How do you build an employer brand that Gen P talent is looking for? Women's fan Zhang Weixuan talks with Lydia, the founder of Yourator: Enterprises and talents are a two-way relationship

Work workplace, two-way interaction; Employers and employees, between mutual commitment and mutual empowerment, create maximum benefits for the enterprise. Shuan, founder and CEO of Women's Fan, and Lydia, founder of Yourator, held a two-CEO conversation to conduct in-depth and insightful conversations on how leaders can build "employer brands" and the recruitment and development strategies of the new generation of talent.

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Drive corporate culture with your own personality traits

Before founding the company, Wei Xuan and Lydia worked for American and Japanese companies respectively, and the two smiled with interest in the bitter talk about their past as "employees".

Wei Xuan was the first to speak: "Lydia has been in Japan for more than three years, I am curious about the workplace atmosphere in Japanese businessmen?" Lydia admits that if girls want to enter Japanese business, they must choose the right industry, "Although most of the world has the impression that Japanese businessmen are more rigorous, the organization of emerging industries is relatively equal for men and women in enterprises, such as the Internet industry."

He added: "In recent years, Japan has indeed welcomed multinational workers more than before because of the lack of work, but basically, Japanese society attaches importance to the sense of community and harmony, even if it is a Japanese businessman with a free and open atmosphere, there will still be the so-called "reading the air of Japanese businessmen (空気を読む)", and there is some social consensus in Japan that foreigners must understand and collaborate with colleagues based on the consensus of Japanese workplace culture."

Compared with the so-called diverse, fair and inclusive (DEI) workplace, Japanese businessmen as a whole still tend to be in a "high cultural homogeneity" environment, and even some more traditional companies will establish organizational culture and regulations based on a certain social consensus, which is why Japanese businessmen always give the impression of paying attention to details, being organized and seeking truth from facts.

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From the workplace to entrepreneurship, why do women need to break through more in this process? In this regard, Wei Xuan and Lydia looked at each other, and the two shared their observations tacitly: "The nature of the company established by female entrepreneurs is definitely relative to DEI. Frankly speaking, if a person grows up in a more male-dominated environment, he is actually less likely to join a company founded by female entrepreneurs."

Based on their own experience and observations, there are not many men who would be willing to join the company founded by the "pure female" founder, "because he does not want to report to the female boss." But in fact, such thinking is becoming less and less common in the digital age.

So, to some extent, men in women's obsessions or Yourator work environments tend to be inclusive and listening. In this regard, Wei Xuan deeply agrees, but it is our own identity (identity) to drive such a corporate culture."

Contemporary enterprises cultivate employer brands, "courage to innovate" and "courage to speak" are the key!

All corporate images derived from corporate culture can be used as part of the employer brand, which penetrates into the organization, represents the organization, and also shapes the temperament of the organization.

Wei Xuan mentioned that there are many positive employer brand cases, the main purpose is to start from the selection and cultivation of "talents", "Therefore, many companies will emphasize the flexibility of the personnel system, which is a very important message for the new generation of entrepreneurs." In addition, it also includes whether the enterprise has sufficient learning resources, flexible working hours, and the mechanism of remote work.

Photo by Simon Maage on Unsplash

But how and where do you start for companies that don't currently strengthen their employer brand? Lydia said: "Usually when we receive a demand from companies to be an employer brand, they often have defined problems, and usually we will customize the 'pain points'."

For example, a company undergoing digital transformation should emphasize in its recruitment that the company is committed to creating a new business structure, and how the business style will be innovated and adjusted to distinguish it from the original business structure; In addition, some enterprises that have encountered gender disputes need to emphasize gender equality, promotion equality, and how women's rights and interests are implemented in the organization in the process of communication.

(Extended reading: DEI Diversity and Inclusion|Breaking the Problem of Choosing One of Family Work, Women Fan of Remote Work and Flexible Working Hours Practice)

In the face of the original corporate structure, when establishing an "employer brand" for communication with workers in the new era, every enterprise really needs to set aside its existing thinking to a certain extent and reconstruct its corporate culture in a more diverse, fair and inclusive (DEI) direction.

Regarding the strategy and process of enterprise transformation, Wei Xuan has repeatedly emphasized that the issues that depend on the current understanding of enterprises are the most important; Secondly, when the company is healthy enough to set new goals, it is also important to make further public declarations and commitments."

Take the "Diversity and Inclusion Vision Award", which has been operated by women's fans since 2022, as an example to encourage companies to explain their future commitments and visions, "In the case of Coca-Cola, in the face of future job market trends and the vision of diversity and inclusion, they hope that senior executives can achieve a gender ratio of 1:1, which is a future commitment with positive connotations for me."

Following Wei Xuan's example, Lydia continued: "I think in Taiwanese companies, Dcard is also doing very well.

First of all, they speak out bravely, are not afraid of being hated, and do 'revolution of the young generation', and this courage is worthy of recognition; In addition, they have created a brand image for the younger generation in an innovative way, For Young Generation By Young Generation, which makes young people feel that this company really exists for them, which is a very attractive feature."

If a company wants to build an employer brand, no matter what field of industry it is in, maintaining the spirit of "innovation" and "speaking up" is the key, and Lydia emphasizes the positive and solid "values" and "position" of the company, so as to attract talents who are in line with the company's values.

(Read more: ESG Issues Nielsen Survey: Gen X values environmental protection, Generation YZ values diversity and inclusion)

In addition, in the face of the new generation of workers, sticking to the rules will make enterprises lose their innate advantage in the talent war, and focusing on the needs and trends of the younger generation of workers is the prerequisite for establishing an employer brand strategy.

Innovation is the key to creating a positive corporate image that attracts talents and creates a positive corporate image, "all marketing means are just a process, not an end", Wei Xuan emphasized that the employer brand should be specific actions and commitments, the common culture of the team, not for "marketing". In this day and age, it's not so much about employer branding as "team branding" that gives teams within an organization a voice.

What is Gen P? What are the requirements and features?

Repeatedly mentioning new generation talents, what exactly is a new generation of talents? And what exactly is Gen Z, or what are the needs and characteristics of Gen P?

"I think Gen P is very close to Gen Z, at most two or three years old." Lydia said that the so-called P generation refers to the "purpose" oriented generation, which reflects that these people are more inclined to pursue their inner desires rather than succumb to social expectations or traditional values, and they tend to abandon linear career planning in favor of free, innovative or creative careers.

Therefore, if contemporary enterprises want to recruit Generation P young people, they must make their corporate aspirations more inclusive and cover their individualized goals, "For example: everyone works in women's fans, they must have identified the purpose of women's fans, but their respective interpretations are different, but they have some commonalities, so they can work together."

Photo by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash

Generation P interprets the world with a very strong subjective and personal value, so they are also a creative generation, which will lead to "finding a company in the market that matches his needs (including hybrid work, flexible working hours) to go to work, if he really can't find it, he will become what we often call Freelancer, seeking career development outside the system." Lydia said.

However, the pros and cons of freelance work are always separated by a line, and I don't want to be bound by the organization, but personal growth is limited in the long run, Wei Xuan mentioned: "Completely taking free work as the goal of the career, there will be many difficulties in the future, and it is indeed more economically unstable, which is actually another challenge of this era."

(Guess what you want to see: [Delta is different. Heart Journey] Hai Yingjun & Zou Kailian: Looking forward to the new generation, it takes diverse and inclusive thinking to create excellence)

In other words, more and more people are eager to live and work freely, but it also includes the impact of this model on the careers of the younger generation and outsiders: first, whether wealth has the opportunity to grow in stages; And does the freelance model have the opportunity to support Gen P in their later life plans?

Generation P is more of an "identity" than workers born at a certain age, but how should the workplace respond to workers with such identity?

In this regard, Lydia said, "There are still very complex individual differences in the P generation group, and for Yourator, we try to match different companies as much as possible, and let everyone know that there is such a company in this field through curation, so that new era job seekers can recognize the aspects that are difficult to gain in traditional human power banks."

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

The emergence of Generation P workers has also given enterprises the opportunity to undergo physical examinations, Wei Xuan believes: "In fact, there will be some Generation P workers, after self-awareness, they think that the working environment should not be 'just like this', and he wants to see more companies willing to invest more attention and commitment to 'people'."

And, the so-called putting the real meaning into work is the meaning of human existence, "women fans, including myself, believe in Gibran said: 'Work is the embodiment of love', so we also continue to believe that work is not just work, it can also create greater social impact, so that for everyone, work time is not wasted." The change of my coming era also echoes our original intention of starting a business."

Act in both directions to create real change

From working as employees, experiencing the working atmosphere of American and Japanese businessmen, to starting a business, Wei Xuan and Lydia can almost be said to continue to put their ideal company into practice.

However, "ideal" is always in a process of revision, the formation of corporate culture, is also completed in continuous communication, dialogue, iteration, co-creation, "the meaning of work must rely on everyone to create, and supervisors should not be afraid of Over Communication (over-communication), we do not pursue each other's meaning tends to be consistent, but through communication to create a maximum common divisor, with consensus to move forward together."

Regarding the creation of the ideal working environment, Lydia also shared that in the process of company growth, founders will always think about how to change, how to create, how to balance, so that its culture can maintain its original intention but not fall into the situation of "immobility".

Sometimes, a company size of 5 to 6 people can maintain the ideal cultural characteristics, but once the number of people grows, the variables, the factors that require consensus also increase, basically, where there are people, there are rivers and lakes, culture will produce qualitative changes, what we have to do is to maintain consistent organizational DNA, and DEI is a very important element of it.

(Extended reading: "Diversified and inclusive corporate management is like holding a dance party to ensure that everyone becomes a part" Yang Yulan, president of Bayer Taiwan: Corporate DEI is to see the advantages and possibilities of diverse ethnic groups)

In addition, some companies will choose to do ESG, or a mixture of the two, and these require tools and methods." And the employer brand slowly grows from these "cares".

In the face of contemporary talent demand and DEI workplace trends, how to respond to the real right talents is also a science.

Photo by Hannah Busing on Unsplash

From their own experience, entrepreneurial journey to the mental journey of building organizational culture, Wei Xuan and Lydia have no selfishness, and jointly shoulder the mission of creating a diverse workplace.

At the same time, because the public's awareness of diversity, fairness and inclusion (DEI) is still generally low, "this is why women's fans have teamed up with Yourator to expand the awareness of DEI." We need to make people understand the importance of DEI for organizations and people in general, and we need to communicate in both directions to bring about substantial change. Only then can we really advance the goals of DEI."

At the end of the interview, Wei Xuan forcefully emphasized that building a diversified and inclusive ecosystem relies on encouraging more enterprises to join the ranks of change, awakening more people's enthusiasm for their own life and work, and creating the value of work and achieving self-practice.