Manpower: Telling half a story

Inconsistent follow-through leaves a company timeline looking like work in progress.

The Site

Manpower, the temporary recruitment agency, has grown from a two-man outfit in 1948 to an international group with operations worldwide. Its website traces the story of this expansion in a History feature in the About Manpower section.

A chronological index banded by decade forms the framework of a timeline that attaches short headline phrases to significant dates. An instruction at the top of the timeline invites visitors “to learn more” by clicking on a phrase. This activates a pop-up window containing a repeat of the timeline heading supplemented by extra text and often a thumbnail-sized photo. However, in most cases the text does no more than stretch the heading into a complete sentence: for example, “1962 – Manpower stock listed on NYSE. Shares in Manpower are publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE)”. In many instances the window only repeats the phrase from the timeline.

The Takeaway

Timeline histories on company websites tend to fall into one of two categories: those with very simple ‘milestone’ captioning and those with extended narrative. Manpower has tried to use some simple web technology to give visitors the best of both – a whistlestop overview and more detail where their curiosity is aroused.

Unfortunately, the execution leaves the feature looking like a work in progress, with all the pop-up windows in place and captioned but still waiting for the copywriter to show up to finish the job. Rather than an engaging insight into the company’s evolution, visitors are left with the impression that either it hasn’t got much to say for itself after all or there’s not much substance behind its words. Unless it is prepared to take on a copywriter to flesh out the History and realise its potential as ‘sticky’ content then Manpower would do better to close its pop-up windows and follow the safer milestone approach.

First published on 11 August, 2005