ABOUT Maccabi
Maccabi Healthcare Services, the second largest health services provider (HMO) in Israel, is recognized by the public for its innovative medical services, excellent medical treatment, a highly professional team of doctors, nurses, and healthcare professionals, efficient administration staff, and more. But not many are aware of the strong sense of belonging and pride that Maccabi employees feel for their employer.
Maccabi is a workplace that combines organizational resilience with a warm sense of family and community, which enables its employee to freely express themselves, take initiatives, and ultimately make a difference. The COVID-19 pandemic strengthened even more the sense of purpose and involvement for the benefit of the community felt by Maccabi’s employees, giving more meaning to the Maccabi spirit, the same spirit that characterizes the organization and symbolizes the sense of responsibility, involvement, and care.
Maccabi decided to communicate this spirit to the community of potential candidates as well as strengthen it among its employees. To this end, the healthcare provider decided to formulate an effective employer–branding strategy aimed at highlighting its benefits as a sought-after employer, not only as a leading healthcare organization.
Strategy
The Maccabi employer-branding strategy comprised three main phases: research, EVP, and content strategy, and implementing the work plan and employer brand values throughout the different channels- internal and external.
THE PROCESS
Research
This stage is the foundation of any employer–branding strategy. In the case of Maccabi, Xtra Mile studied and distilled the key values and strengths that distinguish the organization. It comprised in-depth and organization-wide evaluations that included interviews, focus groups, and personal conversations with dozens of employees and managers.
EVP and the creation of Employer brand strategy and Language
Creating a uniform message for a large and geographically distributed organization like Maccabi, that caters to an enormous number of roles and professions, is no simple task. However, the study conducted among Maccabi employees unsurprisingly revealed one clear value, which was used to develop the entire language. The value was "Mission."
Maccabi's people feel they are in a daily mission to care for the health of its customers, their families, and the community at large. Alongside other values that emerged from the survey, this was one of the main reasons why they chose to work at Maccabi. At Xtra Mile we distilled the Mission and other values into the Maccabi story, creating messages that talked about “A mission that starts with people.”
Formulating and implementing the work plan and Maccabi's employer-brand language
After creating the new employer-brand language, its messages, and ideas, it was time to begin implementation in the field. The work plan, which was prepared by Maccabi's HR and Employee Experience Department in collaboration with Xtra Mile, focused on three main target audiences:
- Maccabi employees – applying the language and values to Maccabi’s employee experience and in internal communications
- Active candidates looking for a job – designing and implementing recruitment-related activities and onboarding in social media and digital channels
- General public and the community – promoting Maccabi's differentiating messages among all target audiences, including, for example, by creating a community of Maccabi ambassadors and targeted activities on social media and other channels
Campaign and Key Activities
The implementation strategy selected by Maccabi's HR and Employee Experience Department was based on first implementing the USPs and messages within the organization. This was followed by efforts to convey the message to potential employees and customers in social networks and via digital campaigns.
The slogan “A mission that starts with people” shone the spotlight on Maccabi's human capital and on their deep sense of fulfillment and vocation, while at the same time speaking to both the health service provider’s members and the community at large.
To integrate the media language and new values internally and externally. The work plan featured interactive and experiential activities that increased Maccabi’s employees’ involvement while connecting them to the messages. These included meetings with managers, interview and onboarding workshops, a marketing kit for recruiting managers, personal branding workshops, online orientation days for new employees, and more. The goal of these activities was to tell the Maccabi story through its people and hear their true voices so that the wide range of our target audiences would understand that authentic sense of belonging.
Campaign and Key Activities
The great success of both digital and physical activities attests to the genuine involvement of Maccabi employees and the sense of pride they feel for belonging to the organization. Participation was above and beyond expectations and generated great buzz on social media, leading to a sharp increase in the number of job applicants.
Last year, campaigns reached an audience of app 4 million in Facebook and LinkedIn, with more than 200,000 people involved in comments, shares and like to the content delivered in Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram!
Here are some other examples of the exposure gained:
Social channels
- Engagement and involvement – the activity of Maccabi’s employees in social networks was impressive. Their Facebook and LinkedIn pages were filled with personal stories, videos, podcasts, and pictures. All these reflected their spirit and deep sense of commitment and resulted in great success. Their organic posts reached amazing exposure, with an impressive engagement rate of 30%!
- Major organic exposure – the Maccabi People Facebook page, which was created immediately after the launch of the new employer brand, reached thousands of followers after one year, and exceptional organic success with dozens of Likes, Comments and Shares for each of the posts published, with an emphasis on employees stories of course (and there are still lots of stories to be shared).
- Connecting to the message – thousands of Maccabi employees are connected to the story delivered through the main messages and convey it both internally and externally. They tell their personal stories, share them with friends, and strengthen their bond to the organization.
Digital
- Campaigns based on employee stories – digital campaigns were a significant factor for the recruitment team, and the main channel for hiring many employees, from doctors and nurses, through pharmacists, to technology professionals. These campaigns are based on the true stories of Maccabi employees, podcasts, pictures, and video clips, which tell their personal journey in the organization and why they recommend working at Maccabi.
Communities
- Maccabi's nurses’ ambassadors – an amazing storytellers group of nurses help promote every initiative and recruitment of potential candidates. These are internal ambassadors whose involvement and sense of responsibility made the recruitment ‘tone’ more authentic, connecting to candidates and creating a sense of identity. In light of their success, Maccabi is currently creating additional communities in other areas.
Campaign and Key Activities
There is nothing like a crisis to prove the sense of mission and commitment of Maccabi’s people. From the beginning of the pandemic, Maccabi's personnel were fully committed to fighting the virus, devoting their time to testing people, providing responses to their members, treating patients and, more recently, participating in the national vaccination campaign.
It appears that the employer-branding process was carried out just in time. Internal and external communications and the tools Maccabi obtained reinforced its position, enabling the organization to recruit hundreds of people within only a few months. This meant that the healthcare service provider was ready for the challenges of the ‘new normal,’ the increasing number of sick people, and for the vaccination campaign. The employer-branding project created a strong human infrastructure for Maccabi, that enables it to optimally cope with its current tasks while gearing towers times of uncertainty and new challenges.
Today, Maccabi continues to provide its members with the best medical service. As for its people, it affords them a stable workplace with job security, comprehensive welfare benefits, and a strong sense of mission.
