EMPLOYER BRANDING – IS WHAT
YOU SEE, WHAT YOU GET?
By Donna Miller, European HR Director
at Enterprise Rent-A-Car
Essentially, an employer brand is the image of
an organisation in the mind of its employees –
that perception which is seen internally rather
than from the outside. However, it often
touches key external stakeholders as well,
such as potential employees, clients and even
customers.
It sits entirely separately from consumer
branding. Instead, it's more closely linked
with an organisation's corporate identity.
The concept is more important than ever given
today's nomadic employee workforce and the
current economic climate. On the one hand,
attracting and retaining the best personnel has
become a critical business issue. On the other,
workers need to know that their employers
believe in and practice the values they were
sold during their application. That's what
being a ‘top employer' is all about.
Gone are the days when everyone spent
their entire professional life at one company.
The ties that keep us at one place are much
weaker, so an employer brand is a major
retention tool.
But – and it is a big but – employer brands
are like skyscrapers; they can be hugely
impressive when finished, but you can't
create them without good, solid foundations.
An employer brand and the culture of any
given company cannot be superimposed on
an organisation. It has to grow out of it.
For example, when we created the Come
Alive brand for Enterprise's recruitment
advertising, the aim was to differentiate us
from the majority of graduate recruiters. Do
you want a boring office job, a thankless junior
role, a chance to spend eighteen months doing
the photocopying? The answer is bound to be
no, so we wanted to demonstrate that a job
at Enterprise is not your ‘normal' entry-level
position.
Every company has its own corporate identity.
This ranges from company values and internal
award programmes to CSR policies and
compass points showing a specific approach
to doing business. Enterprise was built on
entrepreneurialism, so our corporate brand
has always reflected that. Innocent Drinks,
to take another example, has a strong ethical
standpoint that underpins it.
Any employer brand needs to be closely
aligned with that same corporate identity.
It's vital that the employer brand that new
employees experience stays true to the
corporate identity they were sold at the
outset: hence the “from the inside out” slogan
of employer branding.
Control over the creation of such a brand, and
responsibility for its development, is down to
everyone within the company. No one part
of the whole should have absolute control of
an employer brand. Every single employee
has a part to play in creating, sustaining and
developing it. It's your job to live the ethos
and mindset of your employer, so that future
recruits can look at you and see an example
to follow.
However, when it comes to direction and
a responsibility to communicate, then the
buck stops somewhere else. The worst thing
any company can do is to assume that an
employer brand is self evident and will take
care of itself. There needs to be a guiding
hand to ensure everyone has the opportunity
to contribute to the brand and engage with it.
This usually comes from the organisation's
human resource professionals. This is often
the area of the business that has the most
direct links with employees, so it's often in
the best position to take their temperature
and use that to shape the employer brand. At
Enterprise, our role is to give that message
real relevance throughout the company,
which means engagement through employee
groups and a structured process that keeps us
buzzing.
But the end result is entirely worth it.
An effective employer brand can lead
the reputation of an organisation in any
given market. It constitutes a vital aspect
of the overall corporate identity and can
be a cornerstone of establishing long term
integrity.
It also, and perhaps most importantly, offers
employees something to which they can
aspire. The best employer brands, like the
best consumer brands, have a simple message
that informs everything they do: ‘don't be
evil', ‘come alive'.
Anyone looking at potential job offers should
take a long, hard look at the employer brands
of those organisations. Does it fit the broader
corporate brand? Does it offer a clear picture
of what it would be like to work there? Does
it, above all, make sense for me personally?
If the answer is yes, and experience goes on to
show that the company puts its money where
its mouth is, you may well be looking at one
of the UK's best employers.
Is everything working ok on this page? Do you have a question or a comment?
PDF downloads:
Login to TopEmployers 