Client Articles

Client Articles | Issue 14

The combination of ageing populations, declining birth rates, sustained economic growth, migration and skills shortages have all contributed to increasing marketplace competition for talent.[4] Consequently, the attraction and retention of high performing staff has become a key driver of business performance, resulting in a growing area in HR: employment branding.

Over the last few years HR Professionals have increasingly been adopting marketing principles in the pursuit of 'employer of choice' status for their organisations. They have expended enormous amounts of time, energy and financial resources in advertising and promoting their "Employer Brand". As such, the concept of an 'employer branding strategy' is now recognised and endorsed by a growing number of businesses.

What is an Employer Brand?

A Brand is defined as "a mixture of attributes, tangible and intangible, symbolised in a trademark, which, if managed properly, creates value and influence". [5]

A blend of HR & Marketing disciplines, the employer branding process should create compelling and differentiated employment propositions, with the company being recognised above all others as a great place to work.[6] The main goal is to strongly appeal to both current and future ideal employees.

An employer brand comprises three key elements of relevance to the employee:[7]

1. Functional Attributes: what will I be doing and how will I develop?
   
2. Economic Value: How will I be rewarded and what can I expect in return for my efforts?
   
3. Psychological Benefits: what will I belong to and how will my efforts drive a greater mission?

Those three elements are normally summarised in two ways:

1. An Employer Brand Vision (sometimes called a brand promise) - a short, compelling statement that summarises the ultimate work experience your company offers to candidates. For example, McDonald's (USA) brand vision is "A Lifetime of Skills"; the US Marine Corps is "The Elite Warrior"; ANZ Bank's could be summarised as "Be Where You Want to Be".[8]
   
   
2. Your Employment Value Proposition[9] (sometimes called the Employer Brand Statement, or Compelling Employment Offer) - is made up from combining:

   a. Your identity - who you really are;
   b. Your image - how candidates perceive you;
   c. The needs of the market - what candidates really want.

An organisation with a superior employer brand is one whose value proposition is reflected by the actions of all people, at all levels of the business, at all times, because of a strong psychological contract between the company and its employees.[10]

Why is Employer Branding Important in Recruitment?

Findings of several recent research reports and industry awards offer compelling evidence of the need for employer branding initiatives:

• 61% of Australian employees would not apply for a job with a company whose vision, values and culture they didn't agree with. [11]
  
  
• 81% of HR practitioners said a good employer brand made it easier to attract candidates; 79% felt it made them more of an employer of choice; and 63% believe it improved retention.[12]
  
  
• 42% of HR professionals acknowledged they did not have the right employment value proposition to attract and retain the talent their organisation needed.[13]
  
  
• 53% acknowledged that their own employees would be unclear as to what the company's core value proposition was.[14]
  
  
• Only 29% of employees surveyed expressed a belief that their employer provided a clear and compelling reason as to why their organisation was a great place to work - and almost 55% said their employer had failed to deliver on everything they promised. [15]
  
  
• Hewitt's Best Employers 2005 study revealed a strong alignment between people practices, brand, strategy, and high performance workplaces. [16]
  
  
• Shares of the public companies on the Fortune list of 'Top US Employers to Work For' - typically companies with very strong employer brands - rose 37% annualised over the past three years, compared with 25% for the S&P 500. [17]

As the CEO of Global Employer Branding Firm, Bernard Hodes, put it, "…people think about the implications of aligning their own long-term career reputation with the brand of a particular organisation... (the brand) plays an essential role in attracting and retaining a new generation of employee talent, and allowing them to align their interests and aspirations with those of the organisation." [18]

With today's graduates and top talent being the first digitally literate generation, the balance of power has firmly shifted in favour of candidates as information about any organisation is so easy to come by. Prospective job applicants will have typically visited your website, talked to their friends, and have formulated an image about you - accurate or not - well before they send you their resume for consideration. So like it or not, the reality is that you already have an employer brand. The real challenge is therefore how you decide to foster and manage that brand.

Employer Branding Creation, Management and Measurement

In spite of over ten years of employer branding initiatives, HR Professionals have largely relied on anecdotal evidence and good old-fashioned intuition to conclude what job seekers needed and wanted. But to justify expenditure in the face of continued cost pressures (something both marketing and HR must constantly deal with), greater alignment is being sought between employer branding, strategic human capital, and corporate marketing initiatives. New roles like "employment brand manager" are emerging to facilitate this process.

The process of creating your employment brand starts with old fashioned market research.
Typically, the research process will attempt to quantify two 'environments':

1. External - prospective job seekers and competitors; and
   
2. Internal - staff observations of their perceived reality and desired reality.

This is normally done via a combination of surveys, interviews and collation of competitor marketing/careers material.

The internet has made this process much more cost effective. Secondary research such as industry articles, reports and benchmarking studies are now only a Google search away. Primary research that is specific to your situation like qualitative, face-face interviews, can be made more cost effective by sourcing your own survey respondents and soliciting feedback from candidate interviews - both new hires and those who accepted other roles. Cost effective web-based surveys are also becoming a popular choice for the collection and reporting of such data.

Building a differentiated employment brand is a rigorous discipline that uses the research findings outlined above to stake out mental territory that is unique to your business. Naming this 'uniqueness' is the combination of many different measurable factors, but will ultimately succeed or fail on how strongly your CEO and Senior Executives support the process.[19] You must consider your competitive advantages, current maturity of your market, ideal target candidate profile, what markets you operate in, your corporate personality, how candidates perceive your industry, and how you can position yourself for more appeal whilst still ensuring you can deliver on your promises.

If your corporate brand is strongly differentiated, much of the work required will already exist in some form. To ensure consistency with your corporate brand, you may need to consider engaging a specialist employer branding firm or strategy group to drive and support this process.

Once created, your employer brand must then be communicated through a marketing plan. This will define what tactics you will use (e.g. web, campus seminars, scholarships, etc) and what materials you will use to support those tactics (e.g. employment micro-sites, power points, information packs, etc).

Setting KPI's for each tactic is also a must. Measurable targets for advertising response, candidate pipelines (e.g. career web-site traffic, inquiry, seminar attendance, information packs, interview stages, and acceptance) should be identified prior to investing resources.[20] This will eventually evolve into an annual plan that is reviewed and updated as the marketplace adjusts.

The ongoing management of your employer brand is also important. Neglecting your employer brand simply because you are not recruiting can be very damaging to how you are perceived in the marketplace.

Conclusion

The emergence of the employment brand manager and events like the inaugural 'Australasian Talent Management Conference',[21] are a sign that senior executives are beginning to recognise the benefits of employer branding. CRM and HRIS systems now allow for the detailed design, development and deployment of highly sophisticated, measurable marketing campaigns linked to human capital KPI's. The challenge for the future is for HR and marketing functions to collaborate so both can gain a larger slice of the funding pie to devote to employer branding initiatives. For this to occur, a company's Board must be convinced that the bottom-line benefit of effective employer branding is worth it. That is, better candidates that stay longer and contribute more to the long term value of the company.

About This Article:
	© 2007. All rights reserved.
	This article was licenced by Apsley Recruitment for the Apsley Recruitment client newsletter.
	Article Written by Nathanael Small and Paul Quinn, Quinntessential Marketing Consulting Pty Ltd. Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the view of Apsley Recruitment Pty Ltd. You should not use this information as the sole basis for decisions or in place of professional advice.

Resources:

1. Employer Branding Wikipedia Definition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employer_branding 2. Branding Your Employees http://www.brandchannel.com/papers_review.asp?sp_id=134 3. Employer Branding - Consultancy http://www.employerbranding.com.au/employerbranding/main/index.php 4. Your Employer Brand - Book Contents http://www.collectivelearningaustralia.com/files/your_employerbrand_attract.engage.retain.tc.pdf 5. Branding Education Glossary http://www.brandchannel.com/education_glossary.asp 6. Employer Branding Wikipedia Definition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employer_branding 7. Hewitt Newsletter Link http://www.hewittassociates.com/Lib/assets/EU/en-BE/pdfs/Hewitt_HR_Newsletter_May_2005_EN.pdf 8. ANZ Careers Website Link http://anz.com.au/aus/careers/Wheretobe.asp 9. Universum's Mind of the Student 2006 Summary Report http://www.aage.com.au/2006PresDay1_345pm_MindOfStudent.pdf 10. Psychological Contract Definition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_contract 11. Hays Employer Branding Report http://www.hays.com.au/news/ausworkplace.aspx 12. Culture & Reputation Count More than Pay & Benefits in War for Talent http://www.management-issues.com/2006/8/31/research/culture-and-reputation-count-more-than-money-in-war-for-talent.asp 13. Hudson 2006 Employer Branding Survey http://www.hudsonresourcing.com.au/documents/AUS_EMP_SurveyResponseDec2005%20Final.pdf 14. Hudson 2006 Employer Branding Survey http://www.hudsonresourcing.com.au/documents/AUS_EMP_SurveyResponseDec2005%20Final.pdf 15. Hudson 2006 Employer Branding Survey http://www.hudsonresourcing.com.au/documents/AUS_EMP_SurveyResponseDec2005%20Final.pdf 16. Hewitt Best Employers Link http://www.hewittassociates.com/Intl/AP/en-AU/AboutHewitt/Newsroom/PressReleases/2005/september-09-05.aspx 17. American Management Association http://www.amanet.org/books/catalog/0814405975_ch.htm 18. Culture & Reputation Count More than Pay & Benefits in War for Talent http://www.management-issues.com/2006/8/31/research/culture-and-reputation-count-more-than-money-in-war-for-talent.asp 19. Senior Engagement Key to Employer Branding http://www.humanresourcesmagazine.com.au/articles/82/0c047582.asp 20. Making your mark with employer branding: http://www.humanresourcesmagazine.com.au/articles/8F/0C045F8F.asp?Type=60&Category=1153 21. AIT Conference https://www.australasiantalentconference.com.au/ Other Resources: Smith, Greg: "The Marketing of Employment", AMI Marketing Update, July 2006 http://www.ami.org.au/amimu/0607july/0607_branding_employment.htm Is the end of the Employer Brand in sight?: http://www.management-issues.com/2006/5/25/opinion/is-the-end-of-the-employer-brand-in-sight.asp Universum's Mind of the Student 2006 Summary Report http://www.aage.com.au/2006PresDay1_345pm_MindOfStudent.pdf Make your employer brand more about substance and less about spin: http://www.management-issues.com/display_page.asp?section=research&id=2737 Staff Survey resource: http://www.peoplepulse.com.au/ Wet Feet Article http://www.wetfeet.com/employer/articles/article.asp?aid=371