The Hindu Business Line : Joining forces

With the continued demand for offshore IT and BPO services, there is severe competition for talent. First-tier Indian companies as well as MNCs are hiring in large numbers — India's top five IT companies will hire more than one lakh people: Infosys 25,000; TCS 30,000 and Satyam, 12,000. Clearly, it's hiring time and mid-tier companies may not find the going easy, either with recruitment or retention, unless they lay emphasis on"employee branding".

But what is employment or employee branding?

Employment branding is the systematic process of positioning your company as an attractive choice for prospective and current employees by using a well-crafted messaging strategy backed by consequential and relevant employee-oriented initiatives.

For this, you need to identify and list all the strengths of the organisation, from an employee's perspective.

What kind of work do you do?

Are there opportunities for interesting work and/or growth, especially for lateral hires?

What level of empowerment is possible and what are the opportunities for assuming positions of responsibility?

Can you position your management team and style as important differentiators?

Is the culture in your organisation conducive and open?

Do you believe that your rewards, compensation and benefits are competitive?

The important point is that companies need to build employment brands around a combination of strengths or qualities. Most companies, however, believe that compensation is the overriding factor. Experience shows that this is not the only consideration. Growth opportunities and company culture are found to be extremely important considerations, especially at mid levels. In fact, we come across many professionals who have given up jobs in larger companies in favour of mid-sized companies, for better growth and recognition. So, as far as employment branding is concerned, size is not always an advantage.

Companies also need to realise that the criteria for attracting experienced or middle management professionals would be different from those for entry-level. Similarly, what may attract a domain specialist to your organisation may not necessarily attract a technical person. Once you have identified the qualities, you need to weave it into a set of messages, and figure out ways to communicate.

Before you embark on the communication exercise, however, it would be useful to find out how your company is perceived both among prospective and current employees, in absolute terms as well as relative to your peer group. Even a cost-effective dipstick survey would be enough to create the baseline. Quick ways to do this would be to talk to some of your employees, interview your placement agencies, analyse exit interviews of the people who have left your company in the recent past, and a close look at the reasons why people have declined job offers from your company. This exercise, of course, would be possible only if the company systematically tracks offers and exits.

If the exercise throws up areas that are your company's strengths but which do not get reflected in the perception audit, then your messaging would need to focus on them.

Devise a communication strategy that addresses the needs of prospective and current employees.

Existing employees are one of the more effective ways to reach out to prospective ones — a fact that is often not as well understood. In fact, employee referrals can attract a good professional to your company.

Open houses and employee events help companies reach out to employees. Events can have various objectives — fun and bonding, learning, as well as a forum for recognising good performance. Events are also an important way in which the management can interact across levels, and create a sense of identity. And how often should a company organise such meets? There is no straight answer — one company, for example, has an event calendar that comprises a mix of festivals, birthday celebrations and company milestones. The frequency, mix and efficient organisation of the events combine to create a powerful branding avenue. Importantly, the company's outlay per person for this exercise is only one third of what another first-tier company in the same segment budgets.

Events can easily be supplemented with electronic media such as e-mail, e-newsletters and employee intranet. Electronic means are especially handy for companies with multi-location operations, for mid-sized companies with limited budgets and for all companies as they lend continuity to the communication efforts.

And when reaching out to prospective employees, a multi-pronged approach works best — media relations, events and sponsorships, and campus programmes (for fresh graduates) among others. An interesting Web site that provides relevant information about the company and allows jobseekers to apply with ease is another important requirement. Internship programmes are another useful way to build brand among jobseekers.

Finally, employee-branding initiatives must strike the right balance between focusing on attracting future employees and retaining existing employees. The reasons are obvious but as with customer branding programmes where most companies focus on acquiring new customers without any attempt to retain existing ones, several companies make a similar mistake when it comes to employee branding.

In conclusion, employee branding is an important ingredient of a company's overall branding footprint. It is especially important in today's context where acquiring and retaining employees is as challenging, if not more, than acquiring and retaining customers. Employee branding activities do not need huge outlays; rather they need good planning and sustained activity.

(The author is CEO, Prayag Consulting.) sudha.kumar@prayagconsulting.com

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