Some Thoughts on Employer Branding

Strong organisations are built around employees that understand your employer brand values. Sounds obvious right? Well, really it is and there are a number of companies out there that live and die by that credo but for every one that does there are hundreds that don't.

Some people will argue (believe me they have this week) that it's pointless to consider employer / employee branding at the moment, everyone is so desperate for a job that they'll do anything to keep it and there are so many candidates available that they don't have to try very hard to find the right person. Terrible attitude but I'm 100% certain that everyone in the staffing industry can name at least 2 companies off the top of their head who think that way.

So, in this climate, why is employer brand worth discussing? According to Maritz 39% of polled employees felt that brand image and reputation helped them decide to join the organisation they worked for. Net result, there are happier employees who stay in their jobs longer, have more company loyalty and will increase their productivity. That's the given, in this market though it's actually deeper than that. When there are so many candidates out there applying for roles and people feel a level of insecurity they have, perhaps, not felt before good employers need to step up to the plate and reassure current employees and really create a sense of community and dialogue about what is going on within an organisation. How many people have looked at their company's share price and felt the fear in the pit of their stomach that it can only mean one thing, whispered around the water cooler "cutbacks"?

It always amazes me that when times get tough the knee jerk for a lot of companies is to pull their heads in and shy away from being open with their staff, Jackie Orme from the CIPD was recently saying that the HR dept needs to be "more than and emergency room" and "professionals in the industry need to focus on sustainable performance, innovation and leadership." This is all absolutely true but I wonder what the HR industry has been doing all this time if it's not been doing that. I did several pieces of consultancy work (pre Onrec) with large employers discussing employer brand and reputation and it was surprising that HR usually found the employer brand conversation something new and exciting but something they had not explored, in most cases HR and Marketing had never spoken and had not considered that they should beyond the marketing team possibly providing them with an image for a press ad.

Internally changing the way you speak to your staff is easy to do, low end rewards and time taken by management teams to discuss concerns and issues can be put in place over night, creating an internal company blog that is both informative and not overly corporate in feel can break down a lot of barriers and really HR should be looking at how they can do thing like this with a low or nominal cost that can show a near instant benefit to the company.

Externally the issue is possibly even more important. As we all know a poor candidate experience leads to companies gaining a poor reputation. When I worked as a high street recruiter (many years ago), I remember one particular and very large employer who no one wanted to work for. When I met them I was impressed with their offices, attitude to their staff, training and benefits, the problem was when people applied to work there the recruitment process was so clunky and inefficient that by the time they got around to replying to applications (if they did at all) people had either got another job or decided that if they were going to be treated that way then they didn't want to work there anyway as they perceived (wrongly) that the experience of working form them would be similar. As a recruiter they were very frustrating as it could take them over a month to decide to interview pre selected candidates we had sent them.

In the world we live in right now and with a huge number of candidates in the market our response to an applicant is more important than ever.

Protecting your brand image should be at the forefront of your mind. Poor candidate experience may damage the core brand, and no one can afford to lose potential customers.

Despite the volume there will be some people you wish you could employ. O.K. So you don't have a job for them right now but when the markets are more stable and you wish you could have that person on board what would make them consider a job with you and what have you done to keep them engaged and interested?

Creating a buzz through employer branding. How many times have you seen a great recruitment site and forwarded it on to someone? I know I have to people in the industry but also to people I know are looking for work.

Engaging with your future employees. Having a dialogue is a great idea and using that to understand why people want to work for you is invaluable. Alumni groups, fan pages, review sites, they all feed into your online brand reputation, if you bother to engage with these groups then you are more likely to be viewed as an employer of choice.

To be honest these are just e few thoughts that came from listening to podcasts last night and this morning (since I knackered my knee I'm not getting out much!). Hopefully there is something of interest in there for the recruitment community, if not then it may, at least, spark some debate..