Diving into employee storytelling can feel like a big commitment, especially if you’re new to the approach and unsure how it will resonate with your audience. But what if you could test the waters first?

An employee storytelling pilot project lets you experiment on a small scale to see real results before committing fully. Whether you’re looking to improve brand awareness, support a specific hiring need, or bring your culture to life, piloting employee storytelling is a powerful way to gather insights, build buy-in, and refine your strategy.

In this guide, we’ll explore what pilot projects are, how to structure them for success, and examples that show just how impactful they can be.

What is a pilot project?

A pilot project is a small-scale trial designed to assess a larger initiative’s time, cost, and potential impact. It acts as a test run, helping organizations spot any challenges or areas for improvement before committing to a full-scale investment.

In the employee storytelling space, a pilot project might involve testing a small, focused storytelling initiative within one department, office, or employee group. This pilot helps the organization see if the storytelling approach resonates with their talent audiences and aligns with company goals before making a long-term investment in the strategy.

Why should you consider an employee storytelling pilot project?

If you are an employer brand, talent acquisition, or culture communications leader, here are some specific reasons you should consider a pilot project: 

• Proof of Concept: See how the employee storytelling strategy works in a real-world environment before scaling it up. A pilot project serves as a proof of concept, showing that an idea is feasible and can deliver results.
• Cost Efficiency: By starting small, companies can better understand the cost structure and potential budget requirements of a larger employee storytelling initiative, ensuring that funds are allocated wisely.
• Quick Wins: From a spike in applications to increased social media engagements, successful pilot projects can provide quick wins that demonstrate progress and rally excitement around a shift in strategy. 
• Partner Evaluation: By running a pilot, employer brand leaders can assess a vendor’s performance, quality of work, and how well they can deliver on the project’s objectives — ensuring they meet expectations before scaling up.

Can I use pilot projects to win leadership buy-in?

Yes! A successful pilot project tests something new and also lays the groundwork for leaders to green-light a larger employee storytelling initiative. 

When you’re looking to win buy-in for an employee storytelling project, it’s important to understand the language of leadership and how they make decisions. In addition to the reasons listed above, pilot projects are a great pitch because they allow leadership to:

• Control Risk: Pilots allow leaders to test new ideas without committing significant resources upfront. If the project doesn’t meet expectations, lessons can be learned without major consequences.
• Make Evidence-Based Decisions: Leadership prefers making decisions backed by data. A pilot provides concrete results and insights, helping leaders justify a larger investment and demonstrate potential ROI to stakeholders.
• Win Stakeholder Confidence: When leaders can demonstrate that a new initiative has been tested and proven through a pilot, it builds trust and confidence among stakeholders, including other executives, investors, and employees.

How to structure a successful pilot project

Planning a pilot project requires a different approach than a larger-scale project or campaign. Rather than fully launching a strategy, a pilot is a small-scale test focused on proof of concept, feasibility, and alignment with goals. This focused approach means pilots need clear objectives, success criteria, and structured feedback.

As you plan your pilot project, keep these guidelines in mind: 

1. Define Clear Objectives: Start by setting specific goals for the pilot. Determine what you want to achieve and how the pilot project aligns with your overall strategy. Some possible questions you may want to answer through a pilot could be:
   • How do employee stories impact engagement on social posts? Or engagement on the career site?
   • Can employee storytelling drive more high-quality applications?
   • Do employee stories increase participation in internal programs or initiatives? 
2. Set Key Metrics and Success Criteria: Identify measurable indicators of success, such as engagement rates, job applications, or employee feedback survey results. Define clear criteria so you can assess whether the pilot achieved its objectives.
3. Outline Scope and Boundaries: Keep the pilot small and focused to maintain control over time, budget, and resources. Define what will be included—and just as importantly, what will not be—to avoid scope creep and ambiguous results. 
4. Select a Target Audience or Group: Choose a representative, manageable sample that reflects the larger audience. For an employee storytelling pilot, you might focus on one department, location, or employee segment that aligns well with your goals.
5. Create a Scaling Plan: Always tie your pilot project to the bigger, long-term strategy you envision for your organization. If the pilot proves successful, outline a clear plan for expanding the project. Identify any additional resources, budget, or training needed and define a realistic timeline for a broader rollout.

These five elements provide a structured approach to testing, learning, and scaling — helping to ensure that your pilot project is efficient and sets a foundation for future success.

What are examples of employee storytelling pilot projects?

As shared throughout this article, a clearly defined structure is key to your pilot project’s success. Get inspired by these two pilot projects we’ve helped execute at Stories Inc. 

Pilot Project #1: Improving Brand Awareness

If you’re introducing employee storytelling into your employer brand strategy, a pilot project helps you see how it resonates with your talent audience. Metrics like watch time, impressions, and engagements within a defined time period or audience segment will be key indicators of success. 

Let’s look at an example. The Knot Worldwide, a global tech company, was looking to pilot employee storytelling to drive employer brand awareness. They created three culture compilation videos featuring employee stories, and premiered them live at a company all-hands event and immediately after on social media. 

The pilot project results included: 

• 50 hours of video watch time in three days
• 12,000+ impressions on LinkedIn and Instagram in one week
• 4.42% engagement rate on LinkedIn in one week 

…all of which outpace their culture content averages. The pilot project was deemed a success and they soon scaled their employee storytelling strategy to support other employer brand objectives, like a hiring spree in TKWW’s Dublin office. 

Hear about the pilot from TKWW Talent Brand Manager Alex Wallace:

Pilot Project #2: Supporting a Hiring Objective

Employee storytelling content should attract and convert key talent categories. Fine-tune your approach and create a quick win by piloting your strategy with one key hiring segment. Engagement and hiring metrics like click rate, applications, and hires will be key performance indicators. 

The global tech company, Intel, partnered with Stories Inc. to pilot using an employee nurture campaign to support early career hiring efforts. They interviewed 13 early career employees and created an email nurture campaign that was launched during peak university recruiting season (August and September). The campaign’s success would be measured against industry benchmarks established by their CRM.

After being sent to 118,000 early career professionals in Intel’s talent community, the campaign results were: 

• 50% open rate (Benchmark: 25%)
• 7% click rate, resulting in more than 25,000 clicks (Benchmark: 6%)
• Interactive quiz taken more than 1,300 times

After the success of the pilot project, Intel scaled the strategy to another key talent group, Women Technologists.

Scale your employee storytelling strategy with a pilot project

Pilot projects are a smart way to ease into employee storytelling, letting you test your approach and see results with minimal risk. By starting small, you’re setting up a foundation for a scalable storytelling approach that authentically showcases your company’s culture and values.