Bupa's mission is clear and compelling: to help people live longer, healthier, and happier lives and make a better world.

As a global leader in health insurance and healthcare services, Bupa recognised that fulfilling this mission required more than just medical expertise—it demanded a transformation in healthcare delivery and customer service. Central to this transformation was the critical need to attract and retain top-tier talent across various disciplines.

The Challenge

In pursuit of maintaining its competitive edge and realising its mission, Bupa encountered some obstacles along the way, including:

  1. Difficulty in attracting top talent and filling core roles effectively.
  2. An over-reliance on external job boards, with 70% of applications coming through paid external resources.
  3. Budget and resource constraints for employer branding initiatives.
  4. Talent Acquisition teams operating reactively rather than proactively.
  5. A misalignment between the employer brand and Bupa's aspiration to be the most customer-centric healthcare company.

The Insight

Meagan Michaels, Head of Employer Brand - APAC at Bupa, provided valuable insights into leveraging employer branding as a strategic tool for talent attraction and retention:

"Candidates should be viewed as a different type of customer, deserving of a consumer-level experience."

— Meagan emphasised

This perspective led to several key realisations:

  • An authentic employer brand, rooted in comprehensive employee research, could significantly enhance recruitment efforts.
  • Even minor, incremental improvements had the potential to yield substantial results.
  • Aligning the employer brand with Bupa's overall business strategy could create a compelling narrative for attracting talent.

The Solution

Bupa implemented a comprehensive employer branding strategy:

  1. Developed an Employee Value Proposition (EVP) based on extensive employee research, ensuring authenticity.
  2. Enhanced their careers website to improve the candidate experience.
  3. Partnered with Indeed to create campaigns driving traffic directly to Bupa's careers site.
  4. Adopted a proactive approach to talent acquisition, including always-on brand awareness campaigns and CRM pipelines with nurtured talent.
  5. Focused on distilling values such as empathy, growth, and innovation in employer brand messaging.

The Results

Bupa’s employer branding efforts have yielded impressive outcomes, including: 

  1. Reduced 'Time to Hire' from 26 days to 12 days.
  2. Achieved a 187% increase in job views on the careers website.
  3. Saw a 333% increase in new visitors to the careers site.
  4. Experienced a 20% increase in 'apply' clicks.
  5. Recorded a 79.5% increase in job alert sign-ups.
  6. Reduced reliance on paid external job boards by 20%.
  7. Tripled overall traffic to the careers site.
  8. Won gold in the Melbourne and Sydney Better Design Awards in 2024 for their employer brand awareness campaign. 

These results not only improved Bupa's talent acquisition metrics but also solidified their position as an employer of choice in the competitive healthcare industry. The success of this initiative demonstrates the power of a well-executed employer branding strategy, even when starting with limited resources. By viewing candidates as customers and creating an authentic, aligned employer brand, Bupa has set a new standard in healthcare talent acquisition.