As we edge closer to the end of this seismic year and peer cautiously at what 2017 might have in store, along with mince pies, Slade and ill-advised knitwear, there’s rarely a shortage of lists to be spotted during the festive season. Books of the year. CDs of the year. Cars of the year. Films of the year. You get the idea.
But word of the year?
Indeed, and a highly apposite choice it is for 2016. The great and the good at Oxford Dictionaries have selected post-truth as their word (or two) for the year. (Close runners up for those with an inquisitive mindset were, perhaps predictably, hygge and, far more interesting, coulrophobia – the extreme fear of clowns, obviously).
Not that we should confuse him for a clown clearly, but let’s view post-truth through the lens of the man due to assume the position as leader of the free world early next year.
The Washington Post has a fact checker unit which analyses the veracity, or otherwise, of public utterances. 70% of the statements Donald Trump made this year in the lead up to the US election were awarded their highest accolade – the full four Pinocchios: it takes some serious effort to get any more dishonest than that.
Amongst The Donald’s most egregious of porky pies was the statement that Barack Obama was born outside the US as well as being the founder of ISIS. That Trump was opposed to the Iraq war. That global warming simply doesn’t exist and that thousands of Muslims celebrated the 9/11 attacks.
Such a fast and loose relationship with the truth is, however, not limited to the US. The summer Brexit referendum produced its own post-truth comments.
Remember the commitment to spend the supposed weekly post EU savings of £350m on the NHS? In the event, it was less a commitment and more, in the words of Nigel Farage the day after the Brexit result, ‘a mistake’. Or Boris Johnson, who produced not one but two leader articles for his Daily Telegraph piece – one in readiness for a Remain win, the other for a Brexit victory.
But to what extent is employment prone to such exaggerations, hyperbole or simple bare-faced lies?
We talk perhaps obsessively about authenticity within employer branding. Candidates, we suggest, want the unalloyed truth about the employee experience they might look forward to at a new place of work. They want the genuine insight and information necessary to decide whether or not they should leave one organisation for another.
And this is supported by the always impressive Corporate Executive Board – research from the Board suggested that organisations which encourage both honest feedback from their people and which rated highly in terms of open communication delivered shareholder returns nearly three times that of the norm.
This is consistent with a study a year or so ago from Fierce, which found that 37% of global survey participants felt their employers were suffering from ‘terminal niceness’, which placed politeness over clarity and which obscured a culture of openness, honesty and the truth.
How truthful an individual can realistically be within the workplace impacts not only on engagement but also on the future of the organisation.
Take the story of the iPhone’s rise and Nokia’s fall. In 2007, the iPhone first became part of our lives. Nokia’s executives and development engineers were more than aware of this but were heavily invested in developing their own smartphone system, Symbian.
However, Symbian was faring anything but well within development. To add to this woe, the internal culture within Nokia meant that people feared delivering truthful bad news. Nokia, bullet proof until this point, only wanted to hear positive news.
Far, far too late in the day, it became manifestly clear that Symbian was not going to cut it. By then, the iPhone was established and flying off the shelves.
Today, Nokia has been sold and is no longer in the mobile phones business. Apple most definitely is.
And the main difference between Brexit and US Presidency voters and employee audiences? Whilst politicians can be distinctly economic with the truth, employers cannot be. Painting an unrealistic picture of the working reality they offer tends to alienate both internal and external people audiences.
And we tend to respond positively when confronted by employer authenticity. Take the recent job posting for the role of assistant to Michael Ryan, Ryanair’s CEO. The ad asks for individuals to demonstrate ‘saint-like patience, an aversion to bolloxology and the ability to operate without sleep or contact with the outside world’. More reasonably, Mr Ryan appears less than keen to consider supporters of Manchester Utd for the position.
Why does this play well? Clearly the role is not for the faint hearted. Ryan is unlikely to be the most empathetic and supportive of bosses. However, for the right individual, what an opportunity. More to the point, people engage with Ryan and Ryanair with a reasonable grasp of the working truth and reality they can look forward to.
The employer branding process itself is about establishing this working reality, about uncovering the truth about culture, behaviours, career growth and values. And via creative articulation, this truth will out.
Rather than adopt a parallel relationship with the truth, employers should be brave about embracing it and delivering such candour to recruitment and employee audiences.
Most importantly, the truth permeates.
If people are introduced into an organisation via messaging which paints an honest and truthful representation of the employment experience, this is entirely consistent with them feeling encouraged to be truthful once they are within the organisation. To come forward quickly and without fear of reprisal when something isn’t working, something can be done differently or better and which is likely to have major consequences.
If the start of the employee-employer relationship is predicated on trust – based on a candidate’s relationship with the employer brand they encounter – such trust and honesty have a much greater chance of taking root within an organisation.
Because vanilla, me-too platitudes are unlikely to address today’s unrelenting resourcing challenges.
According to REC and Markit, UK companies in November increased permanent head count at a faster pace than any month since February and starting salaries hit a six month high. Along with job vacancies edging higher, recruiters reported that fewer people were available to fill such roles.
For REC’s Kate Shoesmith, ‘It’s difficult to find staff in certain areas. We do not have enough people looking for work’.
Ain’t that the truth.
Getting to the heart of your employee mindset 