For Swedish gaming giant King, ‘Seriously Playful’ is more than just a tagline
Think of big players in the gaming industry, and King’s name may not immediately spring to mind, but its hugely popular mobile games – such as Candy Crush Saga – certainly will. With more than 330 million monthly players in 200 countries, King’s HR team has overseen a rapid increase in employees, from fewer than 400 in early 2013 to more than 1,600 in 13 global offices this year.
This rapid growth wouldn’t have been possible without distilling the company’s values, culture and behaviour into an employee value proposition (EVP), say Stockholm-based Natalie Mellin and Robert Käck (pictured) from King’s global employer brand team. People Management spoke to them at the LinkedIn Talent Connect conference to find out why every organisation needs an EVP, and how the ‘Seriously Playful’ ethos shapes HR.
What is the difference between an EVP and an employer brand?
Robert Käck (RK): I feel like employer branding isn’t a single process, it’s everything we do – attracting, recruiting, developing and motivating staff. The EVP is more of a communication platform – what you go out and talk about, both externally and internally. For me, it’s about understanding who you are, what makes you special and who you want to be.
How did you translate King’s existing culture and values into an EVP?
RK: We had values but when I joined [in 2013] they weren’t being talked about – they were only living in a set of brand guidelines that marketing had produced. We did some research and tried out some ideas: it took us about three months to create the EVP, which felt like ages to the HR leadership team, but I’d been at other companies where it had taken years.
Natalie Mellin (NM): If you forget about the legal stuff or the ‘boring’ documents, it doesn’t come to life and it becomes something that’s plastered on. You need to look at everything and ask: how can we really make sure that we are living up to our values and our culture?
RK: I have a problem with companies that reveal their new values with a big bang. It’s strange, because people may have worked there for 25 years, and they say: ‘I know this culture already.’ And the CEO is on stage and reveals some new words. For us, ‘Seriously Playful’ has been a way of condensing the EVP and the values into something we can use.
King now recruits employees based against its values. How did hiring managers react to that change?
RK: During this phase of hyper growth, interviewing and recruiting according to values has always felt welcome, because you want to make sure you get the right culture fit when you’re growing so fast.
NM: It’s not about recruiting the same people. It’s important that we get a diverse workforce, but we believe you can do that by fitting into the values. It doesn’t mean that everyone is going to dress the same or have a bob, like me, or a beard, like Robert.
Why are you building an alumni network for former employees, when your staff attrition rate has been quite low so far?
NM: An employee’s journey doesn’t have to be within one organisation. If you have a great fit between the organisation and an employee, it’s not always a bad thing if they leave – they might learn something new and come back.
RK: The [gaming] community is rather small, so they want to continue to network with each other. We invite our alumni back into the office because we see them as good brand ambassadors. So when we open a new office, we invite them in for a tour, and pizza and beer – little touches that make a big difference. It’s something any organisation could do if it wanted to.