The Real BS :: Brand Strategy for HR Pros
Let’s get real: Brand starts with HR…not a marketing campaign.
Welcome to The Real BS. The brand strategy podcast for HR professionals who are ready to change the game and own brand like never before.
Hosted by brand leader and strategist Jaclyn Scrivens, this show pulls back the curtain on what brand really means, and why HR truly leads the way. (Sorry, marketing, take a seat for now).
Each quick-hit episode delivers bold insights, practical strategies, and unfiltered truths about building brand from the inside out—through your people, your culture, and every employee experience.
No fluff. No sugarcoating. Just clarity, confidence, and actionable moves to boost retention, attract top talent, and build a culture that shapes the brand everyone sees.
So, get ready to become the most influential brand builder in your organization because this is the brand power playbook HR's been missing!
The Real BS :: Brand Strategy for HR Pros
Leaders, Employee Experience Is Your Job Too (It Doesn't Fall Solely On HR)
What if every choice you make as a leader is a brand decision? We explore how the employee experience you shape day to day becomes the customer experience your company is known for, and why alignment—not slogans—drives real performance, retention, and trust.
We start by reframing a common myth: employee experience isn’t just HR’s job. HR builds the framework and tools, but leaders bring the brand to life in meetings, decisions, recognition, and tradeoffs. Drawing on Gallup’s finding that 70% of engagement variance comes down to managers, we connect the dots between leadership behavior, team energy, and measurable outcomes. Then we zoom into a tangible model: Costco’s inside-out brand alignment. From competitive pay and promoting from within to small-group listening programs across the globe, their practices show how values become systems that sustain loyalty and profitability in a demanding retail environment.
From there, we get practical. You’ll learn how to turn values into observable behaviors, close the say-do gap that erodes trust, and run a fast weekly “brand in action” check to keep your team moving in the right direction. We share simple signals—how you manage moments with your team, how you handle misses, how you link decisions to customer impact—that compound into a culture your people believe in and your customers can feel. Partner with HR as your strategic GPS, walk your team across the brand bridge with intention, and watch alignment power the results you’re measured on.
If this conversation helps you lead with greater clarity and consistency, follow the show, share it with a colleague, and leave a quick review telling us one behavior you’ll change this week. Your insight could spark someone else’s next step.
Brand isn’t marketing’s playground anymore, it’s HR’s secret power move!
The Real BS is the podcast flipping brand strategy on its head, hosted by Jaclyn Scrivens—brand strategist, experienced marketer, and the HR hype woman you didn’t know you needed.
With each episode, get bold insights, no-fluff strategies, and straight talk on leading brand from the inside out. Because when HR owns brand, people stay, talent chases you, customers notice, and the who
That’s a wrap on this week’s Real BS!
If you loved it, hit subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs a little brand boss energy. For more, visit BrandCulture.org or head over to LinkedIn and follow Brand Culture Association, or connect with me personally. I’d love to keep
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Brand starts with HR, not marketing.
On The Real BS podcast, we cut through the fluff and get real about how culture shapes the brand more than any campaign ever could.
Hosted by executive leader, brand strategist and experienced marketer - Jaclyn Scrivens - you’ll hear bold truths, fresh strategies, and no-BS conversations designed to help HR professionals and leaders step up as strategic brand powerhouses to change the game inside your organizations.
If you're ready to flip the script on brand and elevate your HR and leadership role, you're in the right place.
>>> Explore more information at www.BrandCulture.org.
>>> Don't forget to subscribe, share with a colleague, and keep building the brand from the inside out.
Welcome back to the Real BS podcast. You may be expecting me to say brand strategy for HR pros, but this episode is all about brand strategy for leaders. Yep, I said leaders. I'm switching things up since last episode sparked discussion around one of the brand myths I shared. And it's the exact discussion we need to have because it's a brand truth that can completely change the way you lead and the business results your team delivers. Last time we busted the myth that employee experience is solely HR's responsibility. HR absolutely plays a very critical role. They build the framework, the systems, and the policies. You can really think about it like HR builds the employee experience bridge. But leaders, you are the ones walking across it every single day. How you lead, communicate, and make decisions is what your employees experience. And what they experience ripples directly to your customers. If you're expected to deliver an exceptional customer experience, you better first start thinking about the employee experience you lead. When leadership, HR, and brand strategy are not aligned, the brand looks great on the outside, but it crumbles on the inside. Teams feel it, customers feel it, and the business feels it too. So let's start with a bit of a reality check. We know leaders carry a heavy weight of delivering results and hitting KPIs. The pressure is always on. I know I've been there. But there's good news. The key to delivering those results and hitting KPIs is directly within your control. You may be wondering how. Well, it's by the way you shape the daily experience of your employees. When you align your actions as a leader with the brand's values, you create a culture where employees feel connected and engaged, which positively impacts their performance as well as the way they treat each other and your customer. Think about this. Gallup found that 70% of the variance in team engagement comes down to managers and leaders, not HR, not marketing, not a fancy engagement tool, but you, the leader. So if you want a team that shows up fully engaged, is high performing, and delivers consistently, it starts with your leadership behavior. Let's talk about this brand truth and Costco, a brand that is consistently at the top of their game. Costco's leadership doesn't just talk the talk, they walk the walk. Costco's mission is to continually provide our members with quality goods and services at the lowest possible prices. To achieve this, they recognize that taking care of their employees is paramount. They even directly call it out in their code of ethics. Their mission isn't just about external customers, it's about creating an internal culture that mirrors that commitment. Costco even includes a focus on their employees and their brand values and states, quote, since our founding, Costco has operated under the guiding principle of doing the right thing for our members, our employees, our suppliers, our communities, and the environment. End quote. These values are not just statements, they're principles that guide every decision and action within the company, reflecting leadership's commitment to the brand and the people who make up the brand. I mean they call out the support of their employees directly in their code of ethics. Take their competitive compensation, for example. It very much aligns with their value of taking care of employees. As of early 2025, top-level store employees earn over $30 per hour with plans for annual increases. This commitment ensures that employees feel valued and are compensated fairly for their contributions. Now on to the career growth opportunities they offer, which also reflect their value of respecting employees. Costco promotes from within, with 85% of newly promoted warehouse managers having started as hourly workers. This practice not only provides career advancement, but also fosters a sense of loyalty and pride among employees. And Costco doesn't stop there. They have what they call the Costco Connects Program, which again shows their commitment to taking care of employees. This initiative engages workers globally in open, small group discussions to share ideas and concerns, all to make sure that employees feel heard and valued. These practices aren't just HR initiatives, they're strategic decisions that align with Costco's brand mission and core values. And the results speak for themselves. Listen, retail is hard, but Costco has one of the lowest turnover rates in retail and has posted over 40 consecutive years of profitability. So what does this mean for you right now as a leader? It means every choice you make is really a brand decision. And if you're not aligned with a brand, it has a major impact. Remember we talked about how HR builds the bridge? But here's the thing, you're the one who walks across it and helps your team across it too. Your daily actions and decisions as a leader are the steps that either strengthen or weaken that bridge. HR can build the best engagement program in the world, but if leaders aren't showing up in alignment with that strategy, it falls flat. It's like building a beautiful bridge and then letting people stumble across it blindfolded. So how can you ensure you're strengthening the brand bridge? Ask yourself these questions. One, am I reinforcing our brand values in my meetings, my communications, and my decisions? Two, does my team see and feel consistency between what we say as a brand and what we do? Three, am I modeling the behaviors we want everybody to embody? When you lead this way and you take responsibility for how your team actually experiences your brand, when you put that brand lens on how you lead, employee experience isn't just a project anymore or someone else's job or just another checklist. It's a lived reality that sets your brand apart. And that's how your culture, your brand culture, becomes your competitive advantage. I want to make one thing clear. HR isn't out of the picture on this, far from it. They're your strategic partner in all of this work. Think of them as the GPS guiding you across that bridge. They may set the course, provide the tools, and measure success, but your job is to walk your team across the bridge daily, making the brand come alive so you can deliver results and hit those KPIs you're on the hook for. When HR and leadership come together to elevate employee experience, the entire organization wins, trust deepens, performance rises, retention strengthens, and both your employees and customers experience your brand in a way that sets you apart. So how can you take action today as a leader considering all of this? Well, here's a quick exercise. Take just 10 minutes this week to do a brand and action check. Think about a team meeting or decision you made recently and ask yourself three things. One, did the meeting or decision reflect our brand values? Two, did it make our employees feel the brand promise? Three, what can I improve or change next time to better align with the brand? Write down your observations and then pick just one thing to do differently next week. Even if it feels small, that's okay. It's okay because you have to start somewhere, and one small change can lead to big impact. I know this was a quick episode, but that's a wrap for today. Remember, leadership isn't about strategy or being in charge. It's about alignment. When you align your actions with the brand, you create a culture that employees want to be a part of and customers want to engage with. That means you, as a leader, directly influence both the employee and customer experiences, and that impacts business results. So walk that bridge, lead through your brand, and make employee experience more than a project because it truly is the heartbeat of your brand.