Employer Branding with
GE Digital

THE CLIENT

Founded in 2015, GE Digital is the leading software company for the Industrial Internet, reimagining industry's infrastructure by connecting software, apps and analytics to industrial businesses.

Industry: Computer Software

Offerings: Cloud-based software and analytics, field service management software, cybersecurity, digital twin and industrial machine learning technology

BUSINESS CHALLENGE

GE Digital was looking to better establish their employer brand presence through multiple channels and execute on creative employer branding strategies to distinguish themselves in the talent marketplace and showcase themselves as an employer of choice.

OUR SOLUTION

Proactive Talent helped GE Digital by acting as their Employer Brand team, working closely with GE Digital’s Global Talent Acquisition, Corp Marketing, and Global Employer Brand teams & key hiring managers and stakeholders to develop and execute modern recruitment marketing and employer branding strategies and collaborate to ensure GE Digital is well represented in the overall Global GE Careers Employer Brand Channels and strategy.


P H A S E 1


EB DIGITAL AUDIT & COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS

We completed a full channel and content audit of all external GE Digital employer brand channels and platforms, including careers and jobs sites, branded microsites and social media channels. This audit outlined what the state of these channels were, what value they were adding, and recommendations to improve the effectiveness of these channels to bolster the employer brand.


We also researched, analyzed and delivered recommendations on employer branding efforts and team resources, as well as findings of 12+ global and regional talent competitors of GE Digital.


ACTION PLAN

We next developed a three-phased approach that outlined the process for building out the front-end marketing engine for talent attraction, which aligned to GE Digital’s hiring and employee activation initiatives over a six-month period.

Phase 1, Building the Machine, was meant to build the GE Digital employer brand and recruitment marketing strategy and infrastructure to optimize recruiting efforts, through a multi-channel content marketing strategy with a data-driven approach.

Phase 2, Strategy Alignment to Recruiting, had the goal of aligning the content and campaign strategy for GE Digital with recruiting priorities and initiatives.

Phase 3, Activate Employees, was to guide, excite and empower employees by sharing our efforts in employer branding and how they can help.


P H A S E 2


TALENT PERSONAS

We developed a portfolio of personas of people who would likely be responding to GE Digital's recruiting efforts. These profiles consider experience, professional motivators, core messaging, where they learn, and who they follow.


TALENT BRAND & CVP NARRATIVE

In defining the candidate value proposition, we looked at the following themes: mission, people, company growth, impact, stability, and cultural transformation. There needed to be value for the candidate behind each theme, so we worked to define what that value was and lay it out in compelling speech.

From here, we crafted a sell-statement that tells candidates who GE Digital is and compels them to apply. We also constructed messaging for the different teams of GE Digital to reach their respective candidates, including software engineering, sales, UX design, product management, and data science.


GLOBAL EB STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT & EXECUTION

We used a data-driven, disciplined approach to developing a global employer brand strategy based on EVP work done by a previous firm combined with our own internal and external research, to bring their new EVP to life and activate across all channels.

The global strategy we created included:

  • Research and analysis of client’s competitors, with recommendations and action plan
  • Employee activation strategy and ideas
  • Careers site technology audit and implementation
  • Channel and content strategy to consistently drive EVP across all channels
  • Development of metrics and benchmarks for success



P H A S E 3


EVP NARRATIVE MESSAGING

We developed compelling employer brand messaging and talking points from EVP work to be used for both internal and external communications, such as the careers site, job postings, microsites and recruiter communications.

New employer brand messaging was constructed that empowered GE employees to bring the new EVP and story to life, while promoting the GE Digital mission, work and culture in a clear, engaging and consistent manner to external candidates.

We also created new inspirational employer brand taglines and collateral to promote GE’s unique mission and impact, and to build excitement and emotional connection with target audiences globally.

EMPLOYER BRAND VIDEOS

We dealt with the conceptualization, development and production of new recruitment videos to promote GE Digital’s EVP and culture story as well as highlighting the experience of working at GE Digital:

  • Working at GE Digital (Main career site video)
  • Organizational videos for priority teams
  • Office Highlight Videos


CAREERS SITE REFRESH

We revamped GE Digital’s careers site with new, engaging content and authentic imagery, reflecting new EVP and employer brand messaging to showcase GE’s unique mission, work, culture and people in a compelling way.


The main site was refreshed with new, authentic employer brand messaging, taglines and imagery, as well as promotion of employer brand channels and microsites to give candidates access to additional resources to learn more about GE Digital.

The newly added Careers Blog section highlighted employer brand content focused on authentically telling and sharing the employee experience, culture and life at GE Digital, which was missing from the old careers site.


There was very little diversity was being represented on the old careers site, and we helped to build the new “Meet Our People” page to promote and feature a diverse workforce, consisting of employees of different ages, genders and nationalities.

EMPLOYEE SPOTLIGHT SERIES

We conceptualized, developed and launched the “Inside GE Digital” employee spotlight interview series to bring GE Digital’s mission, EVP and culture story to life through authentic employee storytelling, helping candidates to learn more about the people, teams, work and employee experience at GE Digital.


This spotlight series featured over 20 employees in less than four months, with articles published on the GE Careers Blog and promoted on GE employer brand channels (i.e. Twitter, Facebook, Glassdoor, etc.), reaching over tens of thousands of followers and potential candidates worldwide.

EMPLOYER BRAND MICROSITE CREATION

We built new careers microsites and crafted inspirational, compelling copy to promote new EVP messaging and support employer brand goals for key hiring locations and roles (i.e. New Orleans and Providence tech hubs).


EMPLOYER BRAND PLAYBOOK DEVELOPMENT

We developed a playbook to activate and empower current and new GE Digital employees to authentically communicate new EVP messaging and share the GE Digital culture and employee experience, both internally and externally.

EMPLOYER BRAND CHANNEL CREATION & REFRESH

We rebranded the GE Digital Glassdoor page with new EVP messaging, imagery and company updates to give job seekers and potential candidates a genuine look at what it’s like to work at GE Digital.

We also refreshed the main LinkedIn careers page and built subpages with new EVP messaging and imagery for priority teams to help LinkedIn followers and potential candidates learn more about the mission, work and people at GE Digital.

Alongside this, we created brand new Facebook page to give candidates and employees an inside look at what it’s like to work at GE Digital around the world, with employee stories and photos as well as latest company news, events and awards, to help bring new EVP messaging to life.

The GE Digital Twitter account was rebranded and visually refreshed to share daily updates with followers and potential candidates about the GE Digital employee experience, culture, latest career opportunities, company news and events as well as career and job search tips.


Proactive Talent was not only a collaborative partner, but was able to bring value to the branding strategy in ways we had not thought of. They adopted our mission as their passion and were a true extension of our team. I would highly recommend them for any size project, especially when building an employer brand from the ground up.

Michelle Rife, Sr. Director of Talent Acquisition, GE Digital

RESULTS

  • Twenty employee spotlight articles created by Proactive Talent resulted in tens of thousands of views worldwide and a completely redesigned career site featuring many of those employee stories, new people-focused visuals, and new brand narrative for each hiring organization at the company.
  • The nine recruitment videos created during the engagement garnered over 15,000 views within a month of being published.
  • Through internal communications support and reinforcement from leaders, the number of Glassdoor reviews more than doubled as employees became more engaged in the employer brand, GE Digital’s followers and reach doubled, and the team saw the rating increase from 3.0 to 3.2 during the engagement time-period alone.
  • The reintroduction of GE Digital’s Twitter account more than doubled the engagement and increased monthly impressions by more than 10 times the average at the beginning of the engagement.

By establishing a new strategy, Proactive Talent has not only helped build GE Digital’s employer brand from scratch, but also brought tangible results. Proactive Talent’s holistic approach took the company through the entire process leaving no stone unturned, from establishing a strong foundational strategy and roadmap to cultivating the individual stories that convey that brand. GE Digital will see the effects of this Proactive Talent engagement for years to come.