Employees are bombarded with so much information each day that it can be difficult to ensure important HR messages are hitting the mark, says Baseline Training and Consulting principal trainer Dave Whitefield.

“[Workers] are used to being stuck in a room [and told], ‘Here are the procedures, read these, here is the induction, this is what to do’,” he says.

The question is, “How do you stand out in the sameness?”

According to Whitefield, insight can be gained by looking at another field: the advertising industry.

When it comes to sending messages and influencing choice, advertisers are experts. They target their message to their audience, explain “what’s in it for them”, gain credibility by using celebrities, experts and real-life stories, and tell people how to respond, he says.

According to Whitefield, there are three key lessons employers can learn from advertisers:

1. Brand credibility – make sure your actions match your words.
   If a brand is credible, consumers are more likely to trust it and pay more for it. If employers and/or leaders have workers’ trust, they can ask more of them and workers will be more willing to comply.
2. Target audience – make sure your words are reaching your audience.
   Advertisers engage different groups of consumers by customising their message and answering the question: “What’s in it for me?” For example, a hair-dye advertisement for a group of middle-aged men might promise increased sex appeal or improved job prospects. An employer with multiple target audiences, such as office workers and field workers, or experienced workers and young workers, might need to “break up” compliance messages to ensure they hit their mark.
3. Call to action – make sure your audience understands what is expected of them.
   There is no use getting workers’ attention and giving them information if you don’t tell them how to respond. Marketing experts don’t leave it to chance (urging people to “CALL NOW!”), nor should employers. When somebody’s sitting in a room receiving HR training, what’s the reason for them to take action, and what’s the action you want them to take?

Explain what’s in it for them, not you

Employers often fall into the trap of selling compliance based on the business’s need to comply, Whitefield warns.

“So they say, ‘This is really important, you guys have to do this, it’s the law’. [But] the law doesn’t apply to the worker, the law applies to the business. So the problem from a worker’s point of view, is… ‘that doesn’t apply to me’.”

For example, an HR manager might need to give workers a refresher on the company’s harassment and discrimination policies.

That manager can stand in front of a room and say, “Right guys, you need to respect other people and not do this because the law says so”. But it is usually the company, not the worker, who is at risk of legal action, Whitefield says.

The consequences for the worker are more likely to be employment related, so these are the consequences that should be focused on. If “what’s in it for them” is keeping their job, “then be clear about it”, he says.

Own the message, then sell it

Whitefield says questions to ask before a sell should include: Why are we doing this? Who’s giving the message? Do we really believe in it? and Is it consistent with our actual culture?

“If [employers] are rolling out training just because they have to, [workers] are going to go, ‘Oh yeah, we’re not allowed to do this or we’re not meant to do this, but you know, the way we do things around here is a bit different.’ So straight away the credibility of the message is gone,” Whitefield says.

“[But] if you’ve got somebody in the room who believes what they’re saying, workers pay attention.” This might mean that someone else within the company or someone outside it, such as a lawyer, will be better placed to deliver a message.

Presenting the message in an interactive way also helps to ensure workers engage with and understand it.

Rather than delivering a monologue on harassment and discrimination to supervisors once a year, HR could present them with 10 case studies and ask them to answer the question, “Is this discrimination or not?” individually, before reviewing the answers as a group. The scenarios could then be customised for workers in other roles or departments.

At the end of the day, workers must be clearly told, “Now that you’ve got this information, this is what you do with it”, Whitefield says.

And once the “campaign” has run its course, HR needs to ensure workers are taking the desired action by finding ways to “test and measure” its impact, he says.

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