I recently had the privilege of attending the SHRM Talent Management Conference in Washington, D.C., and I was impressed by the caliber of conversation that took place in and out of the classroom, and on and offline. A lot of the dialogue focused on the tools and processes HR professionals are currently using to attract, engage and retain talent.

My colleague Matt Adam led a session on Innovation in Recruitment that touched on this very topic, and he outlined the steps for building an effective and proactive sourcing and recruitment strategy. To kick off his presentation, he asked members of the audience to raise their hands and indicate which components they were including in their current program. While it was not surprising to see that many attendees were using LinkedIn and making updates to their career sites, it was interesting to note how few hands were raised when he asked if they were tracking candidate behavior within their websites.

Understanding which sources are attracting qualified talent is essential in order to make recruiting budget allocations from a position of intelligence. However, if you are relying on candidates to tell you how they learned about your company—to self-select—the resulting data will almost certainly include inaccuracies.  So when you evaluate your marketing strategies to identify successful sources, how can you be sure you have the whole picture?

During his SHRM presentation, Matt shared an excellent example of how self-selection can skew an organization’s metrics. Take a look:

So, I’m challenging you to raise your hand.

If you don’t already track candidate behavior, is it at least an organizational goal to do so? Or, are you still relying on self-selection to track candidate behavior on your website? If you are ready to explore a more comprehensive and accurate measurement strategy, I encourage you to download our “Escape the Metrics Maze” white paper here.

I have been attending these types of events for over 10 years now, and as I reflect upon this conference, I am struck by how the way in which we communicate before, during and after conferences has evolved. A cocktail hour is now a TweetUp, with everyone swapping Twitter handles along with their business cards. Laptops and tablets are a “must” accessory during the session as attendees scramble to post a 140-character nuggets of knowledge to share with fans and followers. In real time, you can gain insight from other concurrent sessions to maximize your learning experience.

One consequence of this evolution is that it has changed how one prepares for conferences and interacts with speakers, fellow attendees and vendors. In order to take full advantage of the conference investment and experience, I recommend the following steps:

1) Define your conference networking goals. Consider your specific challenges, such as hard-to-fill job families, an ATS that is not meeting your business requirements or an employment brand that needs developing. Professionals at this conference will have experience that can provide solutions for your organizational needs.

2) Research potential connections. In addition to reviewing the sessions in your conference program, review the speakers’ blogs and connect with them on LinkedIn. With so many concurrent sessions to choose from, take time to research which content would be most relevant to the goals that you identified. You can also see if anyone is blogging or posting information on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn about attending. By reviewing these individuals’ profiles, you’ll be able to quickly recognize faces at conference so you can make your planned connections.

3) Minimize virtual distractions at the conference. If you are updating your social media statuses during the conference, the reality is, you most likely are also constantly receiving your work communication. While there are certainly fires to address and critical situations that require your immediate attention, try to be as present as possible at the conference. It is a unique opportunity to have so much talent, experience and expertise in one location, and make sure that you are taking full advantage of opportunities to connect. The more you learn at this conference, the better you will be able to share your expertise with your organization upon your return.

4) Share what you learn. Take advantage of the ability to share the knowledge you are gaining with not only fellow attendees, but also your contacts who are not able to attend the event. By sharing this information, you will be able to establish yourself as an industry expert.

5) Continue the conversation. The learning experience at a conference does not need to conclude with the closing speaker. Make sure to follow up via your social media channels to stay connected.

Communication is a two-way street, and being at a conference is about engaging in meaningful conversations on and offline. Building relationships is the reason we’re in the business – to meet, to learn and to grow ourselves and our organization to an even greater level.

I would love your thoughts and opinions on how you leveraged your recent conference networking experience to its fullest potential.

Jennifer Henley’s expertise in new business development combined with her vast knowledge of the recruitment communications landscape makes her a trusted authority in recruitment solutions and consultative client services. Jennifer collaborates with key decision makers on long-term recruitment strategies, metrics and branding initiatives.

She has driven successful recruitment campaigns for state and federal government departments, healthcare systems, financial sectors and service industries. A sought-after thought leader in the marketplace, Jennifer is also a featured speaker at HR communications industry conferences and events nationwide. Jennifer is a proud member of MAHCR, S.A.V.E. and SHRM and possesses the Professional in Human Resources (PHR) designation.

Ann Romney, the GOP candidate’s wife, organizes her family photos there. The U.S. Army recently issued a guide on how to use it. According to sources, it drove more traffic to its website in February 2012 than Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn and YouTube combined. 

If you’re out of the loop on what I’m talking about, it’s Pinterest, the third most popular media platform behind Facebook and Twitter.

What started as a passion project for obsessive collector and ex-Google employee Ben Silberman has become an online juggernaut. Pinterest attracts a female-dominated audience of fanatic “pinners” who share their favorite aesthetic images from kitchen decorating ideas to wedding gifts at a pace that is making its rivals do more than sit up and take notice.

One tech biz theorist, David Coursey of Forbes magazine, postulates that Facebook’s motivation for plunking down a cool $1 billion for the photo site Instagram was a blocking maneuver to hopefully steer the Pinterest-minded to an eventual new social component of the always morphing Facebook.

What does this all mean for you? If you’re a brand with a huge female target market, you need to pay attention. Brand heavyweights like Martha Stewart Living and Kate Spade have added, according to gyro marketer Melissa Pitts, “more than 19,000 and 34,000 followers respectively” since adding their presence on Pinterest.

Logical entries like Neiman Marcus and Ann Taylor have jumped in. A less obvious player, such as home improvement chain Lowe’s, is using images of interior design and do-it-yourself gardening projects to attract a wider audience. For the record, Lowe’s saw a 32% jump in followers by adding a Pinterest application to their Facebook page.

Venerable brand Kotex has taken a big leap by launching one of the first campaigns on the Pinterest site which resulted in a nearly 100% response. (You can view it here.)

What should you be thinking about?

If you’re in healthcare trying to reach a core female audience, wouldn’t this site make sense in your strategy?

Trying to diversify the gender ratio in your workforce? Pinterest has the potential to reap enormous benefits in socializing your brand.

The point is you can’t afford to ignore this overwhelming social trend. It’s more than a novelty or, blip on cyber trending reports. Research firm ComScore Inc. reports user rates go from 21 minutes on Twitter and 17 minutes on LinkedIn to 1½ hours on Pinterest.

Recently, Pinterest received a venture capital injection of $37.5 million. Those in the know say the undercurrent theme of Pinterest speaks to the next evolution of social branding. Talking Finger co-founder Bill DeRosa believes it acknowledges that “there’s a human at the end of the buying decision.” You might say it represents the increasing “humanization of commerce.”

I’m not inferring you pin all your hopes on attracting certain candidates through Pinterest. But as part of a fully explored strategy, it’s hard to picture a totally integrated game plan without at least considering the power of .

Based since 2000 at NAS’ Los Angeles office, Charles Davis has conceived and created award-winning recruitment marketing campaigns for a wide variety of clients. He is one of the company’s principal brand architects, responsible for developing powerful employment messaging to attract and engage top-tier talent. His conceptual abilities and creative executions have also been honored outside of the recruitment space by the domestic/international Clio Awards, as well as Hollywood Reporter “Key Art” Awards. You may contact Charles at cdavis@nasrecruitment.com.

By Cyndy Trivella

I had the pleasure of speaking with Arie Ball, the VP of Sourcing and Talent Acquisition at Sodexo. Sodexo is regarded as one of the premier employers in the U.S. market space and a highly sought-after company by job seekers. Sodexo is an organization that embraces social media and uses the social channels to their advantage by training employees to be brand ambassadors for their organization. It is truly an honor to speak with Arie.

Cyndy: I want to start off by asking this question. What does Sodexo do to be such a magnet for attracting job seekers?

Arie: We’re thrilled that you consider us a magnet for attracting job seekers. What’s interesting is that although Sodexo is the 21^st largest employer in the world, if you look back just a few short years ago, we did not have the brand recognition that would attract the talent we needed to grow our company. As a “b2b” company, with 400,000 employees in more than 80 countries worldwide, we were not a highly visible employer. We knew we had a great company to work for, but our challenge was to find ways to share that with potential candidates. For us, it was also important not only to become a magnet to attract talent, but also that once hired, we wanted to ensure we could retain that talent—by being able to deliver on the expectations that our candidates had when joining us. 

Becoming the magnet that both attracts and retains talent led us to focus on building and communicating an authentic employment brand.  We invested a great deal into articulating our global EVP, and then developed a robust branding strategy to communicate this to both internal employees and external candidates.  But what makes the critical difference is the authenticity of our employment brand—once hired, our employees need to experience all of the many values and attributes that attracted them to our company in the first place.  At Sodexo, this translates to a focus on professional development and mentoring, opportunities for career advancement, being a member of a diverse and inclusive workforce, and for a company that has strong values.

To help communicate our brand, we built an integrated online presence, including the development of a full Careers site that serves as the hub of all our online properties – from discipline-specific microsites to social media activities and the Sodexo Careers blog. We also engaged our own employees to share their experiences and communicate the brand—by involving them in industry events, encouraging their use of social media, and telling their stories via all of our career properties. After all, as our employees, they are the best spokespersons possible for our employer brand.  We also developed a focused media and awards strategy that positioned us as a top employer and a leader in our industry, which also helped us attract talent.

 And, we considered demographic and education trends that indicated pending skills gaps—which led us to expand our brand strategy to include working at the high school level through industry-related organizations such as ProStart, BCA, the MultiCultural Food and Hospitality Alliance, Net Impact and STEM, which works with high school students nationally to explore careers in our industry, and the National Society for Minorities in Hospitality.  Our goal is to build relationships with students early on, helping encourage them to continue their education, shape career choices and build brand awareness. With the development of our award-winning Future Leaders internship program, we created opportunities for students within Sodexo and, through contributions to Dan Schawbel’s Student Branding Blog, we potentially reach 10,000 students each month with job search and career tips.

Cyndy: What was it that tipped the scale to make Sodexo a major player in the social media space?

Arie: We have always been interested in exploring new ways of sourcing and attracting talent to our company. Part of this is driven by the fact that as a “b2b” company, our “product” to our clients is our people. Each year, we fill approximately 4,500 management and executive-level positions, so to meet our current needs and our growth goals truly does require that we explore all avenues to build our pipelines of talent—both by traditional means and also by being open to embracing innovation.

That forward-thinking outlook has become an integral part of our culture, and as a result, we were an early adopter of social media for recruiting.  Our success in this area is really a result of the way our entire team embraced it, and the excitement they generated throughout our company—to increase involvement of our employees in using social media to communicate our EVP, and encourage candidates to explore our company, culture and career opportunities. 

We also believe that finding great talent means being accessible in the media that our candidates use. So for us, social media provides our candidates with the ability to connect with us via whichever platform they feel comfortable using.  Our launch this month of our new mobile app is an extension of that philosophy—with the huge explosion of mobile, we wanted to make it easy for our candidates, and also our internal employees, to be able to connect with us, immerse themselves in our culture, search and apply for jobs, all from their mobile devices.

Therefore, our social media initiatives were launched to complement our traditional recruiting strategies to improve our ability to meet Sodexo’s needs for talent, now and into the future.

Cyndy: Your employment brand is solid and envied by many companies. How did you identify what your employment value proposition was and then use that information to create the brand?

Arie: As a global company, Sodexo places tremendous value on maintaining a cohesive commercial and employment brand across all of the countries we serve. Therefore, when we set out to develop our employee value proposition, we brought together a multi-national, multi-disciplinary team that sought to articulate a global EVP—one that spoke to all of our employees, regardless of which country they worked in. Our EVP emerged based on a shared understanding of what our employees and candidates wanted and expected of Sodexo as their employer, and was also drawn from the reality of what they experience as Sodexo employees. We spent time trying to understand what candidates were seeking from potential employers and what our employees expected of us. This led us to the five pillars of our EVP – which describe the way that we work with our candidates and our employees in the five key areas of interaction throughout the employee life cycle: Recruiting, Welcoming, Living, Growing and Rewarding.

Once we had articulated the EVP, we developed a robust strategy to build and communicate our employer brand, as noted in Question #1 above.

Cyndy: I have a speculative question for you. How do you believe the field of human resources will be structured 10 years from now?

Arie: Given the pace of change in our profession in just a few years, it is really hard to predict what HR will look like in 10. That said, I would imagine that there will be a continued demand for HR to demonstrate its value to the business, as a key strategic advisor and partner that contributes to achieving company growth goals. I would expect to see more and more of the tactical and administrative HR functions to be provided by specialists, allowing corporate HR leaders to be strategic partners helping to shape the future success of the company.  And I would expect that the rapid pace of technological innovations will continue to impact our profession going forward—in ways that we can only begin to imagine today.

Cyndy: What do you see as the next big thing that will make us re-evaluate how companies recruit and retain people in today’s business world?

Arie: Right now mobile is hot. With a majority of adults using mobile devices to do everything from connect with friends and family through texting and social media to checking their bank accounts to shopping and managing their travel … mobile is the place to be right now for recruiting, if you’re not there already. In fact, we recently launched the first mobile app that allows candidates to apply for jobs directly through the Sodexo Jobs app on their smartphone or iPad. This new tool will not only help external candidates learn more about Sodexo and apply for our jobs, but our employees also now have a tool to help them explore, build and grow their careers within Sodexo. Through the app, users can learn about job opportunities, interact with our recruiters, immerse themselves in our culture, and search and apply for jobs … all from their smartphone, anywhere, anytime. In the first two weeks of its launch, we have had more than 1,000 downloads. It’s an exciting time to be on the cutting edge of these technologies.  As for the future, it’s hard to say what’s next. But I would certainly keep an eye on mobile. Technology, trends and consumer expectations are growing rapidly in this area.

Cyndy: Arie, thank you for your very informative and interesting conversation around best practices for recruiting and retention. You have certainly hit upon some critical areas that all companies should be keying in on as they are considering what they need to do now to set themselves up for success in the future of talent acquisition and retention. It’s wonderful to hear that Sodexo is leading the charge and making tremendous strides in these areas. We appreciate you sharing these best practice tactics with us.

Arie Ball is the VP of Sourcing and Talent Acquisition at Sodexo. Building on more than 25 years of operational management experience with Sodexo, in 2004, Arie Ball assumed a leadership role within human resources as VP, Sourcing and Talent Acquisition. In this role, she leads the company’s first-ever centrally managed, cross-divisional recruitment organization that focuses on sourcing, attracting and recruiting top talent to Sodexo, and on identifying internal employees for promotional opportunities. The Talent Acquisition Group, a high-performing team, has become an award-winning organization, recognized for innovative approaches for attracting and recruiting the best talent the industry has to offer.

Cyndy began her career in Human Resource Communications on Madison Avenue in New York City over 12 years ago. Prior to that, she worked in corporate human resources as a recruiter and as a training and development coordinator. In addition, Cyndy has multiple years of media planning and account strategy experience at a management level from both the media and agency sides. She currently resides as the director and branch manager for NAS Recruitment Communications in Kansas City.

Cyndy holds a BA in psychology and mass communications and is currently matriculating towards a MA in psychology.

As you steer the course of your branding strategy, what lessons can you learn from the launch of Titanic in 3D?

1)     A good story, well told, will always appeal to your audience. Over a dozen movies have been released in the past 100 years telling the story of the sinking of the Titanic. To this day, people continue to be fascinated by the unsinkable ship that sunk. On top of that, a good love story always appeals to audiences. Think about the elements of your employment brand that are consistent factors in attracting your target audience. Does your company offer exceptional opportunities for growth and advancement? Have excellent perks and benefits? Support a rewarding mission that gives back to the community? Make sure the anchor of your story shines through in your recruitment message.

2)     Your brand may need a refresh to keep people talking. The new Titanic 3D movie will contain the same plot and actors as the original film, yet the visual experience will be enhanced. This change gives fans of the movie a reason to revisit a beloved story and experience it in a new and exciting way. It may not be necessary to start from scratch and build a new employment brand to attract a new audience. You may benefit from a refresh that adds a new element or carries out your current theme in a different way. This will allow job seekers who previously considered employment with your organization to revisit the reasons why your opportunities may be the right fit for them today.

3)     So you have brand recognition, but awareness is relevant. There has been a buzz surrounding Titanic 3D for quite some time, and the news coverage of the anniversary of the historical event will only add to the film’s publicity. Yet with all this coverage, the studio still sought out creative and innovative ways to promote their film, such as utilizing Facebook log-out page advertisements. Why make that extra investment? Because it is important to keep your message in front of your target audience to keep a pipeline of interested movie goers, and of interested candidates. You may have a strong name recognition in your community, but you should continue to take advantage of opportunities to remind jobseekers why your organization is an employer of choice.

4)     Keep your testimonials realistic. Kate Winslet has been on press tours lately promoting Titanic 3D, but that doesn’t mean everything she has revealed has been glowing. A lot of news and celebrity gossip sites have been buzzing with headlines that Kate hates “My Heart Will Go On,” Celine Dion’s famous theme song from the original Titanic movie, in fact, going so far as to say the song makes her want to throw up. This might appear to be a sound byte that would make a PR department cringe, but it has actually caused a lot of people to talk about the song, the film and, of course, the new release. While I am not suggesting that you frame a recruitment message around negative comments from your employees, the reality is that employee stories should be honest and reflect the true picture of what it is like to work for your organization. The more realistic testimonials are, the better job they can do in attracting the right type of talent for your positions.

5)     Use events and anniversaries to remind internal and external candidates about your brand messaging. The 100-year anniversary of the Titanic’s tragic voyage is an exceptional time to release a new version of Titanic, both from the human element of honoring this important historical occurrence and from the business aspect of capitalizing upon the renewed interest in this event. Is your company celebrating an important milestone? Is something happening in the news now that is relevant to your mission? Take advantage of events that are already occurring to remind your current employees about your employment value proposition and to let potential employees know about your workplace.

I encourage you to join me in the theater for the 3D viewing of Titanic, and I do suggest that you bring your own tissues. I will also challenge you to target your audience, refresh your brand as needed, keep your message relevant, use realistic employee stories and celebrate milestones.

Kendra Pearson is passionate about helping companies attract and retain top talent. She assists organizations with perfecting their employment messaging, utilizing the right channels to deploy that message and then measuring the ROI. Kendra has been with NAS Recruitment Communications for six years, and currently serves as director of the Raleigh, North Carolina office.

From this white paper, you will learn:

• What is Cost-Per-Hire? And how do you calculate it?
• Uses for the Cost-Per-Hire metric
• Why you should consider Recruiting Cost Ratio
• Important Factors for Assembling a Cost-per-Hire metric
• and more!

Now that the report is live, we’d like to share it with all of you as well.

 What do your recruitment communications channels say about your organization’s identity?

Do you accurately portray your workforce culture and employment brand? If you had a stranger “audit” your career site, recruiting materials, advertising and social media channels, what kind of score would they give you for maintaining the same voice, personality and workforce culture?

If your approach is inconsistent, it’s likely that potential candidates will consider your organization insincere, generic or even untrustworthy. And now, more than ever before, it’s critical to share your organization’s “true voice” as 85% of all candidates now search the Internet for ways to learn more about you before they interview. So why not ensure that they are prepared with the “real” you so they can self select in or out.

One of the easiest ways to ensure consistent identity is to begin telling your company’s story and sharing what your workforce culture is really like through social media. This story format is especially powerful for sharing this information because human beings, even in the Internet age, are hard-wired to listen to stories. Stories sell. And, social media is a perfect vehicle for telling stories while also offering you a global audience. Here are a variety of ways to share your story through texts, tweets, blogs, videos, podcasts and pictures. The list and ideas are endless – so share your ideas as well! 

1. Your leader’s stories are always a great way to share your company story, purpose and mission. To be compelling, make sure it is a genuine story that speaks directly to the workforce and the pride and purpose they feel to support the company’s cause. I often share the story of the janitor who worked for NASA – when people asked him what he did, he shared that he enables man to be sent to the moon. Pride and purpose sell!

2. Your employees’ career-path stories: Nothing is more aspirational than stories of successful employee career paths. One of my favorite stories I’ve encountered while conducting focus groups for Hyatt Hotel and Resorts was about an employee who started working for Hyatt as a dishwasher barely speaking English who now is a GM in one of the busiest hotels in their chain! What a GREAT story – it completely sells the workforce, training and promotions from within.

3. Your customer’s stories: Pride in what one does is the greatest story of all. Telling stories of how your employees interact with your customers and leverage your product and/or services can be heartwarming. And told through a combination of the customer’s and employee’s eyes is storytelling at its finest. The healthcare worker who saves lives; the engineering team that creates the fireproof material to protect firemen from flames; a customer service representative who connects a mother to her son fighting overseas in Iraq. Priceless.

4. Your employees giving back to the community: Takes pictures, videos and share stories with pride about how your organization supports your employees as they give back to the communities in which they serve. At the ERE conference last week, one of the speakers shared her story about an applicant they had interviewed who was on the fence as to which offer to accept. “Our offer was less money, but they chose us! Why? Because they had found a video on our Facebook page of one of our teams participating in a 5k run for their cause. It was obvious, the applicant shared, that the teams cared about each other and their cause and the company was supporting them with t-shirts, hats, swag and fans!” That made the difference.

5. Video contests: Ask your employees to videotape why they love working for your company. Set teams up and have a contest to see which team can produce the best, most accurate picture of why your company is a great place to work. In the context of the videos, not only will they paint a great picture of the “why’s,” but they’ll also be sharing teamwork and collaboration at the same time. Collaboration sells!

6. Pictures say a thousand words! Share pictures of your employees in the community, at the workplace, helping others, at company parties and events, with their customers. Having pictures that help your potential candidates envision themselves interacting with your organization, your employees and your customers helps them to self select in to your workforce, or self-select out (which is not always a bad idea!).

 Using your organization’s true voice through employee stories will market your employer brand through social media and create unique, compelling and authentic messages. It will also offer you the opportunity to listen as you build these stories and your employees, your customer and the community you serve engage in storytelling with you. But remember, just because you build it, doesn’t mean they will come. Creating heart-warming and emotional connections are only as good as the people following you on your social media channels. So don’t forget to build strategies to engage your audience and drive them to your sites…again and again. Use push and pull tactics to keep people involved and coming back. Then share, listen and learn.

 Kristine Rhodes brings more than 20 years of marketing and recruitment communications experience to her leadership role at NAS, where she directs strategic talent engagements, planning and consultation for global and enterprise-wide clients. Kristine has helped a wide array of Fortune 1000 companies develop and implement highly successful talent acquisition and communications programs.

 Kristine is also a nationally recognized speaker on employment branding, talent acquisition and emerging issues of interest to human resource executives.

It has been an exciting two days of learning and collaboration at the Spring ERE Expo in San Diego. Julia Gomez, former Director of People Analytics & Engagement at JetBlue Airways, kicked off with the keynote presentation “Creating a Brandful Workforce.” Julia showcased employee culture videos and shared with the ERE audience the strong leveraging that employees can bring to an organization as brand ambassadors, with a genuine and emotional connection.

For me, this conference was about exploring the latest trends, emerging issues and networking with peers on the cutting edge of talent acquisition. Barriers are dropped and open and honest dialogue is prevalent, as each of us has the intent to learn. I was engaged in an interesting dialogue around social embeddedness and how employers are finding how apparent this space is with potential hires. Another valuable conference session was the “Recruiting Excellence Awards,” giving recognition and great tips from organizations that included United Parcel Post, Marriott, Ernst & Young, Broward Health and many others.

My take away from this conference was all about messaging, marketing and measuring, and how it all impacts not only employers, but the candidate’s experience as well. There is a wealth of new emerging solutions and these types of conference allow me to network with my HR peers and validate. All in all, a tremendous conference of sharing experiences.

As an account leader, Greg builds targeted recruitment marketing strategies to ensure that effective brand messaging reaches candidates active in today’s ever-evolving digital, social and mobile environments. He also helps employers measure return on investment and adjust their strategies in order to engage the best talent at the lowest possible cost per hire. Greg’s hands-on, client-focused approach enables organizations of all sizes to create and convey employment brand messaging that reaches and resonates with today’s most sought after talent.

Have you seen the 2011 Best Of Creative video from NAS Recruitment Communications?

A "Beary" Cute Idea for National Nurses Week!

By Stephanie Hartman

National Nurses Week begins May 6th and runs through May 12th. The event provides recognition and reward to the hardworking nursing staff in your community. Don’t wait a minute longer to start planning a special celebration for your nursing staff!

While May is right around the corner, you still have time to show your appreciation for your team. There are several ways to celebrate National Nurses Week. Listed below are a few suggestions from The American Nurses Association to help you promote this special week in a simple and affordable way. If you are looking for additional event ideas, visit The American Nurses Association for a complete list.

• Host a special celebration or reception to recognize and honor the nurses in your community. Nurses can be found in hospitals, home care, schools, homeless shelters or clinics. NAS PRIDE can provide you with awards, imprinted balloons, napkins, cups, banners and a special memento for all who attend the event. The possibilities are endless!
• Purchase promotional products for National Nurses Week. Items such as RN pins, key rings, T-shirts, mugs, buttons, etc. will provide recognition in honor of these amazing professionals during this week of dedication. If you would like additional ideas, feel free to browse our online catalog or contact your NAS PRIDE expert for gift ideas.
• To help educate your local community, contact your local hospitals, schools or libraries to set up a display for National Nurses Week using several different types of promotional product items. The most popular items for this type of event are custom pins, T-shirts, tote bags, nurse bend pens, hand sanitizers, seed packets, etc. to help support this special occasion.
• Get your company involved in sponsoring a health fair, conducting preventive screenings in underserved areas or organizing a walk-a-thon. NAS PRIDE can provide branded T-shirts, hats, health registers, preventive brochures, etc.

Once a year we get the opportunity to thank hard-working nurses for their dedication to helping others. Putting together a celebration for the nursing profession can be easy, affordable and rewarding. NAS PRIDE is here to help make your event go off without a hitch. Feel free to contact me or your account manager to get this process started. We would love to hear from you.

Do you have burning questions about promotional products that you can’t seem to get answered? Leave them here in the comments and I’ll address them in an upcoming blog!

Stephanie Hartman is the Account Executive for the Premium Recognition Incentive Division for Employees (PRIDE).  She has been working to provide unique, innovative and effective promotional products for NAS Clients since 2001. You can contact her at shartman@nasrecruitment.com.