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Your employer brand: the DNA of your business
Employer branding is concerned with building an image in the minds of
employees that work for you, and potential employees, that your business is a
great place to work. It is about relationships – those between an employer and
current, past and potential employees; and those between employees and each
other, customers and stakeholders.
As Brett Minchington, managing director of Collective Learning, a firm
specialising in employer branding, explains, all businesses, regardless of
their industry, have an employer brand.
“It’s the glue that binds the different components of the business together to
ensure employee loyalty, commitment and performance,” says Minchington. “This
results in customer loyalty, advocacy and satisfaction leading to business
growth, profitability and market share.
“This in turn results in stakeholder and competitor respect and employer of
choice status.
“The employer brand is the most powerful tool a business has for attracting,
engaging and retaining the right ‘talent culture fit’ in what is increasingly
becoming a difficult recruitment marketplace. There is a lot of competition
for good talent today, but those companies who have projected a strong
employer brand will be in a better position to pick and choose from the best
candidates. In fact, having a strong employer brand means talent will choose
them.”
An organisation with a superior employer brand is one whose people brand
matches that of its corporate brand. The employer value propositions that the
business articulates is reflected by the actions of all of its people, all of
the time.
These successful businesses closely align their people management policies,
systems and practices to their branding strategy in order to attract and
retain talent. They believe that employees are a strong way to develop a
sustainable competitive advantage, and they appreciate that the future will
see competition for the best employees as fierce as competition for customers.
However Minchington explains that it’s not sufficient to send out compelling
messages about how good your business is to work for, or tinker with terms and
conditions, or jazz up your corporate website, your recruitment notices or
your marketing touch points. You must be able to deliver on these promises.
Minchington makes clear that an employer brand must be built from within the
company. Collaboration with staff and management, and particularly HR and
Marketing departments are critical, and CEOs and MDs, though not necessarily
driving the process, must be engaged in it and champion the program.
Benefits of having a strong employer brand
Strong branding not only makes employers more desirable to work for but a
Milward-Brown 2001 Brandz™ Survey found that employers with weaker or
unfamiliar brands have to work much harder in their recruitment messages to
build their brand.
A strong employer brand can also result in reduced recruitment costs, higher
staff retention, increased profitability and improved stock value. Marketing
and communications are enhanced and employees are committed to the
organisation’s goals. And employees are more likely to recommend the
organisation to others as a good place to work.
Building your employer brand
When looking at your employer brand and if it can be improved, ask yourself
these questions:
How will a stronger employer brand support our business strategy?
What are the main factors currently driving employee engagement and commitment?
What kind of organisational culture do we have? How consistent is it across
geographical and divisional boundaries?
Do our people have a strong sense of the organisation’s purpose and values?
How much of a gap is there between the stated ideology of the business and
what our people actually experience?
What kind of employees does our organisation most value and need, now and for
the future? And how can we reach them?
What is the reputation of our company as an employer in the marketplace?
Implementing an effective employer brand
To implement an effective employer brand you must get commitment from all
areas of the business, including management. You must identify your business
objectives and talent needs, and look for synergy with your customer brand.
Also identify what your employees value and what you can realistically deliver.
Importantly you must have a long term view and be consistent in your approach,
so develop measurement methods and evaluate your progress regularly.
More information about building your employer brand is in Brett Minchington’s
book ‘Your Employer Brand Attract- Engage- Retain’ available at
www.collectivelearningaustralia.com
Seven steps to get you started: 1. Do your research
First define all the target markets to which your product and service is
applicable. Start your research off by thinking about your company and respond
to these questions:
When you think of your company what immediately comes to mind? How would you
describe what it does?
What are your company’s weaknesses?
What are your stakeholders’ expectations of your company and how does it live
up to these expectations?
Who are your competitors and how is your company different?
2. Review your brand, positioning and key marketing messages
Does your company name and supporting positioning statement or slogan – i.e.
its brand – clearly communicate what you do and how you do it differently?
What do you want people think when they see your brand?
What is your promise to the market, i.e. what do you do differently to your
competitors?
3. Review your competitors’ relative positioning
When you think of this company what immediately comes to mind? How would you
describe what it does?
What is their promise to the market?
What do they do differently to you?
4. Build your brand pyramid
Start with a sentence or two that describes the ‘essence’ of your brand.
Build a pyramid describing your brand’s attributes, functional benefits,
emotional rewards, customer values and personality of brand values.
5. Describe your desired positioning statement
Make it active by using words like creating, delivering, enhancing etc.
Keep it short, no longer than five words
Explain what you do and how you do it differently
6. Develop supporting key messages
What is the main benefit to your customers from using your product or service?
What do you want to be known for?
What do you need to say?
Do you need specific messages for specific target markets because their needs
are different?
7. Make the positioning work
List the different ways you can strengthen your new positioning via the way
you deliver your product or service, for example post sales phone calls.
(Source: 7 steps modified courtesy of Marketing Angels SME Business Forum May
2007)
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