We spoke with Jannis Tsalikis, General Manager HR at Lautsprecher Teufel since mid-2019.

When it comes to human resources, Jannis has a lot of experience. Some of which he has already shared in his book "HR True Story". He has been in the people business for almost 20 years, including most recently over five years as VP HR DACH at VICE Media. Driven by his passion, he regularly goes beyond the scope of his job, especially in his specialty areas of HR marketing and employer branding.

“HR marketing and employer branding are very important for modern HR work and cannot be done casually”

He is co-initiator of the HR-BarCamp, author and founder of the blog "arbeitgebermarkenfreunde.de" - and was voted one of Germany's top 25 HR Influencers by Haufe Personalmagazin in 2020. In short: Jannis is passionate, bold and innovative - an HR professional with a vision.

Teufel & Honestly - Enabling the dialog

At Lautsprecher Teufel, Jannis is not only responsible for his HR team but also, to a certain extent, for the well-being of the entire "workforce". In this context, it is essential to maintain the internal dialog and to timely identify potentials and threats.

“HR is about people. It’s about putting people first.”

Maintaining a personal dialog with several hundred employees? That's virtually impossible. To combat this, Jannis uses the Honestly Engage solution to back up his experience with a numerical basis, thus giving employees a voice that can be heard.

“When a company grows and also spreads in location, you have to [...] conduct a survey to get a general overview - there's no other way.”

Annual surveys? Yes, but flexibly, please!

At Teufel, however, it is not just the number of employees that has risen rapidly in recent years. They have been spreading out internationally (Germany, Austria and China), as well. Teufel stands for diversity. Accordingly, the goal is to reach all employees - ideally in their own native language.

In this context, it was important to offer the questionnaire in German, English and Chinese during the last major employee survey. Here, it proved crucial to take into account and correctly classify both cultural and language differences in the translation of the questionnaire and in the interpretation of the responses.

“It is a concern of ours that all colleagues, regardless of location or origin, feel valued as part of the team.”

The possibility to translate all questionnaires, dashboards and reports easily and quickly into almost any language using the unique Honestly technology was a great advantage. This improved the validity of the international data.

Furthermore, Teufel benefited from the customizability of the Honestly platform in terms of content, as well. The annual survey was to be "short, snappy, pleasant, and simply good", but at the same time provide revealing insights into a wide range of employee engagement areas.

Thus, with Honestly, Teufel has managed to cover areas such as eNPS, sustainability, leadership and so forth with just a few questions, while not neglecting the questions on the risk assessment of psychological stress.

The instant polls - possible through Honestly's real-time data processing - have been regularly used by Teufel to manage urgent communication, such as regarding Covid-19, and to collect ad-hoc feedbacks on new developments and changes within the company, such as the introduction of an e-learning tool.

Strengthening the employer brand with Honestly

With the easy delivery of surveys and the outstanding preparation of data, Honestly makes an important contribution to employer branding at Teufel.

While many companies aim to have a unique employer brand, the challenges on the way often differ. The starting point in the evaluation is to look at the current state and then ask yourself what impression you want your own employer brand to make in the future.

“There is no formula for employer branding! There is no template with which you can master all challenges in human resources.”

To determine the current state, it helps to talk to employees, take a look at their workplace, environment and activities, and - guess what? - conduct surveys to get a meaningful overall picture. Further, to prevent deviating from a promising path toward the target state, it is important to stay in touch with all employees and measure the actual progress towards the target state.

“You always need the big picture to put the product "employer" in perspective. Simply chasing after trends propagated by personnel service providers is pointless.”

In a nutshell, a direct line with the employees is the be-all and end-all of creating an attractive employer brand. For a complete picture, it is best practice to manage internal communication via a wide variety of channels.

Conclusion

Employer branding is complex. Lautsprecher Teufel has, however, so far mastered this task successfully, not only because they are committed to a constant dialog with their employees. To build a good brand in a global business world, it is important to understand people's differing and even changing values. Trends are emerging from society that are giving rise to desires for home offices, more eye-to-eye contact, transparency and a sense of purpose.

Companies that identify such trends at an early stage are better able to meet the needs of employees. They, thereby, satisfy people's values, can develop an almost magnetic quality, and as a result have an easier time on the labor market. Employee surveys with the Honestly solution are a proven method of paving the way in this direction.