Why does KPMG need an alumni community?
The community grew out of a real pain point and a real need in the organization. Students finish their accounting and economics degrees, come to us for their internship, and most of them leave. The firm set itself a goal of staying in touch with them, because we see our former employees as our ambassadors out in the world. Every alum who succeeds out there is a success for us. Sometimes they come back to us as clients, and they recommend us to others.
What is the alumni community, and how does it work?
KPMG's alumni community is made up of employees who finished their internship at the firm and moved on to other workplaces. It's a large audience of all ages, and we need to offer something relevant to all of them. They have a person in the organization they know they can reach at any stage (over WhatsApp), we have an app with job listings, we send out newsletters, and we have a placement office. Before COVID, there were in-person meetups too.
How was the community built?
- I started meeting and interviewing alumni to figure out how I could serve them.
- I mapped out the life cycle of an employee: from student, to employee, to alum. You have to take care of them at every stage so that, in the end, they leave as happy alumni. Otherwise, they won't want to stay in touch with us.
When did you know the community was working?
Once the alumni community was established, HR came to me and asked for my help with an issue involving students.
The community started to become part of internal processes, like the mentoring programs we began running for employees with the alumni. We even got to the point of connecting students who were due to join the firm a year later with alumni who had already left. Because the alumni community was so successful, we also set up a student community to attract interns to the organization, plus an employee community.
Later, the organization realized there were processes it could roll out across the company with our help and the community model. For example, it wanted to roll out a process with several managers who had to take on an additional role alongside their work as accountants. We saw that we needed to build a community around that process. That was a small win: the organization saying it needs the community model to roll out its processes.
Without collaboration, you won't get even half of your message across.
Cracking the win-win-win: how do you make sure the community and the organization both get value?
The biggest challenge is connecting what the community needs with what the firm needs. Our role always has 2 sides: keeping an eye on the community and on the organization at the same time. That means justifying the role to a long list of stakeholders and making sure it serves the organization's goals.
Here's how we did it across several communities we built at the firm:
The alumni community
The win for the organization: connected alumni who love the organization and still feel, on some level, part of it even after leaving. They make great ambassadors, and even potential clients.
The win for the community: I met with a lot of alumni and found one need they all shared, around careers and the move to the next role. They're all thinking about what's next: how they grow, where they go. That's exactly where we, as a firm, can help, and that's the value we can offer our alumni.
The student community
The win for the organization: students sign up for the internship at the end of their second year, and unfortunately we saw fewer and fewer of them choosing accounting. So it mattered to us to attract the strongest students from a shrinking pool. We started building the community model around students and created several student communities based on the departments they would join, because the firm is huge and it's easy to get lost. We hand-picked the members of these communities, because we see them as the organization's next generation.
The win for the community: they get our support in a small, focused community that helps them early in their careers, even before they finish their studies, as they take their first steps in the professional world.
The leaders community
The win for the organization: we really wanted to reach our younger employees, even those still in their internship, because they know what students go through and what our considerations are. We saw they could help us grow the student communities and attract students to the organization. That's how the leaders community was born: 30 employees from all departments who lead the student communities. Over time, we started relying on them for other internal processes beyond the communities too: as ambassadors, as a focus group, and more communities grew out of this one as well.
The win for the community: we became their channel to management, and management's channel to them. They have shared needs, and we found a way to meet them through the community.
What challenges did you face?
- Sometimes the organization doesn't see the connection between the community and the firm. Part of the job is justifying your role to a long list of stakeholders and making sure it fits in.
- The role is cross-functional and involves working with every department. It also isn't always clearly defined: does it sit under marketing, business development, the CEO, HR? Sometimes we end up stepping on someone's toes a little, which is why it's so important to build trust and show people I'm here to work with them.
- Sometimes the community raises criticism about something the organization isn't doing well, and that isn't always comfortable. You have to be gentle and handle it the right way, so the organization says "OK, how do we deal with this?" instead of getting defensive.
Today the organization is the one asking to use the community model we built to roll out internal processes.
Tips for a successful community
- Look for a need or a pain point and build a community around it. Recognize that there's something inside your organization you can address.
- Accept that we don't always have all the answers. You have to understand what's happening on the ground and talk to people to figure out what they really need, what they're missing, and what you can offer them. Meet and interview many kinds of people who fall under the community's definition, so you can find their broad, shared need.
- Sometimes you also need to know when to let go: to say "OK, if you don't want what I'm offering, I won't force it." Come from a place with no ego.
- Use the organization's resources to find the right people. For example: reach out to the management layer to identify relevant alumni and interview them, enlist university lecturers who reach students we'd otherwise miss, and lean on HR to spot potential community leaders.
- You can't just show up and throw information at your target audience. First, you have to connect with them.
- Small wins for the organization help establish the community's importance and impact, and build buy-in.
- Collaborate with every relevant department and show them you're here to work with them.
- Make sure the organization is ready to work with communities. You can't build a thriving community without real backing from management. Community leaders have to show the organization both the value and the cost (time, money, resources). The organization needs to be just as invested as you are.