site separate from its
career site. The career site
offers all one would expect:
“We should always keep in mind that the most engaged and longest lasting contributors
opportunities, how to apply,
to our organisations are the ones who fit within our cultures,” explains Long. “Our benefits, etc. The brand
goal should be to accurately depict ourselves knowing good and well that for the right culture site offers a glimpse
of real life at Rackspace—all
person, we will absolutely be their best place to work.” the passion and enthusiasm
of original Rackers.
RackerTalent.com
9

10. Culture Brand:
Rackspace
Long and others at Rackspace wanted to move beyond the idea that Rackspace—along
with hundreds of other technology companies—was simply a fun place to work. “A quick
search engine dive would, by and large, return pictures of Ping-Pong matches and festive
events. While definitely a part of the work environment, this in no way encapsulated the
entire picture,” explains Long.
In particular, the company wanted to highlight the essence of what makes Rackspace
tick: the brilliant minds and eclectic personalities of ‘Rackers.’ The company launched
RackerTalent.com, a microsite that takes a journalistic approach to defining what makes
Rackspace a great place to work. The site includes a blog with 60 contributors from four
continents, ‘day-in-the-life’ videos and video interviews with employees. The goal: not to
over-hype Rackspace, but to capture the essence of the company as it is.
Rackspace operates RackerTalent as a content ‘flash mob’—publishing community
solicited posts and videos without all the polish and oversight typical in a large corporate
blogging endeavor. Culture branding in the ‘castle’ (i.e. Rackspace global headquarters
in Texas, inside a former shopping mall), is just as thoughtful and energetic. If it’s true
that physical environment shapes culture, then Rackspace is all about creative freedom
10

11. Capturing the essence of the company
‘as it is’. Read a racker blog here.
and collaboration. The office has wide open spaces, communal dining rooms, plenty of “The most engaged
personalised work spaces, and absolutely no closed-off offices. The space is designed to and longest lasting
foster impromptu gatherings, accidental meetings and lots of togetherness. contributors to our
organisations are the
The company has designed over 100 employee t-shirts and related swag—all highly
ones who fit within
valued by the employees—to recognise celebrations and special contributions. Our
our cultures. Our goal
personal favourite? The ‘takes one to know one’ shirt awarded to employees who
should be to accurately
contribute to the employee referral program. While these may seem like small details,
depict ourselves.”
each reinforces the culture brand, energises employees and proudly positions the brand
to the outside world. Michael Long, head of global
employment branding
initiatives at Rackspace
11

12. Sounds interesting…
How to begin
First, a company must figure out
what higher idea or quality makes its
workforce and workplace unique.
It should be a concept people can be energised by, and should be employee-driven
rather than marketing-driven. With this concept in mind, you must then ensure your ‘shop
window’ reflects the idea across every recruiting channel. Your culture brand should be
reflected in your online materials, social media channels, brand advocates and every
other activity related to recruiting.
Next, ensure your culture brand is evident in the lived experience of your employees,
every day. Reinforce your culture brand in the physical workplace, your organisational
structure and workplace rituals. While your culture brand is defined by what already exists
within your organisation, you must also nourish it and improve it to ensure
it’s sustainable.
Remember, if you want your employees to share their feelings about work across their
network, you need to build an environment that encourages people to talk freely and
12

13. share openly. Start by giving permission. Large corporations typically distribute policies
about communications during onboarding. Communication and social media policies
usually advise employees that permission is always required before speaking on behalf of
the company. These policies are born from fear, and should be rolled back to encourage
your employees to share your company’s culture with their friends and peers.
Finally, build an online community or content site where your employees can share
brand culture; encourage employees to join and participate in activities like blogging or
social media chatter. (Of course before creating and releasing content to your website,
employees need guidelines and training). With a high-energy, authentic culture brand,
and a framework in place for employees to share, they will tell the story of work better
than any artfully crafted, shiny marketing message.
13

14. Ultimately, it’s not about changing your
culture. It’s about living with it and
showing that culture to the world so
future employees can make an informed
choice about working with you.
14

15. 15

16. About the Authors
Sally Hunter is RPO Practice lead EMEA for the Kelly Outsourcing &
Consulting Group and is responsible for the RPO proposition from client
relationships via the account management team to consulting on HR
transformation. Sally has extensive experience in the human capital sector,
including leadership positions within strategic account management for
staffing providers to operational delivery.
Bill Boorman is something of a recruitment veteran, having worked in the
industry for 25 years. He started as a front line recruiter, then became involved
in training, later becoming Director of Training. Now, as Managing Director
of the Bill Boorman Consultancy, he is specialising in training and business
consultancy for a wide range of recruiters. Bill is organising and hosting #Tru
(The Recruiting Unconference) events around the world.
About Kelly
Kelly Services, Inc. (NASDAQ: KELYA, KELYB) is a leader in providing workforce solutions.
Kelly® offers a comprehensive array of outsourcing and consulting services as well as world-class
staffing on a temporary, temporary-to-hire and direct-hire basis. Serving clients around the globe, Kelly
provides employment to more than 550,000 employees annually. Revenue in 2011 was $5.6 billion.
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