Rebuilding our employer brand with employee insights: A journey of evolution and alignment

When we decided to rebuild the OnDeck Canada brand, it was driven by necessity and opportunity. Initially, the brand was designed to align with our current company’s culture with our new parent company’s during a major combination. However, survey results consistently highlighted a need to align better our vision, our mission, and our core values to reflect our unique Canadian identity, as culture is constantly evolving.

In 2022, the decision to shift back to being a privately held organization necessitated a full rebrand and allowed us to introspect and define who we are and what we stand for.

We prioritized working from the inside out to kick off our internal rebrand. This meant engaging our employees directly. We conducted one-on-one interviews with team members and hosted roundtables where employees had the opportunity to share their core values and the values they saw reflected in our team. These sessions were filled with engaging stories that illustrated our values in action. By distilling the core values from these stories and categorizing them, we were able to highlight those that resonated most with our employees.

Our journey of defining our brand has shown that it’s not always perfect, but it can be close, thanks to incredible people. This process has not only reinforced our culture but also strengthened our collective morale, making our organization a place where everyone feels valued and aligned with our shared vision.

By involving our employees in the rebranding process, we created a more authentic identity that we can all be proud of. This experience highlights the importance of listening to and valuing the insights of those who are the heartbeat of our company.

The insights were invaluable. They shaped our internal brand and helped us carve out a space that truly represented who we are: human, balanced, adaptable, responsible, and honest. Our culture has always been there; we just needed to articulate it clearly so that we could embed it into our daily practices.

Employees now feel a stronger sense of alignment and direction, as the values they live by at work are a true reflection of our organizational identity. When these values are genuinely your own, adhering to them in your work life feels natural and effortless.