Changing commerce, changing lives
ChannelAdvisor and New Kind work together to rethink employee engagement and build a better company from the inside out
Background
ChannelAdvisor is on a mission to connect and optimize the world’s commerce. For nearly two decades, ChannelAdvisor has helped retailers and brands worldwide improve their online performance—expanding sales channels, connecting with consumers around the world, optimizing retailers’ operations for peak performance, and providing actionable analytics to help brands be more competitive. The company has been named the #1 leading marketplace vendor and comparison shopping provider to the Internet Retailer Top 1000, and supports hundreds of e-commerce channels worldwide.
ChannelAdvisor has experienced significant international growth over the last few years, and is always looking for qualified candidates to join their team. Finding great team members and keeping them—especially in the technology industry—is critical. People want to feel a sense of purpose. To know their work matters. To see where they fit within the larger mission and vision of the company.
The Human Resources leaders at ChannelAdvisor recognized this challenge early. They asked New Kind to help solidify their company values and story in the form of an Employer Value Proposition, or EVP—and then bring it to life in a printed book and a plan to share it with their team worldwide.
Industries: Technology
Services: Employer Value Proposition, Rollout Strategy, Storytelling
Why New Kind?
"With New Kind's help, we're now equipped with an authentic and compelling story about life at ChannelAdvisor. This helps us to recruit the best talent for our company and keep them and our current employees inspired to deliver on our promise to customers."
Amy Robertson
Vice President and Chief People Officer
Research
Understanding company culture
When we partnered together, ChannelAdvisor leadership had begun the process by conducting their own research within the company. They asked their employees about what attracted them to ChannelAdvisor, what keeps them there, and what values they felt should be preserved in the future. Global teams within ChannelAdvisor worked together to review these initial survey responses and make recommendations for the general direction of the EVP.
The results of this early initiative gave the New Kind team a solid foundation to work from, helping us better understand why their employees chose to join the team and what they love most about working at ChannelAdvisor.
Our goal was to uncover the best of the ChannelAdvisor culture—painting a picture of which aspects of the ChannelAdvisor story best resonate both internally and externally.
EVP Story
Bringing the customers’ dreams to life
We quickly discovered the ChannelAdvisor story is about more than just incredible software. At its heart, it’s about people. The people who run the companies that trust their business to ChannelAdvisor. And the people on the ChannelAdvisor team dedicated to helping bring customers’ dreams to life. It also became clear that ChannelAdvisor has a unique set of values that they use to guide their work, and a strong mission that aligns their team. We wanted to authentically articulate their employee story around their existing culture.
So we channeled what we heard to create four key themes that communicate what a career at ChannelAdvisor promises its employees. These themes created the foundation of the employer value proposition. We designed these themes to be simple and memorable—yet also flexible enough to be used for recruiting conferences or speaking opportunities.
We also helped identify and give life to each of the six core values of ChannelAdvisor, and developed a framework to organize their ideas. The values are organized under three headings: Foundation, Acceleration, and Elevation.
Accountability and Integrity are foundational—the table stakes everyone at ChannelAdvisor comes to the office with each day. Collaboration and Persistence capture how the work gets done—as a team and with a dogged determination to see it through to the end. Passion and Curiosity represent the pursuit of new possibilities—drawing on ChannelAdvisor’s spirit of experimentation and the endless pursuit of a better way.
Each set of values put simply in words every team member can take to heart: We bring it. We drive it. We own it.
Outcomes
Sharing our purpose widely
New Kind designed and packaged the EVP in a printed employee brand book: Being ChannelAdvisor. Disseminated broadly to the entire team, it serves as a tangible reminder of what it means to choose a career at ChannelAdvisor. To reinforce its company values. To help employees see themselves in the company’s mission. To drive forward with a shared vision and purpose.
We then helped the ChannelAdvisor team translate the new messaging and story content to the careers page of the ChannelAdvisor website, and to their LinkedIn and Glassdoor hiring pages.
New Kind also developed an internal rollout strategy to help the ChannelAdvisor team share their new story, values, and culture content with their team the world over. The strategy featured fresh suggestions for company experiences, new branded materials for office spaces, and revamped employee recognition programs (including the ‘Above and Beyond’ award, the company’s highest employee award)—all rooted in content from the new EVP story.
The leaders at ChannelAdvisor are also developing a training program for employees based on the company’s values—further incorporating this foundational piece of their brand into the culture of ChannelAdvisor.
Communicating this EVP story consistently with ChannelAdvisor employees will in turn empower them to communicate the story, too. So they themselves can serve as a recruiting force for the company and be part of a broader narrative that makes them proud.
The Road Ahead
Looking to the future
The success of this EVP project leaves ChannelAdvisor well-positioned to achieve their goals of bringing in more great candidates. And it helps employees see their place in the company’s mission and vision.
All driving toward a future where ChannelAdvisor is known not only for being a leader in e-commerce solutions, but also for being a leader as an employer—delivering on its purpose and its promise for every team member worldwide—now and for years to come.