Tessa Court (00:04):

Welcome to the Brand Intelligence Podcast, the show where we pull back the curtain on some of the world’s smartest brands and content branding initiatives. We will dig into how great brand marketing is the flywheel of growth and how to manage employer branding, brand compliance, and governance while growing a business and a team. I’m your co-host Tessa Court, and today we’re taking a deep dive into the world of employer branding and why brand positioning and employee communication for current and prospective employees is so critical. Joining me today is Ashley Herd, who is a global HR and culture guru, and importantly founder of Manager Method. Welcome, Ashley.

Ashley Herd (00:39):

Thank you. Hello, Tessa.

Tessa Court (00:40):

Nice to see you. So full disclaimer, Ashley is my cousin and not by blood, but she’s one of the people that you would pick to be your family regardless. So I’m so glad you’re here with us today.

Ashley Herd (00:51):

My Australian family, our Australian neighbor’s. Not for long enough.

Tessa Court (00:55):

Exactly, exactly. And I think our family group chat is going to blow up when they see this episode, so we’ll have lots of little Easter eggs in there for them I think as well,

Ashley Herd (01:04):

But there can’t be enough of that.

Tessa Court (01:06):

Yeah, sounds good. So before we get into it, I’m big on theme songs and I would love to hear what your theme song is. I believe that everyone has a song that sums up their life or what makes them happy. I think you came into the family a little later than My wedding originally, but mine is Proud Mary. It was the first dance song for my wedding, and also it’s fun to sing in karaoke more importantly. So I’d love to hear what yours is.

Ashley Herd (01:29):

Very, very important criteria. Mine is Hard Way Home by Brandi Carlile. So one, when you listen to it, it’s super catchy. So that’s important criteria. It’s about this idea of having the realities of life that you often have to go down a harder path than you might anticipate. And in the song it talks about how you may want to take a choice too, fake your death and never be found, which is a thought that many of us have to have an escape at some point. It’s this idea that you got to persevere and it’s a fantastic song. That’s a bit of a deeper cut from my favorite Brandi Carlile.

Tessa Court (02:17):

I love that. I think that’s like my hospital fantasy where I have anesthetic and I just blank out. I think it’s a beautiful thing being able to do that and just take time out. So let’s talk about your background first and how did you get to be a thought leader on all things, people and culture, and what was your journey in doing that?

Ashley Herd (02:35):

I think a lot of people to be what’s called a thought leader, which I would never call myself that, but so I fully appreciate you doing that and family doing that to boot. But when you’re a thought leader, you often have thoughts in your head for a very long time. You may have thoughts, they may seem, oh, they seem like common sense, or who would want to hear from me? And so for me, I actually, I’ve been a lawyer, I’ve been in HR, but I started my career in sales and so we say everybody has their career quilt. For me, having that experience, literally doing cold calling and then in-person account executive roles before going to law school helped me lose a layer of probably self-consciousness. And so I started putting myself out there and so my one moment really was when I was general counsel of a company.

(03:19):

I was living abroad in Australia and the company was in the US and we had a top 10 sales, an email from the ceo e top 10 sellers, and I know how hard that is. So I sent each one an individual email and I was not head of HR yet. I was just general counsel and I just said, congratulations, I know what an accomplishment that is, so happy to have you on the team. And the responses, I mean literally multiple people are like, oh my god. When I got an email from the general counsel, I was like, oh, am I in trouble and

Tessa Court (03:46):

Am I going to get fired? Am I

Ashley Herd (03:47):

Going to get fired? And then I’ve never heard this from another executive before or that means so much that often those praises I didn’t send a gift card with. I’m sure now they wish I had, but I realized that issue of recognition and it was just a private email meant so much. And so I started, luckily had the liberties and I became head of HR and my company was fine with me start and do all this motivational stuff. So it was kind of my sandbox before then I started putting it on social media, but it was that moment realizing literally the power of congratulations and glad you’re on the team and how much that can mean

Tessa Court (04:22):

And being from the south, that would just be a thank you note, right? Southern Reserve obsessed with that. But it is those small moments and just acknowledging people because a lot of times, and I say this even to our management team, it’s like when it gets to management, usually you’re talking about bad stuff or things that are falling apart, but you have to remember all the good things that are happening every single day within your company and you’ve got to acknowledge that and you’ve got to talk about that. So you worked as a lawyer obviously, and having a sales background, I do think it is the best skill because it takes away all your fear and any sort of shame that anybody could possibly have. And then you started a TikTok channel and social media channels also on culture and branding and employer branding and talking about when I sum up, when I watch your episodes or read your newsletters, it’s really don’t be a jerk at work, right? It’s like be a human being, be a good person, do the right thing. But can you talk a little bit about how you took that step to breakout on your own to do I guess those social media episodes as well?

Listen to the full episode to see even more great conversation between Ashley Herd and Tessa Court…