TrustFord Employer Brand

/Background

TrustFord are Europes largest Ford dealership, and over the last two years they have undergone massive change, moving from hundreds of independently run dealerships across the UK and Ireland to one company under the TrustFord Brand. This has meant a huge amount of change for all employees in a short space of time, as well as a very large and diverse workforce being created.
New processes, new values, new systems and new ways of working have all been introduced recently, so understandably  TrustFord now wanted to know what made it such a great place to work still and, just as importantly, what didn't.

/Research - what's the story?

The research phase of an employer brand project is key. Put simply, you need to understand why your people, all of your people, work for you. And, because everyone's different, you need to speak to as many people as possible in order to build up and honest and accurate picture.

To make sure we did that with TrustFord we followed this process:

1) One to one interviews with the TrustFord leadership team.
2) Focus groups and one-to-one interviews in over 10 different TrustFord sites. These involved as diverse a workforce as possible, everyone from trainee mechanics to life-long sales people. Receptionists to Directors.
3) The results were then analysed and initial findings (both good and bad reported back to key stakeholders and the leadership team for review and analysis.
4) An online survey was then created, using the initial findings as the basis for the questions. This survey allowed us to test our thinking and ensure the whole of TrustFord felt like they'd been part of the process. We had a 92% response rate.

Overall we had 1,092 touch points.

/Defining the TrustFord EVPs and Promise

We took all of this information, collated all of the data, and used it to create the TrustFord Employer Value Propositions (EVPs). The reasons why people love working for TrustFord. TrustFord also took the negative feedback onboard too, using it to target areas for improvement.

There were 12 EVPs in total, but one stood out more than all the others and that was the sense of family and friendship sites had. So, armed with these thoughts our creative team (with the help of about 45 cups of tea and at least five packets of biscuits) created the TrustFord Employer Value Promise. A promise that should underpin every employee related decision as well as any piece of employee communication. This is what TrustFord promised:

Feel proud to be part of a passionate, close-knit team that will support, nurture and inspire you at work, helping you to care for our customers and enjoy your job, every day.

For communications, this was distilled down to this one simple messages: My team, my passion, my TrustFord.

/Tell the story - brand activation

CA3 are currently activating the new TrustFord brand internally ensuring everyone understands the part they played in its creation. But, alongside that, the external creative comms are also being developed. These will include new recruitment marketing (on and offline), a new recruitment website jam packed with video content and a hiring managers toolkit giving them easy access to all the materals and tools they need on a day to day basis.

The campaign features real TrustFord people with headlines created from comments and suggestions they made during the research phase. CA3 are helping TrustFord to change the perception of their dealerships with this new campaign, targeting different and new audiences with the right set of skills to work at TrustFord - even if they don't know it yet.

/Results

From the CEO down to Dave, up to his elbows in grease in a car pit, the EVPs and promise have been universally loved, and launching them internally first has enabled us to educate the current workforce as to where they came from - and how important they are. Something a lot of companies forget to do. It's your own people that will live the brand and bring it to life and TrustFord are ensuring this brand will live for a long time to come. One of the key areas we are focusing on currently is assessment, or pre-assessment assessment to be more accurate. Ensuring candidates are brand, value and skill aligned before they go through the full, costly, TrustFord assessment process. Exiting stuff!