BNSF Boosts Employee Retention By Attracting Well-Informed Candidates

 

While BNSF has always been desirable, attracting many applicants and new hires, recent hires faced a recurring challenge— the stark contrast between their expectations and the reality of working on the train.

The average candidate loved BNSF's pay, benefits, and culture but often viewed the day-to-day job description as a fairytale. There are long nights and days on the train, often alone or with one other person.

BNSF had a unique challenge in recruitment retention. In response, we crafted a campaign firmly rooted in reality, a departure from the traditional approach.

Our team designed the campaign to help raise awareness of railroad careers. Still, we also wanted to provide a reality check of the challenges, which include long hours, longer away-from-home times, and sleeping in bunkhouses or motels' closets to train stations.

The Campaign:

  • Revamped their job descriptions and gave them a realistic makeover with photos to match

  • Offered BNSF tours on the train across the US so candidates could get a feel of railroad life before their official hire

  • Created videos that showed working on the railroad in real life told by actual employees

  • Marketing and media relations campaign that focused on rural areas, community colleges, railroad schools, truckers, and those in fields like construction, military, and oilmen

  • We asked current employees to share their honest experiences on LinkedIn, Indeed, Glassdoor, and more sites

  • New taglines included: “Join BNSF today; it's your career with a View” and “At BNSF, be paid like a corner office with a better view.”

The Results:

Within one month, the campaign moved BNSF's average Indeed rating from 2.8 5 to 3.1 out of 5 by encouraging existing employees to rate them.

We also helped them reach 90% of their production hiring goals over two years by updating their job descriptions, creating social media content, and advertising their culture.

Retention increased by 30 to 40% year over year. Employees who were engaged by the campaign said they knew what they were getting into and were either satisfied with the job or wanted to use it as a starting point to grow within the company.