Marketing orchestration a talent retention strategy? It’s true!

By means of Brenna LofquistSenior Marketing Consultant / Client Services Operations at Heinz Marketing

Better process -> better quality of life -> better talent retention

Marketing Orchestration goes beyond planning and executing campaigns. It impacts the way your teams live, work and connect. I’m here to explain an interesting view: Marketing orchestration as a talent retention strategy.

Retaining talent is important because the more you can retain employees (and top performers), the happier they are and the better their performance. All this means that the company is more successful.

Diagnose the problem

When we worked with our first Marketing Orchestration client, we quickly realized a number of issues that were impacting the team’s quality of life. These consequences negatively affected their daily work, relationships with colleagues and distrust in leadership.

Lack of and inconsistent communication

There was a general lack of communication. Teams hoped someone else would do what they needed to do and when. When push came to shove, people were very quick to blame someone else or throw them under the bus. This is not helpful to anyone.

When they communicated, they used different channels, making it difficult to track important decisions and information. This is very important when you are working on a campaign or result. Notes or comments can be lost and it is difficult to refer to them or in some cases find them again if they are not in the same place.

No documented process

People started creating their own processes and in most cases these processes were not communicated to the rest of the teams. Process silos cause expectations to be misaligned because no one knows how long something should take, they are confused about who should do what, etc.

All this leads to tension (a lot of tension)

What struck us most about the issues was a lot of tension. This happened between individuals and between teams. There was a lot of frustration between the teams and with the leadership. We noticed that everyone wanted a solution, but no one knew how to go about it. Teams were looking for direction and guidance from leadership, but were not receiving it. The teams knew little about it, it was on the leaders’ radar and they were working on a plan, but again, there was no communication about that plan.

Let’s summarize Marketing Orchestration

Before we dive into the connection between Marketing Orchestration and talent retention, let’s take a step back and summarize Marketing Orchestration.

Marketing orchestration (as we define it at Heinz Marketing) is a disciplined approach to the way marketing work is done. It starts with planning and goes all the way to implementation. The approach examines the inputs and outputs of campaign development and execution steps to drive cross-functional collaboration, improve agility and performance, and leverage your market potential.

To be successful with Marketing Orchestration you must have a clearly defined framework that is communicated to those involved. You should have defined roles and responsibilities so that it is clear who should do what and when.

Linking marketing orchestration to talent retention

There are a number of key factors in retaining top talent. These include career development opportunities, competitive compensation and benefits, work-life balance, a positive work environment, effective leadership, employee engagement and more. Obviously some of these don’t make sense when we think about Marketing Orchestration, so we’ll focus on the things that do.

The problems mentioned above can make employees dissatisfied and likely to look for another job. Their attitude and work ethic may decline, causing frustration with other team members, communication breakdowns, etc.

When you have a well-oiled Marketing Orchestration strategy, everyone is on the same page, communication is smooth, timelines are adhered to, expectations and responsibilities are clear – everyone is happy! This certainly won’t be easy, but it is what you strive for.

If you can create a well-oiled machine, this in turn will:

A positive working environment

Tensions and frustrations decrease, creating a positive work environment that people want to return to.

Employee involvement

By collecting feedback and giving employees input into decision-making processes, employees remain more involved and part of the process. They must have a say in matters that affect them.

Effective communication

Open and transparent communication ensures a smooth process. Employees appreciate being kept informed of possible changes, business developments and objectives.

Employee empowerment

A RACI charter is another important part of Marketing Orchestration. Clarity gives employees autonomy and they feel trusted and empowered, which contributes to job satisfaction.

Effective leadership

Leadership must be able to provide clear communication, support and guidance. They play a crucial role in creating a positive and motivating work environment.

In short: if your employees are satisfied, they will stay with you longer.

What impact does this have on your business?

A quick Google search turned up numerous articles with statistics linking talent retention to employee engagement, employee happiness, productivity, etc. There is no shortage of data showing that when your employees are happy, they are likely to stay longer.

In a blog post by Hailo (an employee communications platform), they list a number of metrics specific to employee engagement:

• Employee engagement increases productivity in the workplace. Companies with high employee engagement are 21% more profitable
• Low employee engagement costs companies an average of $4,700 to hire new talent, and approximately $986 to onboard the new employee. Every time an employee leaves, you’ve lost almost $6,000, not to mention the unquantifiable cost of losing an experienced employee

This post isn’t just focused on employee engagement, but you can get a glimpse of the negative impact not only on your employees, but also on your bottom line. Your time and investment in Marketing Orchestration will be worth it.

I hope you found this post useful! If you’d like to chat with Marketing Orchestration, you can always reach me at [email protected].