What do you think when we pronounce the word “work”? Going to its plain meaning forces us to reflect on how, throughout history, companies have weighed the value of their employees against their customers.
Beyond being a remunerated occupation or a human effort applied to the production of wealth, our work must be seen as a vital part of the objective that the company we belong to seeks to achieve.
Companies have gone from being a faceless entity to being a brand, backed by flesh and blood people motivated by a passion and share the same vision. Today, the importance we give to our team must be precisely the same as our importance to our customers.
This is precisely the starting point of the global trend called human experience, which many companies have decided to join and which turns out to be essential even for the reputation of any brand.
Consumers are looking for a greater connection and complete identification with a product and with what is behind it. And this was confirmed during the Covid-19 pandemic when the focus on revenue growth took a back seat to mutual support as a coping mechanism to deal with the crisis.
That “pause” to which we were forced has been a turning point for many companies that understood that it was necessary to achieve a high impact on their consumers and be active agents, promoting societal changes.
But, how to achieve this? By focusing on our employees. By thinking of them as validators of the pillars that drive our organization and as catalysts of ideas, we internally promote creativity, innovation, and healthy competition for high quality.
The operation is simple. Companies that emphasize the human experience and include it as an essential aspect of their employees’ life project obtain benefits that result in having motivated employees who help the brand grow and get satisfied customers, as a chain reaction.
A more human brand
“As times get tougher, consumers expect more from the brands they shop for,” according to the ‘2021 Global Marketing Trends: Find your focus’ report developed by Deloitte, which presents the results of the Global Marketing Trends Consumer Pulse Survey, which surveyed the opinions of 2,447 global consumers, aged 18 and older, in April 2020.
Interestingly, the report reveals that “nearly four in five people could point to a time when a brand responded positively to the pandemic, and one in five strongly agreed that it led to increased brand loyalty on their part.”
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And if we do an individual exercise, consciously, we will realize how we have forged ties with those brands that proved to be empathetic during the highest transmission peaks in the last year. Perhaps without realizing it, we increased our loyalty with those who were able to adapt better to biosecurity measures, with those who changed their perspective and left aside the competition, to become an ally of their customers and the direct support of their employees.
In this regard, the report also highlights that, of the total respondents, 58% recalled at least one brand that changed quickly to meet their needs better, and 82% said this led them to do more business with the brand. With such data, it concludes that “in these wild times of uncertainty, people look to brands for help and reward those that can meet their most urgent needs at the moment.”
Indeed this becomes a message of urgency for those companies that have not entered the ‘human experience’ wave.
Organizations are called to strengthen the experiences of their customers, workforce, and business partners alike, generating proximity and identity with the brand from a direct relationship based on trust. As simple as understanding “their” day-to-day and being part of it.
We carry our brand in our DNA
In pharmaceutical marketing, the human experience takes on a particular value due to the very nature of its field of action. Breaking the ceiling of the organizational culture and developing affinities to a higher degree with the different audiences, in such a way that it becomes part of the DNA of our company, becomes an inherent commitment to the task of saving lives with our products.
The Covid – 19 pandemic taught us the importance of being very clear about our brand’s context, what is happening inside and outside it, and being empathetic and respectful. Stop talking about figures and start talking about real people, experiences, and success stories that change realities.
We must come back to the basics: Awakening feelings and ideas, transmitting messages from our role as managers of development in society, visualizing ourselves as a partner of our internal and external public.
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Achieving the perfect balance between professional progress and the private lives of the employees who are part of the organization we manage depends on implementing disruptive practices and activities that not only engage the Human Resources area but also involve all departmental management to create a positive working environment for all, with projection to its customers.
Through the ‘human experience,’ each employee will explore their talents individually, but with the entire organization’s support. They will discover their role within the organization and will be able to take ownership of their scope and contribution to the company’s goals. Let working in our company be an experience.
Transparency, an essential value in building trust
As we have pointed out, adhering to this new organizational model requires us to share a purpose to encourage people and thus relearn the meaning of “work,” giving it a different connotation, to improve the performance of our employees through enriching experiences.
The best way to achieve this is directly related to the generation of trust in each area of our company. But to reach this point, it is essential to be completely transparent in everything we do.
Currently, we see how many companies, especially large pharmaceutical companies, have adopted this style to show – more than their scientific advances and the benefits of their products – how they are impacting their environment and the transparent way in which they carry out their internal processes.
Through social networks, they emotionally attract followers to awaken sensations and create conscious connections, which become decisive to be chosen frequently.
A company that defends inclusion and has precise positions on values such as respect, equity, equality, empathy; that promotes environmentally friendly practices and provides all the guarantees for the promotion of its employees; will have many more possibilities of obtaining higher levels of engagement with its public.
And this increases significantly when there is total alignment between the messages it conveys and the experiences it offers.
In the case of large pharmaceutical companies worldwide, there is a more significant commitment to caring for life, promoting healthy habits, and contributing to the wellbeing of different communities, which is present in initiatives that are not connected to sales but the more human side of the organization.
In conclusion, the ‘human experience’ trend, correctly applied to marketing strategies, becomes a competitive differentiator that, although not necessarily tied to monetary figures, can offer something much more important: a contribution to the solution of collective problems and a great help to clients, collaborators, and society in general, in times of great difficulty.
Luis Alfonso Ruíz
CEO – igloolab Colombia
