Memos by Daggerfinn | The #1 Employer Branding Podcast

The job market is cooling and opportunities for remote work are beginning to plateau - despite high demand for these kinds of jobs amongst a certain cohort of the US working population.   But what does this mean in the context of the greater US economy?   To learn more about Daggerfinn's employer branding and growth strategies practice, visit us at https://daggerfinn.com

Inflated job titles are beginning to appear in larger swaths of the workforce as companies use any mechanism available to them to try to attract and retain the talent that they need.   But are inflated job titles a risk to the economy? Inflated job titles are surely a risk to the individual workers, right? We explore.   To learn more about Daggerfinn's employer branding and growth strategies pract...

The June jobs report (JOLT) was released this morning and the data indicated some interesting dynamics in the labor market. Layoffs are up slightly, despite being at near historic lows, and the unemployment rate remained steady at 3.6%.   But underneath all these numbers is the labor participation rate - a look at the number of people who are working or actively looking for work. This is a number...

The virtues of a recurring revenue stream into your business cannot be understated. The predictability of recurring revenue allows you, as a business operator, to make better decisions around all aspects of your operations. Recurring revenue establishes a one-to-one relationship with a customer that significantly brings down customer acquisition costs, which also bumps up multiples when its time t...

Are we, as marketers, wasting our time in today's digital world if we focus all our attention on brand building? Is brand marketing dead as a concept? Are we better off using data to drive conversion and leveraging a more performance marketing aptitude when it comes to helping our companies and organizations?   To learn more about Daggerfinn's employer branding and growth strategies practice, visi...

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has bought Twitter for $44 Billion - in a deal that has surprised many and also not surprised many as well. The deal, which has been in the works for a couple of weeks, sets up stark changes across the political and social landscape. What is going to happen next?   To learn more about Daggerfinn's employer branding and growth strategies practice, visit us at https://daggerfinn....

Tesla is facing several headwinds to its financial performance, including price increases for raw materials, production constraints with the shutdown of its Shanghai factory, and the distraction of Elon Musk's Twitter takeover bid. With so much going on at the moment what is going to happen after Tesla's earnings call?   To learn more about Daggerfinn's employer branding and growth strategies prac...

Taco Bell has re-released its popular Mexican Pizza product to much fanfare and excitment. First brought to market in 1985, the Mexican Pizza has been on and off the Taco Bell menu for decades. The pandemic supply chain issues meant that the product had to be removed again, but Taco Bell has brought it back, understanding demand, and cloaked its return with brand codes that a certain demographic i...

Peloton has just announced that starting June 1 it will be raising subscription fee pricing for its streaming content while lowering the price of bikes and other workout equipment. All this is in response to the new CEO's strategy for achieving scale and delivering more valuable content.   But this raises a question: what happens to existing customers? Are they grandfathered in and locked into the...

Etsy, the popular retail platform, has announced it wants to raise seller transaction fees from 5% to 6%, angering sellers on the platform. Now, more than 14,000 sellers are striking in response to the move.   Has Etsy shot itself in the foot? Has it made the right call by imposing its new fees on sellers? What is Etsy doing for sellers on the platform in exchange for the higher fees?   To learn m...

Walmart has announced that it will be bumping up salaries for truck drivers to $110,000 per year - and is incentivizing staff from other departments to take a 12-week course to learn to become a certified truck driver and join its in-house fleet. While this is great news for the staff members getting more money for an important job, it is important to think about the incidence of this tactic - who...

Is Farfetch positioning itself to become the Amazon of the luxury sector with its investment in Neiman Marcus? How significant is a $200 million injection into the struggling brick-and-mortar luxury retailer? Having IPO'd in 2018, Farfetch is showing great financials and incredible levels of profit in its most recent financial disclosures - which speaks to how much demand for luxury products there...

Using power and money to influence society and business outcomes is nearly a textbook definition for what an Oligarch is and does - so, is Elon Musk displaying Oligarch-like behavior? After the news that Elon Musk has taken a nearly 10% stake in Twitter, questions are coming up around his intentions with such a significant stake in the social media platform - and whether he'll use his newfound pos...

Starbucks, with returning CEO Howard Schultz at the helm, has announced that it will be stopping its share buyback program and intends to reinvest that excess cash back into workers and stores. The question is whether this is just a PR tactic or whether there is real intent to address some of the labor and operational issues the company is facing. Even without the suspension, doesn't Starbucks hav...

Amazon workers at the company's JFK8 facility in Staten Island have voted to form the company's first U.S. union in a decision that disrupts Amazon's traditional way of doing business and hiring infrastructure. What are the benefits of unionization and how does this decision change Amazon's desirability as a hiring organization in the region? New York City is one of the largest economies in the wo...

Companies vie all year to be named to the Great Companies To Work For lists, and for good reason, historical stock market data indicates that there could be a talent premium or alpha to be captured - the best companies to work for typically outperform the greater S&P 500 index.   But is this all there is to the story? Do great companies outperform because they are great places to work, or do the b...

Shelves at retail stores are bare again, and probably barer than they were at the start of the pandemic when there was a rush to buy everything in anticipation of the unknown. Surprisingly, more than 2 years into the pandemic, we are still seeing supply chain issues that show no signs of resolving. As a result, consumers are having to switch brands in order to make sure they can still get what the...

According to a recent CNBC article, 20% of respondents would take a 10% pay cut to work for themselves or have better hours. 56% of respondents would trade higher pay for a company with more stability. These two statistics catalyzed a few thoughts on the state of the labor markets and long-term thinking about careers that we explore in this episode. To learn more about Daggerfinn's employer brandi...

Workers between the ages of 16 and 24 have seen their wages increase 10.6% when comparing January of 2022 against January of 2021. The average wage gain across all workers is 4% over the same time period. So why are younger workers raking in such a large wage gain? There are a few reasons: 1) an aggregate response from the workforce to bring younger workers back, 2) increases from a lower base, an...

Stolichnaya, the popular vodka brand, has decided to rebrand as Stoli. This comes off the back of immense public pressure on Russian brands as a result of the Ukrainian invasion that started just a few weeks ago. In the media, we've seen videos and images of boycotts of Russian products - with scenes of bars in New York City, for example, pouring Stoli down the drain as a show of solidarity with U...

Data gathered from a recent study we conducted for a client on the jobs market highlighted that worker optimism regarding the state of employment is extremely high - not many people were worried about losing their jobs in 2022. With looming interest rate hikes, the cost of capital inevitably rising, geo-political tensions, and much uncertainty, this optimism could be short-lived, especially if the...

A recent survey that we conducted across a diverse set of workers in the US highlighted that there has been a shift in worker mentality around preferences. Where at the start of the pandemic workers wanted more protections around remote work, today the preferences are leaning towards compensation. Looking very specifically at knowledge workers, who on average have higher base compensation than the...

Ryan Miller, Career Services Executive at Employment BOOST (https://employmentboost.com), joins us for a conversation on the value of employee support during and after layoffs, how outplacement services fit into a severance agreement, and how outplacement services could have helped with the Better.com round of layoffs a few weeks ago.  To learn more about Daggerfinn's employer branding and growth...

New York City, a top 20 global economy by GDP when comparing cities and countries, is about to introduce a mandate that makes employers present salary information on job descriptions. Is this a good idea? The verdict is varied depending on which side of the equation you ask. On the one hand, candidates will appreciate the transparency. On the other hand, employers will have to deal with different...

Hiring in 2022 as it relates to candidates' preferences for benefits and flexibility could look different to the last two years, according to new survey data we collected for a client. What this means for organizations facing a labor shortage is very interesting. How should you navigate the job market in 2022? The options could be to lean into compensation, growth and/or industry perception. To le...