The Hindu Business Line : Employer branding is important

Good branding attracts prospective candidates’ attention and creates a desire to apply to the company. Employment brands also help organisations break through the clutter of information.

C. Mahalingam

Employer branding has become a top priority for organisations in their quest to win the war for talent. The unprecedented demand for talent accompanied by a shrinking pool poses a challenge for organisations. An increasing reliance on search consultants has shot up hiring costs, with no perceivable improvement in the situation. Employee referrals have proved helpful, but despite its well-known positive effects organisations and their recruitment functions have grossly unde rutilised this source.

Expensive advertisements in the print media have often generated interest among aspirants and applications, but the common consensus has been that those responding to the advertisements are not necessarily the ones that you are looking to hire.

New brand world

Welcome to the brand new world or the new Brand World! While there are many factors that have led to the shortage in the talent pool for organisations, the probability of at least enhancing the pool for your company could be higher if the employer branding initiative is paid better attention. Good branding helps attract prospective candidates’ attention and creates in them a desire to apply to the company. Employment brands help organisations break through the clutter of information. And familiarity helps candidates reduce their decision-making time.

Product brand & employment brand

It is not uncommon to come across companies that tend to mistake their product brands for their employment brands. Several years ago, I came across a market leader for IT products who refused to appreciate the need for investing in employment branding because it believed it already had it.

Any request for a budget to sponsor events at engineering or business schools would be politely turned down with the suggestion that branding was a marketing job. The marketing function, however, little appreciated the need to cultivate an employment brand. The cause of the problem was that the branding this company enjoyed for its products was misunderstood as a great brand for attracting talent. One of the summer interns from a business school who was working on employer branding perceptions spoke with a number of potential candidates as well as with over 10 per cent of their existing employees. The study brought forth some eye-opening findings. Not only did external candidates differentiate the product and employment brand, even existing employees were unanimous that their company was well-known for its products though it did not enjoy attractive branding as an employer. They ranked their company at the bottom quartile of the list of best employers. Well, it is an altogether different story that the company did not pay much attention to the findings of this study and is still struggling with recruitment.

It is important for companies that ride on the popularity of their products to consciously ask themselves if their employment branding is nearly as good. Product brands do influence the employment brand, but not beyond a point.

Internal and external branding

There are different approaches to building an employer brand. Some organisations have taken the “outside-in” approach. They focus on creating visibility for their companies in the target talent markets through a multi-faceted approach including well-designed websites with content on the company culture, compensation practices, and career opportunities and why they are a great place to work. Some others have adopted an ‘inside-out’ approach whereby they create powerful branding internally through employee experience and turn their employees into brand advocates. This is key, particularly if the organisations want to leverage employee referrals as a way of attracting candidates.

While external branding is necessary to spread the message in the marketplace for talent, employment branding exercises are beneficial and sustainable in the long-run only if external branding is effectively legitimised by internal branding. Smart candidates do not get carried away by the tall claims made in company advertisements and Web sites. They do their ‘due diligence’ by speaking with people in the company. Without internal branding based on a positive experience for employees, external branding soon loses its shine and investments go down the drain.

Employment brand, more than mere PR

It is important to remember that creating an Employer Brand is more than a PR exercise. It is living your promise to your employees day-in and day-out. It is at best a PR + HR (healthy people practices) exercise. It is unlikely that your employment brand will be effective if your own employees do not experience it and, therefore, do not endorse it!

(The writer is Senior V-P & Chief People Officer with Symphony Services Corporation.)

More Stories on : Human Resources | Management | Branding

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
The gripes about HR

Employer branding is important

‘Co-create experience with individual customers’

The businessperson vs the entre-leader

Behaviour bottlenecks