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Chris Hoyt, CXR 0:23
All right, Allison, welcome to the show.

Allison Kruse, Baxter 0:26
Thanks, Chris. Happy to be here.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 0:29
You’re our pilot for some new technology, some studio stream technology. So we’re very excited that you’re our guinea pig.

Allison Kruse, Baxter 0:35
I love to be the guinea pig. This is fun.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 0:38
Yeah, I you know, we’ll talk about EVP work today but I have to say the greenroom chat about dogs being way way nicer than cats might might be its own podcast all by itself.

Allison Kruse, Baxter 0:47
I think so. I think so. We could have like the pro cat people and the pro dog people and just like duke it out. I’m definitely on the side of Pro Dog though. They pretty much more about you than cats do. I think they do.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 0:59
Well, you know, we have heard this countless times. But if you if there’s an accident and something happens in your home, and you or your left, like you die, right horrible, dark, we go dark real fast here but and you die. A dog will sit by you until someone comes to the house to save you to come check on you a cat will eat your face.

Allison Kruse, Baxter 1:19
Yeah. Oh, it’s a snack. Yeah, exactly.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 1:26
Yeah a cat will just eat you. Yeah. Allison, I have known you for years. But for those who do not know who you are, why don’t you give us what I like to call the escalator pitch. Why don’t you tell us why we should want to get to know Allison cruise and why we should listen to what you have to say today.

Allison Kruse, Baxter 1:46
Oh, I’m so I’m somebody who has a passion for people. And that has driven my career since college, when I started off wanting to be a clinical psychologist, then didn’t want to be anymore. And that, hey, recruiting, this is a way that I can help people and not be their therapist. So then fell in love with social media and the intersection of recruiting. I was started doing Employer Branding before it was called that before it’s a thing. And now I am a global employer brand leader at Baxter and just freakin love my job. So

Chris Hoyt, CXR 2:21
Oh my god, that’s fantastic. So when you say when you say global employment brand leader, what does that sort of mean? In a nutshell, for recruiters out there who don’t really get to play in the brand space? Or maybe aren’t sure? Like, what, what does that mean? What are you delivering on the daily?

Allison Kruse, Baxter 2:36
Yeah, so that means that I am measuring and activating our employer brand, which is our reputation as a place to work as an employer of choice. And I am activating that analyzing it, etc, across the employment lifecycle, both internally and externally. So it’s more it’s, it’s more than just marketing. It’s just more than recruitment marketing. That’s a part of it. Also, engaging, you know, our internal talents as well. So yeah, that’s I’m kind of a steward of our brand.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 3:07
I love that. So it has been, I think, and I have a background in employment brand, but obviously, I have been out of the practitioner circle for about six years now. But the last year and a half to two years for me have just seemed like a really interesting time to be an employment brand. So I’ll ask you a really loaded question. Allison, what have you been up to? What’s been going on in your world for the last year?

Allison Kruse, Baxter 3:33
So it’s been quite a year for me. And I know it’s been a while since we caught up so it’s just I’ve been heads down like crazy busy with launching Baxter’s first employer brands that they’ve ever had. So Baxter, multinational global company, 90 years old, never had an employer brand before. So when I first got to Baxter a little over a year and a half ago, we were in the middle of a research project with our partner. Oh, to define, discover, discover, define and then is our EVP employer value proposition. And that was like the first time you know that we that Baxter had ever invested in this and looked at it. And so we launched our employer brand on January 21 2021. So a little over a year ago. And since then, I have helped build a career site from the ground up, we’ve launched a CRM for the first time at Baxter. Gosh, we’ve launched a brand activation platform, we had developed candidate personas. Oh, and then we also acquired a company you know, no big deal. So which was like a second brand launch in December, and I was very busy in December created 800 assets in 16 languages to welcome this new company to Baxter. So it was like a second brand launch, but much bigger than the first one because people were already bought in and love the brand. So yeah, I’ve been busy but loving it.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 5:02
So you’re not just sitting around, you get. So okay, so you said something really interesting to me is that you launched a an outside of North America outside of US brand launch. Right. So you’re talking about a global delivery, and I have felt that pain.

Allison Kruse, Baxter 5:18
Yeah.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 5:19
Can you give us? Can you give us a little insight on sort of maybe what your biggest, your biggest? Well, let’s do both. Let’s tell, tell me what your biggest challenge was. Right? So the biggest pain point for launching a global brand. And then let’s, let’s talk about your biggest victory part that you’re most proud of,

Allison Kruse, Baxter 5:37
oh, gosh, that’s gonna I I’m so proud of specifically our global talent acquisition organization, because they’ve just done so much. And it’s just taking a village to really launch our brand. But yeah, I’m interrupting myself. So okay, so what was the challenge? So watching a global employer brand, was extremely challenging, as you can imagine. But my challenge wasn’t where I thought it would be. So I thought that my challenge would be selling the importance of an employer brand and getting people excited. I thought that would be a challenge, like, oh, you know, are people gonna care? And like, Why? Why do we care about an employer brand, but that was not my challenge. And people were ready. I mean, they, they were ready, and they embrace it, and they validate it. And I had people. When we launched January 21. Last year, I saw on social media around the world, people saying, I’ve worked at Baxter for 30 years, I’ve always wanted this, I’ve always wanted to have a brand. This gives me this gives me a platform to share how I have felt about working here for decades. So yeah, lots of tears when I would read these comments of like, oh, my gosh, people really wanted this like they wanted, they didn’t they might not have known Oh, it’s called an employer brand. But they want to kind of that framework. And like that, that strategy and that support and that resources. So that was shocking to me. And I was just elated, you know, seeing that, hey, that the desire was there. So my challenge wasn’t getting people to care. My challenge is keeping up with the enthusiasm and momentum and ideas that flow in all of the time. So it’s actually my my biggest challenge from day one, even today is just not to follow up on all of the ideas and all of the excitement of is there due to lack of resources. And I think even if I had a team of 50, it’s just people are so excited. And like the last thing I want to do is have someone be demotivated because they can’t carry their idea forward. So it’s kind of interesting. Like that’s been the challenge.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 7:34
Yeah, that is, I mean that it begs a question, though, how big is the team that you’re working with?

Allison Kruse, Baxter 7:39
So I’m growing my team this year, I have been a solo practitioner for a while. I had one person that joined me on a contract basis, like She’s incredible. So she’s with me. And then for the first time, I’m hiring, I have headcount now. So I’m hiring my first person, hopefully in the next week or so. And then I’ll build my team from there, globally, because we’re we are in you know, several countries around the world. So ideally, like I have someone for APAC, I have some for EMEA, and then for the Americas as well. So yeah, it’s growing. I’m growing. I’m growing my team this year. That’s the big, that’s one of the big things that that I’m really excited about this year.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 8:19
That is exciting. Is there is this stuff already so far in motion? It’s okay. Or should we? Should we give somebody a link or URL they can go to it? Is it work with Allison Kruse.comm? Is there somewhere we can send them.

Allison Kruse, Baxter 8:35
No, as the rolls open up, I will definitely make a big splash on LinkedIn. So everybody listening, please connect with me on LinkedIn. That would be great. But yeah, I will, I will for sure be posting these roles as they open up.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 8:48
Nice. Well, so we talked about not just team growth, but launching brand in different markets, and people being excited and having the infrastructure to support that. Right. Yeah, and feeling really pumped, I think what I heard you say, is feeling really pumped about being able to give them the tools or build the tools to roll out with it. But yeah, did you run into any? glocalization? Do you remember the term glocal? And that, you know, that sort of hit our scene? I mean, is is there? Is there an element of it’s 100% this brand everywhere? Or is there is the brand some a little more of a living entity for you? How does Allison sort of handle that?

Allison Kruse, Baxter 9:25
Yeah, so that is a that has been challenging for me, because it’s really important to me that like I’ve never demotivating somebody who’s excited and wants to, you know, be a brand ambassador. I mean, that’s the last thing I want to do, but at the same time, I do have to be protective of the brand as well, especially a new brand, you know, it’s it’s so in a fragile state, you know, in some areas right where I have to be protected with it. So there’s been times where, you know, our employer brand headline is, this is where, and it’s followed by like a sub headline after that, depending on your target audience and what the statements used for. And then we also have a brand line where your purpose accelerates our mission, we’ve had translation challenges in both areas. So that has been tricky because in some languages, the statements don’t really translate as much as we would want them to like, it doesn’t mean the same thing. You know, like, so we’ve had to, I’ve had to be a little flexible and like, Okay, well, instead of translating, exactly like, accelerates, for example, that might not resonate, that word might not resonate another language. So I wanted to be flexible, like, okay, we can slightly changed the brand line in that language to make it resonate better, locally. So that’s kind of one example. Another example is there’s been a lot of ideas to have, like different mascots, or maybe avatars or cartoon characters who represent the brand. And that’s not on brand, but there are some local teams that you know, want to have a mascot for employer brand, for example, yeah. And I need to not be US centric, right? And be like, Oh, no, you know, like, that’s not a thing. And maybe it’s like American culture. Like, I can’t be like that, because I’m a global leader, right. But I also have to be protected by the brand. So it’s working out those things. And I love it, I get a kick out, I learned something new every single day here. And I love being part of a global organization, because those little lessons learned along the way. Like, I wouldn’t have that if I was just working nationally, you know, just in the US. So I get a kick out of it. Chris, I love it.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 11:28
I Galson, I have to tell you, so you say I’m having all these flashbacks. So I remember my first global brand work. And there were cartoon character mascots, and a dancing gif bear and in these other countries, and I would look at that and think, What is this, but but when you connect with the people that are in those markets, you understand why it is sort of an important piece or why, you know, they’re passionate about what to us might look a little dated a little off. Yep. It is no small task, slowing your roll to listen and identify. So I applaud you for that. But then also figuring out how do you gently say, we need a middle ground, right? How do you gently figure that out? That’s, that’s not easy.

Allison Kruse, Baxter 12:13
It’s like case by case. It’s not even like, I can’t have a blanket statement of like, Okay, I will always do this. I will always respond in that way. But I think what you said is so important, like slowing down and really seeking to understand, like, okay, so what does this mean? Like, what does this mean in this local context? Because like, the last thing that I should do, or will do is just say, No, that’s doesn’t align. Nope, sorry. Next. That’s terrible. Like this. That’s awful. So I’m not gonna do that. So yeah, it’s a it’s case by case.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 12:47
So, Alison, I know we have talked in the past about the importance of personas, when you’re building employment brand, did you incorporate did incorporate any Persona work in this brand launch? And okay, so you’re nodding? And if you did, yes, how does that play across borders?

Allison Kruse, Baxter 13:05
Oh, my gosh. So I am so excited because we’re really at the beginning of our journey, because we just have we just haven’t created like a go. They were just finalized. So we partnered with exactly was our employer brand partner, and they did global research, interviews, etc. To define nine candidate personas, we’ve got nine that align with our major career areas or job family groups. And then we we’ve defined them and each one is a standard persona that you might think of like it’s got, you know, motivators like ways people find out you know, that persona finds out about career opportunities, what could stand in that personas way etc. They all come with like a cute name, like there’s finance Fiona. Because there’s all like, kind of cute names like that with, you know, a person a face, you know, so they have a name and a faith to really bring them to life. And so they’ve just created now. And now our next step is a we have a 2022 roadmap of how we will implement them across different platforms, projects, initiatives, etc. So to give you an example, last week we had and LinkedIn in mail training, and we we were weaving in the Persona. So here’s the anatomy of the persona. Here’s the message map, because each persona comes with a message map. And here’s how you take bits from the persona and you weave it into your in mail. So we did that. We’re also working within Textio to take our personas and weave them into our job postings. So it’s like all of these different areas across like our digital ecosystem across our recruitment marketing strategy. There are spots to be leaving in personas and it’s ongoing personas are living and breathing, our career sites living and breathing like there’s always living and breathing things that need constant attention. But the persona is definitely like can be will elevate our content. A lot was to be more personalized, etc. So yeah, it’s we’re at the beginning stages when we get into things like weaving in inclusion, diversity and belonging, when we go into like country specific career level specific, I mean, the sky’s the limit with personas, you can tell I’m kind of geeking out, I love personas, I just love them. I’m so excited that we have nine of them now to start with. And that now we’re going to be activating them. So the week of March 14, I’m having deep dive workshops with global TA. And so I’ll have different sessions where, you know, I’m sitting down with, you know, talent acquisition and say, Okay, great. In this situation, here’s how you embed it in a social media post, etc. So I’m excited.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 15:44
Well, you I mean, you should be I mean, the whole idea of putting, like personas together is daunting. I mean, let alone let alone nine and then taking on the approach of weaving them into employment communications and your job postings. I mean, is that is that something by and large, you do with your small but mighty team? Or? I mean, how much do you have to rely on a Susan LaMott like, exactly Oh, team who are fantastic, by the way, but how much? How much do you rely on them for that?

Allison Kruse, Baxter 16:13
So they, they so first of all, we wouldn’t have personas without them, because they’re incredible. And Susan’s incredible, our team is incredible. Jackie, is incredible. And so they, the personas, our first step with the personas was just validating them. So I’ve met with different people across the org like, hey, is this does this make sense? Like, does this persona is there any holes, you want to poke into them, so we refine them a little bit, just a little bit based on kind of talking to hiring managers or TA or whatever. Now they are validated, sign sealed, delivered. So now they’re ready to go. I helped put together a quickstart guide. And I loved how they did it, they actually built it in Canva. And then sent me like an editable version of the guide. Because the guide is this is like my phrase of the day living and breathing. Right. So I have an editable version of the QuickStart Guide, which I think was so smart on exactly, it was part two, like give me the option then that I can say, Okay, now we’re going to talk about embedding it in a LinkedIn post good. I’m going to add a page to the quickstart guide. So it’s very much that like partnership with where they’re empowering me as I empower others, you know, and it just keeps going.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 17:24
Well, I love I think the use of camera for that is really brilliant, right? It’s simple. It’s and it’s easy to get into and easy to manage. So

Allison Kruse, Baxter 17:32
that’s right.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 17:32
Defining. And yeah, well, for sure. And you’ve got so you’ve got the definition of the personas. Yeah, the organizational buy in right leadership buy in. Yeah. And then a rollout into this delivery model or this, this persona book Brand Book, right in the Canvas space. Yes. Soup to Nuts for where you are today from Persona work. How long did that take?

Allison Kruse, Baxter 17:58
Okay, so the personas project I want to say, to develop them. Oh, gosh, man, it was like only last fall. And why am I not remembering this? I want to, I want to say three to four months.

That’s pretty fast.

Yyeah. I mean, and that was all Oh, that was all of them going out. I mean, we we supply kind of nominations. And then they had like their confidential interviews with people around the world, making sure we had people from all different countries all over the world, like represented. So that process was really key to get right up front is selecting the people that we were going to interview. We don’t want outliers. We don’t want like super top crazy performers. We don’t really want really low performers. It’s like what’s it what’s a typical research and development person at Baxter? What are they like, you’d also kind of want to get a middle of that bell curve. Um, so yeah, so so soup to nuts, I mean, that the developing was, I want to say three to four months. And then the kind of review and validation of them was another month. Um, and then now the part about like, rolling them out and, and, and teaching them to TA that’s our, those are our stakeholders for the the personas is TA they’re the ones that are going to be the now leveraging them. But initially, because after that, I want to talk with HR and talent management on how to use them to retain. So it’s another not just marketing pieces now that so so I’ve got plans for these babies. I’ve got so soup to nuts. Chris, gosh, like to get to where we are today. I’d say took a roughly six months. But we’re at the beginning. I mean, this is going to be a year all year and into next year and the year after that. So

Chris Hoyt, CXR 19:39
It’s the long game for sure. Love that long game.

Allison Kruse, Baxter 19:42
Yeah, personas are yeah.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 19:44
Well, so Allison, take us out with one. One thing you’d tell someone who maybe looks at all of this and thinks it’s really overwhelming, doesn’t know where to start. Maybe they’re in need of a refresh or they’re in need of a new launch, like, what would you tell a branding colleague marketing colleagues in the space that you have learned over the last couple of years that you really wish you had known? Like, what’s something you know, now that you wish you would have known two years ago?

Allison Kruse, Baxter 20:16
Yeah, so I’d say that a key part I think of the successful launch and activation of our brand, and what I would tell, you know, other branding colleagues would be, it’s crucial to take people with you, it’s crucial to take people with you, and I break it down in kind of three buckets. fill the minds, equipment, hands, win the hearts and so I’m doing all three of those constantly. And I have to, and that’s the advice I would give is take people with you by fill the minds equip the hands when the heart so fill the minds, what do people need to understand about the brand? And how to activate it? Teach them what isn’t it for them? So depending on which group I’m talking to about the brand, I tailor that approach to their needs, their KPIs, their goals, how is the brand going to help empower them make them more successful at what they are trying to do? So I’m just kind of like personal notes I’m customizing my approach was to meet internal stakeholder group, what do they need to know about the brand to understand it to get bought into the brand ambassador? Equip the hands? What can I give them? What tools, resources, platforms, technologies, etc? Like, what can I give them, to equip them, to empower them to enable them and then and then win the hearts? So a quick example of that is, I think it’s one thing for a company to say, we’re diverse, we’re include we’re inclusive, as what any company can claim that, but to really win the hearts and just show that show not tell that’s your employee stories. So help people use their voice and share their experiences about times that they felt a sense of belonging, where they were included, etc, or they’re part of some program or business resource group or whatever. So that’s how you win the hearts is like true authentic storytelling internally and externally. Also, you can win the hearts with data so show somebody how to see the analytics on their own LinkedIn posts for example, like holy crap, look at their analytics on my own LinkedIn post. That’s great. So then career site data, show them time to fill show them whatever whoever your audience is, but kind of you could win the hearts also with data.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 22:23
I love it. Minds hands and hearts. It’s wonderful.

Allison Kruse, Baxter 22:27
YES, it wasn’t a quick answer, but you know,

Chris Hoyt, CXR 22:29
It was a wonderful it’s great, Allison, I cannot wait until we can break bread together a Miss. Miss. I miss I miss our dinners. I catching up with everybody. So look forward to that soon. Thank you so much for your time today. This has been a really fun conversation. I appreciate it.

Allison Kruse, Baxter 22:42
It’s been so fun. Thanks for having me Chris.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 22:45
You bet. Always. Always happy to have you on the show.

Allison Kruse, Baxter 22:48
Thank you

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