Why Collaboration Is the Key to Employer Brand Activation, with Haley de la Grana of McKesson
EVP activation is one of the more elusive goals for employer brand professionals. You can nail the positioning statements and brand pillars, but unless people feel them in their day-to-day, you haven't really activated anything. Authenticity is what bridges that gap — and authenticity, almost always, is built through collaboration. In this episode of the Employer Branding Podcast, Jörgen sits down with Haley de la Grana, Digital & Email Marketing Strategist on the Talent Attraction team at McKesson — the Fortune 10 healthcare company headquartered in Irving, Texas. Haley has spent more than a decade in employer branding and recruitment marketing, with prior roles at Docebo and UKG (formerly Ultimate Software), and brings a very practical view of what it takes to bring an EVP to life inside a company of McKesson's scale. In the conversation, Haley shares: Why employer brand activation lives or dies on cross-functional partnerships — and which teams matter most How she works with internal comms, ERGs, recruiters, and corporate marketing to keep the brand consistent without flattening local nuance The role of employee storytelling in turning EVP pillars into something candidates and employees actually feel Lessons from building employer brands at smaller, faster companies and applying them inside a Fortune 10 Practical tactics for getting buy-in from senior stakeholders when employer brand is still a relatively new function in the business If you're working on activating your own EVP — or trying to get one off the ground — this conversation is a useful template for who to talk to, what to ask for, and how to keep the work moving when collaboration is the only way through. Connect with Haley on LinkedIn, and subscribe to the Employer Branding Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.
