When it comes to attracting talent, a corporate message will never outmatch an authentic employee story. Glynnis Quek, who leads employment brand programs and campaigns for Google in the Asia-Pacific region, has the data to prove it.
"Candidates are six times more likely to trust feedback from an employee as compared to the corporate brand channel," she notes. Yet despite this compelling evidence, most organisations struggle to activate their employees as advocates. The gap isn't between wanting to and not wanting to. It's understanding how to make it easy, safe, and rewarding.
Glynnis recently joined the VideoMy Pod to chat with hosts David Macciocca (VideoMy Founder) and Emma Lang (EB Lead at Haleon) about how Google has turned their people into their most effective recruitment tool.
Glynnis's first insight challenges a common assumption: most employees want to share their stories. The problem lies elsewhere.
"A lot of employees do want to have wonderful stories to share and they do want to share that out on social, but many times they're not confident or they don't know how to go about sharing. They don't want to be overexposing themselves or saying something wrong, which may land them in trouble with their companies."
Add generational differences into the mix, younger employees comfortable with social media platforms versus tenured employees unfamiliar with them, and the challenge becomes clear.
"You have to think about the inter-generational mix of employees," Glynnis explains. "Many of these employees need a little bit of guidance or perhaps some level of encouragement to be present on those channels."
Glynnis's most powerful reframe? "Think of yourself as an endorsement marketer, not as an employment brand manager or campaign manager, but someone who is in the endorsement marketing space. Treat your employees as creators. They are content creators for your company."
This mindset shift changes everything. You're not extracting content from employees, you're partnering with them to create authentic stories that align with corporate narratives.
"You are building a mechanism, a machine that is able to bring their voices through authentically and bring critical key messages that align with your corporate narratives to life."
Before launching an employee program, Glynnis emphasises understanding three critical things: content approval processes, the stakeholders involved in reviews and approvals, and how employment brand narratives connect to corporate messages.
"A deep knowledge of that is really important for a program manager. If you're able to connect the dots in these three spaces, that's where you'll be able to build out a really efficient and a powerful program."
Once you understand the framework, make it simple for employees. Meet one-on-one to understand their story. Ask casual questions about their career path. Build the narrative together. Most importantly, remove the fear by showing them exactly what can and can't be said.
Glynnis discovered the secret sauce: "My program is working well when employees come back saying, 'Thank you. I really loved working with you and being part of this program. I hope you can feature me again.'"
What creates that loyalty? Recognition. Make it prestigious. Share their profiles on official corporate channels, amplify stories via LinkedIn, have recruiters amplify their work.
Then comes the game-changer: tie participation to performance reviews. "If every employer brand can tie it to performance reviews with hiring managers, even if it's just acknowledgement, you're likely to have a successful program. The mechanism of acknowledgement and recognition is a huge motivator."
Glynnis came from marketing but had to learn what recruitment teams actually care about. "Marketers care about top-of-funnel metrics like awareness and engagement. Recruiters care about applications and hires. I was confounded about how top-funnel impact connects to lower funnel conversion."
The answer? Track everything through UTM parameters or API integration. Then tie it to recruitment metrics: time to hire, pass-through rates, quality of applications, referral increases, InMail response rates, and ultimately, retention and attrition. "If you're able to track all of these, those are wonderful data points to convey the recruitment impact of employee advocacy to your recruiting partners."
Finally, Glynnis tackles the Google-specific challenge: moving past the legacy narrative of free food and perks. "The Google before and the Google now are two very different entities. What happened 20 years ago is not what we are today. Our employees these days are really focused on the work they're doing, the innovation, the team culture, the work environment."
By shifting the narrative from perks to impact, Google attracts candidates seeking meaningful work rather than just benefits. That authenticity, employees naturally gravitating toward talking about their real experience, is what makes the entire program credible.