Oct 9, 2016
The Spirit of Delta, or Delta Ship 102, housed in Hangar 2 of the Delta Heritage Museum, was Delta Airline’s first Boeing 767-200. This aircraft was acquired in 1982 and paid for by Delta employees and retirees who raised $30 million as a gift to the Company.
Showing how your business has evolved can bring more inspiration and purpose to your employees work starting in new hire orientation.
What’s more, sharing a compelling story is great way to help new employees understand your company’s culture.
Don’t hesitate to share your stories and show how the company’s growth over time has made a difference!
Are you ready?
Share Compelling Stories During New Hire Orientation
To demonstrate how storytelling can help engage new hires and employees of a company, here are examples of how Delta, P&G and Nike have used stories to display their company culture, history, and perspectives.
Delta Air Lines and the “Spirit of Delta”
If you are ever lucky enough to be invited to Delta’s headquarters in Atlanta, GA, Delta has a museum called the Delta Air Transport Heritage Museum where they house some of the company’s most historic aircraft. The museum features Delta Air Lines first passenger plane from 1931 named Travel Air as well as the first Douglas DC-3 named Ship 41 from 1940 but the aircraft that catches most employees attention is that of the “Spirit of Delta.” It is a 767 aircraft bought by voluntary contributions by company employees, retirees, and community partners as a thank you for the strong leadership in the first years following airline deregulation.
The purchase of the aircraft by its employees is symbolic of the culture at Delta. It speaks to the belief in teamwork even through hard times and seeing the airline through. Delta’s CEO, Gerald Grinstein, stated, “The Spirit of Delta is more than just an aircraft. More than 20 years ago, Delta people defined our company’s culture — one that would include teamwork and dedication to seeing the company through difficult times in pursuit of making our airline the best in the world.”
Procter & Gamble and “Learnings”
Storytelling is at the heart of Procter and Gamble, the number one marketing company in the world. Not only does the company promote it’s history through the museum contained in its headquarters or with the book Rising Tide: Lessons from 165 Years of Brand Building at Procter and Gamble which is given free to it’s employees but storytelling is at the heart of its culture.
One-pagers are designed to tell a story in a way that the leaders reading them are excited to jump into action and ready to make a decision. The company promotes employees sharing their learnings on the job. Since the company is a promote from within a company, everyone starts in the same position and must work their way up the ladder.
Those who are granted the promotions share their experiences, good and bad with the campaigns they ran on the different brands they worked on. Those on the Old Spice team shared their success in turning the brand around with Isaiah Mustafa with the “Smell like a Man” campaigns. Those on Tampax shared stories about their challenges with U by Kotex and appealing to teenagers as learnings from the things they have tried so that those on different brands can learn about the mistakes made to build better campaigns. By sharing their “learnings” the company is able to continue to build billion-dollar brands that are sold around the world.
Nike and its Founders
Bill Bowerman and Phil Knight are the two men who are responsible for the company we know as Nike today. Bill Bowerman was a track and field coach from Oregon and Phil Knight was a runner from Portland. Phil ran on Bill’s track team for two years before going on to attend Stanford to obtain his MBA. That is where the idea for a shoe company was born and Phil Knight was able to convince Bowerman to become his partner.
Phil Knight started selling the shoes out of the trunk of his car while Bowerman began analyzing the shoes on how to make them better suited for athletes. Phil Knight recruited a classmate from Stanford, Jeff Johnson, to become the first employee of the company. Johnson developed all of the first marketing campaigns for the company and even established the name Nike in 1971.
Knowing that the company was started and founded by an athlete and his coach has had a huge impact on Nike and its products. The products are designed for athletes around the world and the lines have been expanded from runners to soccer players and beyond. The company’s history keeps Nike focused and plays a major part in making it the brand it is today!
Is your company using storytelling to engage employees in new hire orientation? Leave us a comment and let us know!
