"I was chatting with the head of HR in one of our clients recently, and she acknowledged that while the company is spending millions of dollars on their consumer brands, the budget for building the Employment brand is only in the thousands. And when you look at that company’s website, the discrepancy is clear – the consumer brands look terrific, the ‘Careers with us’ page is dry and boring. And yet, according to a recent CEO Institute survey, the number one issue keeping chief executives awake at night is 'sourcing and retaining skilled staff'."
Chris Bulford, Managing Director
Most of our work is highly confidential - but here is one project that a client was happy for us to talk about.
attracting quality talent
A Case Study
Our Client The Australian Food and Grocery Council is the peak representative body for the Australian FMCG Industry and a large part of their role is to provide support to members through participation in committees and working groups to address key issues through sector specific forums. The Supply Chain Committee is comprised of senior leaders from across the FMCG sector including confectionary, dairy and packaged health products.
The job of attracting quality talent that aligns with your business purpose is just as challenging as attracting customers to your brands. As marketers, we wonder why this area seems to be so poorly attended to. Interestingly, the organisations we would not think of as naturally strong marketers are really great at attracting talent and invest heavily in this area. Think The Australian Armed Forces, BHP Billiton, CPA and the Big 4 Accounting firms.
Problem | Attracting talent to FMCG Supply Chain
The supply chain committee had identified that one of the biggest issues they are facing is that FMCG Supply Chain struggles to attract talent. In the fast-paced and exciting world of FMCG, marketing and selling the well-known brands are the 'sexy' functions, even finance and manufacturing attract their specialised cohort, but FMCG Supply Chain is often left out in the cold as it possesses some unique issues:
Supply Chain is not immediately understood by the broad population and in most situations requires further explanation.
Supply Chain encompasses a broad number of functions and is difficult to define. Even within our group, different businesses had different definitions.
There is a low awareness of Supply Chain as a function and there has been virtually no activity in promoting it as a career option.
Our Approach | Engagement, engagement, engagement
Circ Consulting works from the strong belief that deep, meaningful insights only come from deep, meaningful engagements with key targets. We facilitated development of these insights using research with the target market and workshops with the Supply Chain Committee.
RESEARCH | FOCUS GROUPS
Two in-depth focus groups were held with recent graduates (in the first 2-3 years of their career) who worked in Supply Chain for the AFGC members to gain insight into what makes them ‘tick’. It was clear that these people are problem solvers. They love FMCG Supply Chain because they are energised by the constant challenges of making things happen.
“The other day, I arrived at work and discovered that a train had derailed in WA. All the companies were trying to find trucking companies to move stock. We nailed it – it was awesome!”
— FMCG Grad, Melbourne.
WORKSHOPS
We met with the Supply Chain Committee to facilitate the development of our strategy. This was a vital component of our process as we were able to combine the expertise and knowledge of the group of senior leaders with our target group insights to develop a robust 'brand model' for FMCG Supply Chain.
