April 2009

By Ken Schmaltz, Marketing Director, Twist Marketing

A friend of mine, Victor Hut, is co-owner of Millennium Geomatics, an oilfield survey company that is managing to grow in an economy that is taking a heavy toll on many of its competitors.

From talking with Vic extensively about Millennium, I think I’ve uncovered the secret of his company’s success. Although I’ve never heard Vic say, “We market to our employees,” Millennium is a classic example of what we at Twist Marketing call employer marketing. 

For the record, Millennium is not a Twist Marketing client. Almost intuitively, they’ve taken the time to figure out what it is that their current and prospective employees value, defined their value proposition as a company, and delivered on it. In an industry that is better known for utilitarian offices in industrial parks, Millennium’s workspace is in a trendy neighbourhood and it resembles what you’d expect to find at a Silicon Valley software start up—the decor is hip and modern, and there’s a foosball table, big screen TV and leather sofas in the lounge where other companies would have a regulation issue coffee room and maybe a candy machine.

Unlike what you’d see at a software start up, those sofas aren't to encourage programmers to work late and crash. If you visit Millennium on a weekend the desks are empty. And this is at the core of how Millennium markets to their employees. They don’t tell people that they work hard and play hard (code for “we managers got where we are by putting in lots of overtime and we expect our employees to do the same”). They tell employees to engage with, and enjoy, their work, and then go home and engage with, and enjoy, their lives. Not only are employees encouraged to have lives outside of the office, they’re expected to.

Why is this less-work-is-more sounding approach so successful? Because Millennium is a young company in an industry that’s got an aging employee base. In order to attract bright young professionals with bright new ideas, they’ve identified the two things that those employees value most from a job once the matter of competitive pay is taken care of:

• Interesting, challenging and engaging work
• A life outside of work

The results of delivering on these values speak for themselves. Employees are engaged with the company and their work, so turnover is lower and productivity is higher. This engages customers, because their contacts at Millennium are fun to work with, meet deadlines and budgets, and generally exceed expectations. It also engages prospective employees, who like what they’ve heard about Millennium and want to become a part of their story. Even at the height of the boom in an industry that’s starting to run short of experienced people, Vic was asked on a regular basis whether Millennium was hiring.

The Twist: One of the keys to growth in any industry in any economy is your employee value proposition. Identify what your employees—and the type of employees you’d like to hire—value, create a culture that delivers on those values, and continuously communicate those values to your employees through your words and actions.