The battle for talent was decided and talent won, so we decided to help our partners stand fully on their own feet. Today we turn eight as a company, and I wanted to share what we have seen, and what we think awaits in a match without end.

The 2012 phenomenon marked the end of the Maya calendar’s “long count” and predicted that dramatic events would take place. That year Niklas, Charlie and I started a recruitment company with talent at its very centre. Oddwork is of course not that dramatic event, but since then, and from really close up, we have had the chance to see many revolutions in the borderland between HR and marketing.

The democratisation of information
Today we have a generation (Z) that has grown up with fake news, hotels.com and search engines that find everything. With just two or three clicks, there are pages of restaurant, hairdresser and company reviews that add nuance and their own perspective to a business’s images and messages in both paid and owned media. Information that is impossible to control, and completely pointless to try to curb. If we spend that time researching everything else, why wouldn’t we do it with our next job? We created Oddmodel to start talking about the importance of starting from within. From the inside out, from the core of the company’s existence out to potential talent and other stakeholders.

Why do you go to work?
When we started our journey, we dared to claim that there was more than salary and holidays motivating us to go to work. Colleagues were close to our hearts, and we wanted to know more about what created a sense of a bigger purpose, a sense of “us”. When we found our purpose as a company and started communicating it to the world, and our partners asked whether we could do the same for them, the very last wall between HR and marketing came down.

The endless access to information has of course helped, and in many organisations company purposes have become so strong that they speak not “only” to talent but directly to customers too (see ALTEN Sweden here).

Today it is fundamental to have a document that says what we believe in as an organisation if we want to attract, recruit and retain employees, but the document itself is completely worthless. Only when the words are the employees’ own, and when behaviours, activities and associations that already exist in everyday work bring it to life, does culture leave the walls and go straight into action. And when it lives and is communicated to people who happen to believe in the same things, the global company suddenly becomes personal and the small local startup inspiring.

Who will take the lead in the 2020s?
While the 2010s were mainly about peaks, with economic boom and polished social media updates, we can already see that authenticity is becoming more and more important. We believe the picture of the ping-pong table will disappear, because it says nothing that hasn’t already been said and overused (read: watered down) by others. We believe rankings that charge to list a company as a fantastic employer will be replaced by tools that show, from the inside and continuously, what employees actually think.

Showing the whole picture and learning from missteps rather than hiding them will become even clearer. Not so strange, really: for years we have told our friends and family as openly about the lows as the highs. Every company has rainy days, and for us they have shown in our shared ambition to grow. Of course the journey has hurt at times; we have had to change tactics, say goodbye to important colleagues and learn from our mistakes. We now believe honesty will become even more important for all of us, and those who dare to raise the blinds on bad days too will increase their attractiveness, credibility and ability to retain staff.

As the Persian saying goes: a hundred more of these years,

Poyan Karimi
CEO and Head of Recruitment
Oddwork

Want to strengthen your employer brand? Read more about how Oddwork works with employer branding.