Employer branding: The process

Section two of the Personnel Today Management Resources one stop guide to employer branding, covering the change management implications of employer branding, including visions, values, competencies, partnership and rewards. Other sections .

Understand more about the process of employer branding

Examine your organisation's readiness to change

Analyse one model of employer branding

Start planning an action plan to undertake employer branding

Summary of key points

Take corporate social responsibility seriously

Be part of an employer's forum or network

Share best practice

Get involved in the development of shared knowledge

Get involved in creating an industry standard.

Developing an employer brand is a powerful mix of embracing vision, values, and behaviours, and delivering a service that demonstrates commitment to best practice and service excellence. It cannot be developed dispassionately - everyone involved needs passionate commitment to the overall goals.

Significantly, increasing any focus on your employer brand will involve managing change. Talk to any chief executive (CEO), or the person tasked with managing change, and they will most likely say it comes down to the same issue - how do you really make change happen? One of the biggest issues is people and their willingness to take action. CEOs will say: 'I have done everything I can to pass the decision-making down the line', or 'I thought I had empowered my people, but nothing happens, all the decisions still come back to me.'

For anyone charged with developing an employer brand, it is vital to surround yourself with people capable of proactively making change happen. Rather this than the 'silent nodders' who you know are agreeing on the surface, but underneath are part of the silent majority of observers. In any organisation these employees may not actively sabotage progress, but kill it by their unwillingness to take responsibility for making it happen.

Accurately assess the readiness to change

If you are developing a process for employer branding, you need accurately to identify your starting point and quantify the scale and scope of the required change.

This can be assessed at an individual, team or organisational level. Another important factor, because of the scope and scale of employer branding, is to recognise what already exists that can be built on, what needs development and what significantly needs to change.

The organisational brand audit in Section 6 and the customer service process in Section 3 will all help to support the process of developing an employer brand. It is also important to test reality. How achievable are your goals, again from an organisational, team or personal perspective? Look outside the organisation - what is happening to your competitors, what legislation may impact on your business and what are the key trends?

Sometimes change can be seen as overwhelming. Indeed, this is one of the main reasons why change initiatives fail. Like a giant rabbit frozen in the headlights, organisations fail to identify which direction to take. Alternatively, individual managers and their teams run off in a set of different directions, each well meaning but totally unco-ordinated. Although the perceived scale of change required may seem enormous, it becomes much more achievable when scaled down into specific projects, or time frames.

It is fundamentally important to recognise the real starting point. Often organisations involve external consultancies to identify what needs to change. But the same information can be identified from within the organisation by undertaking a realistic and honest assessment of the state of readiness of your organisation. This can be achieved by talking to your employees, customers, suppliers and other stakeholders.

It is important to recognise what has been achieved, what is working well and what can be built on. Learn from your current experience rather than reinventing, or discarding current practices.

Clearly state the overall strategic direction

You also need to identify your level and span of influence. Organisationally, who are your sponsors? Can you achieve real change from your position? Depending on your role within the organisation, you may feel that you have a greater or lesser role to play in planning the journey. However, there are a number of ways that you can become involved.

Wherever you sit within an organisation, you will have a role to play in the achievement of the overall goals. Employer branding needs champions at all levels within an organisation. You may not sit on the executive board, but you may be a head of department, team leader, or manager with responsibility for others. Individually, everyone has responsibility for themselves, so in some way it will be possible to identify an overall strategic direction.

If you're responsible for others, it is important to ensure that whatever goals or overall direction you are setting, it is synergetic and linked to the overall strategy of the organisation. It is also important that you involve members of your team in the setting of goals to ensure buy-in.

In any process of change there should always be an overall plan, which once decided should be the blueprint for all actions. As an architect designs a house, they take account of the need for foundations and a properly constructed internal structure, as well as interesting and innovative design features. Similarly, the architects of employer branding need to recognise the need for strong organisation foundations and internal structures before embarking on the more innovative approaches to change.

If you are looking to develop an employer brand, it is important that you identify some key steps. The model is just one suggested model. There are more examples in Section 8 . You need to identify a model that works for you, your team or your organisation.

One model of employer branding

What is clearly being recognised is that having strong consumer brands is not enough. Organisations need to broaden their focus to consider other aspects, such as:

People

Products/services

Processes/systems

Premises/environment.

In order to develop an employer or organisational brand, it is important to articulate the image and vision of the future and to invite all employees to unite behind it.

This branding process normally has a number of components (see chart ). This is an overarching model focusing on the key processes.

In practice, this means that every part of the business will have its part to play in applying the principles to its own particular aspect of recruitment, induction, retention and the day-to-day practices of running the business in its own division, region or team.

Taken together, each aspect will form an essential part of the whole, and like creating a stained glass window, each part needs to fit seamlessly within the whole before the real beauty is revealed.

Our vision: where we want to be

A vision must be a real statement that people can easily remember and identify with, not just words on a wall. It should be very clearly articulated. A test of its validity is that when asked, every employee can respond clearly with the statement.

Daniel Goleman (see Resources ) suggests that once you start a process of identifying a cultural reality, it is hard to put the lid back on it, and the shared language provides a sense of resonance and it helps people move from talk to action. Once the cultural reality has been uncovered and explored, he suggests that the next stage in working towards an emotionally intelligent organisation is to define a vision that is in synch with the hopes and dreams of individuals.

Goleman develops this theme further by looking at the qualities required by leaders, giving examples of leaders wanting to get their people 'aligned' with their strategy, but suggests that it isn't that simple.

"Strategies couched as they are in the dry language of corporate goals, speak mainly to the rational brain, the neocortex. Strategic visions and the plans that follow from them are typically linear and limited, bypassing the elements of heart and passion essential for building commitment.

"Getting people to really embrace change requires attunement, alignment with the kind of resonance that moves people emotionally as well as intellectually," he says.

This issue is discussed in more detail in Section 4 .

Individual managers should be encouraged to spend time identifying with their teams the overall vision, strategy and development goals of the business, and clearly planning how each individual and the team can contribute to meeting those goals. The team vision should set out how the team will contribute to the achievement of the corporate vision. If team members are involved in formulating the vision, there is more chance that they will work towards achieving it. Encourage the creation and achievement of personal visions.

If you are new to employer branding, you may want to investigate other 'visionary' businesses. Find out how they inspire their people and collate case studies of excellence - Section 8 will help this process. Identify the common themes and create your own action list based on best practice.

Our values: what we stand for/our integrity

If values are not demonstrated by everyone in the organisation on a daily basis, they are worthless.

Louis Patler, in Don't Compete… Tilt the Field!, takes a similar approach to Goleman when he describes the core values approach of Lloyd Pickett of Rodel Inc as more than a mission statement. The Rodel Way is the articulation of a set of principles that have guided Rodel's transformation. There are five commitments that underlie the Rodel Way, outlined on the opposite page.

As well as identifying the vision and values, it is important to identify the key steps that need to be met to achieve the overall goal, these should be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timed), and expressed in a language that everyone can identify with. Highlight the key steps, but also try to think about each step in detail, think about what needs to happen, what could go wrong, and how to deal with issues that might arise.

Although traditional tools like SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) and SMART objectives have been around for a long time, they are still a good starting point.

Have a project plan, use all the available current project planning tools and techniques to ensure you can constantly monitor and track where you are with each project. Hold everyone accountable for progress. These stages should be regularly reviewed so that progress can be measured. If you are supporting or developing an employer branding, it may also be helpful to identify your own starting point.

Ask yourself: 'Does my team strive to give their best? Do they know what they are expected to achieve? How will I reward them? Do I encourage the will to win, drive and energy, self-belief and resilience? In what way do I inhibit or support these values?'

Behaviours, competencies, and standards: what we demonstrate daily

The way we do things and the way our performance is measured applies to everyone and ensures consistency.

Most organisations have a competency model, but this should also include behaviours and emotional and social competencies, such as those defined by Daniel Goleman.

He defines five basic emotional and social competencies as follows: self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills. As well as a focus on the practical skills and knowledge required to undertake their role, there should also be the encouragement of the development of behaviours designed to support personal and organisational growth. These can be simply expressed and measured - for example, to enable us to meet our goal/vision, we need to be able to do the following. These standards need to be clearly defined, not just 'we promise to do our best', but 'we promise to respond within 14 days, on time, and to meet identified standards.'

It is also important to be creative, encourage people to share ideas, use different techniques to generate different approaches, make no assumptions about the way something has to be done, and think about how could it be done differently. One very real issue, particularly for talented people, is time wasting, bureaucracy and trivia. Giving clear guidance on expectations and agreeing the specific details on deliverables means that individuals can really focus on what they need to do. Meetings can be shorter, objectives can be set and work can be completed within a shorter timeframe.

It is also important to build in a regular measurement of achievement. The measures of success should be clearly explained, built on the SMART objectives and be time-bound - for example, by the end of three months, two weeks, one week, we will have achieved X. Encourage people to goal set on a daily and weekly basis. Use these measures regularly, don't just set them and walk away - stay close and make them visible.

Think about your own organisation. How many people have the following profile:

Positive

Enthusiastic

Offers to help

Willing to learn

Will try different ways of doing things

Shows genuine interest in others.

And how many have the following profile:

Negative

Give the impression of being bored,or tired

Rarely offer additional help

More focused on themselves than others

Prefer to stick to tried and tested ways of doing things

Often say: 'It won't work'.

It is this contrast in styles that causes the issues when trying to transform an organisation. Many organisations adopt anthems, hold motivational events and build inspiring quotes into the fabric of their company. However, this will make little difference unless there is real unity of belief behind the words. This can only be achieved through a carefully orchestrated and planned process of change.

Create an environment where people want to work: develop coaching, giving and receiving feedback, sharing

One of the recent trends in employee development is a recognition that retention of key employees is going to become increasingly important. With reduced resources available, everyone is going to be competing for the same people. Graduates have excellent networks: on leaving university, they keep in touch with each other and compare the offerings from different organisations.

Another issue is retaining the knowledge worker. In today's organisations, when a relatively small number of people are developing specialist skills, and these people leave, there is a very high risk of part of the business going with them. In a Fast Company article by Brook Manville and Nathaniel Foote, 'Strategy as if Knowledge Mattered' (April 1996), they emphasise the following: "The essence of successful knowledge-based strategies is a company's capacity to raise the aspirations of each employee. These are the people whose contributions and ongoing development becomes the life-blood of performance gains."

Today's younger employees are much more mobile than previous generations. In some cases, organisations are offering financial incentives to join a company - such is the need to attract new talent.

Help teams to respect each other's strengths. As the period of change progresses, you will need people with different preferences, use profiles to identify team and individual strengths, and match the right people to the right tasks. Recognise the importance of behaviours, reinforce the positive behaviours, try to eliminate the negative behaviours, encourage people to share feelings and support those who are struggling. Recognise, however, that not everyone may be capable of handling the changes required and be prepared to offer them additional support.

In recent times, there has been talk of breaking through the glass ceiling.

But perhaps equally importantly is breaking down the mahogany door on the corporate boardroom and helping the occupants recognise the importance of being committed to employer branding.

As Goleman, Semler, Bennis and Biedermann and others have highlighted, commitment to people development needs to start at the top of an organisation, so it is not just an issue for HR and training and development functions. The leadership behaviours set the tone and expectations for employees. People are smart - talented people are even smarter, they will be not be taken in by lip service to values. They want to see an active demonstration in the day-to-day people management of the business.

The more collaborative and forward-thinking organisations recognise that a motivated workforce does not need to be 'managed' in the traditional sense. What employees do need is guidance, coaching and the sharing of wisdom. This was one of the five imperatives suggested in the War for Talent by McKinsey (see Resources ). Developing these coaching skills takes time and needs to be demonstrated through models of best practice that are cascaded throughout the organisation.

The implication of all this for organisations and trainers is a fundamental shift from training to learning. There is a distinct difference in ownership; the individual needs to own and take responsibility for their own learning; and there is huge importance in helping individuals realise their potential.

In a survey carried out for the Personnel Today publication Talent Management (see Resources ), the following question was asked: 'What would make you go the extra mile for an organisation?' There was a mix of responses between a recognition of the value they brought to the organisation and appropriate reward, but equally important was a need to do something worthwhile.

In today's working environment, people want to feel that their contribution really is recognised as making a difference. There was also the need to respect the individual's work-life balance and the preference for flexible working, which was highlighted in their responses to some of the other questions.

The survey also asked: 'If you had equally attractive job offers from two organisations, what could make the difference in terms of the way that they handle their people that might influence you to join?'

The responses to this question particularly highlighted the need to align values, have honesty, integrity, equality, fairness and flexibility. Their responses are perhaps best summarised by one of the respondents: 'An environment managed to create inspired, energised, empowered staff who were committed as opposed to merely compliant, or even working from fear'.

It's important to encourage each manager to be someone who makes a difference. Taking time to 'know' the people they manage as individuals - to cherish, nurture, respect, value each person and watch that person grow. This is the most rewarding aspect of any relationship. To recognise what people are good at, identify their strengths and provide the opportunity for them to use these skills. Empower staff by communicating, by giving responsibility and the opportunity to be part of decision-making. Create a support system to give confidence, stability and security, help people to help themselves. You also need to engender a sense of fun about life and work.

Technology can support flexible working. People no longer need to be in an office, and for many people, freedom to operate is important. Their creativity is unlikely to be contained within office hours. Allowing them flexibility and freedom will ensure that you maximise their contribution. New legislation related to work-life balance will mean that organisations will have to adopt a more flexible approach.

Working in partnership: employees, customers, suppliers, community and the media

No person or organisation can function for long alone. Working with people, helping others to be successful, building pride, self-esteem and sharing success are all important components. Equally, building close links with suppliers, encouraging the media with positive news and building links with your local community are positive partnership actions.

Brand loyalty is created in many ways, but essentially it is all based on the relationships that an organisation builds with its partners. Corporate social responsibility is becoming increasingly important. Features like The Sunday Times' 'Best Companies to Work For' list, Investors in People and the National Training Awards, all emphasise the importance of these relationships. No business can afford to ignore its standing in the community or with its customers.

Communicate key messages: internally and externally, gain commitment from others to the key goals

You need everyone to unite behind a common goal. However, you will also need to identify the people who are going to be most proactive. You do not need to call them champions, but in reality, they will be the sponsors of employer branding.

You need them at every level in the business, from the very top to the newest recruit. They need to quietly - and sometimes loudly - promote the changes that are required. They will be the people who can keep both themselves and others going when the change runs into difficulties, or when new solutions have to be developed. They will keep going when others say it cannot be achieved, and they will be self-motivated, but also able to motivate other people. Others will be able to offer coaching support, building coaching in as a core competence.

Creating an employer or organisation brand is a critical part of how you attract, recruit and retain talent. People want to work for a company that they respect. A question all organisations should be asking themselves is: 'Are our employees acting as ambassadors for us? Are they talking positively to their families, partners and friends about our organisation? And what are they saying to our customers?'.

Identifying talented individuals does not just mean focusing on people who apply for a job; it means clearly inducting recruitment companies and headhunters into your brand and expectations. It means thinking very carefully about the messages that are given about your brand in advertisements.

It also means sharing key messages with the people you meet about your business and the opportunities. You need to keep replenishing your talent pool; ideally, you want people to come to you. Entrepreneurial CEOs of small businesses are often passionate about what they are doing, and that passion is infectious. Think about what Richard Branson has done for Virgin, and Tim Smit for the Eden Project - they enthuse people to want to be part of their dream.

Employees experience every day whether you are delivering what you promise and this will be demonstrated through their attitudes and behaviour. Nothing will destroy a reputation faster than an organisation promoting itself as an employer of choice only to find its employees informally giving out a very different opinion to its customers, or their own family and friends. Organisations that take employee relations seriously will be seeking to engage the hearts and minds of their employees and to attune their dreams with the organisation. This attunement should be demonstrated through the way an organisation recruits, develops, rewards and retains individual employees.

From the bottom to the top of the organisation - and vice versa - open up channels of communication and encourage the giving and receiving of feedback. And even more importantly, be seen to be acting on this information. This point is covered in more detail in Section 5 .

Sharing with our competitors: best practice

Be proud of your achievements, and demonstrate best practice. Be the organisation that others benchmark against. This will have internal spin-offs for morale. Demonstrating your corporate social responsibility seriously is one way of addressing this issue. Equally, being part of an employer's forum, or network, sharing best practice, being prepared to be involved in the development of shared knowledge and wanting to create an industry standard, are all ways that an organisation can input into the corporate marketplace for the benefit of all. If an organisation wants to encourage discretionary behaviour on the part of its employees then it needs to demonstrate its own willingness to support activities designed for the greater good.

Charles Handy in Beyond Certainty (see Resources ) has a similar view:

"I sense we now stand at the top of the pass. Spread out below is a vast expanse, with no roads through it. We can, I suppose, each take our individual buggies and drive off alone into the night for good or ill. Worse, we can jump with some friends into a tank and forge together through the future, and damnation to the rest. Better it would be, I am now sure to build roads on which we can all travel, but that means giving up some personal gain so that all may benefit more in the end. We won't do that, I fear, in our society, in our cities or organizations, unless we have a better idea of what the journey is all about. The Meaning of Life comes to the top of the agenda again, even if organizations want to call their bit of it a Vision Statement. The future for us too is in our own place, if we can learn to see it differently, and are strong in will to change it."

Rewarding performance: real measures that everyone recognises

Not just money, but personal recognition is best demonstrated little and often. Create a reward and recognition system, not just financial benefits.

Individuals do appreciate recognition for their achievements, and being thanked for a particular action. An employee values being given extra responsibility, being made to feel part of something special. Financial rewards are important, but so are other forms of recognition as shown in a study by Roffey Park (See Talent Management in Resources ). Recognition was the fourth most popular motivator, and lack of recognition was one of the biggest demotivators.

One concern that people often have is how their contribution will be measured. Measures are not always shared with individuals. The organisation may be using one set of criteria, while an individual believes that they are being measured against another set. This stage is very much linked to goal setting. Unfortunately, many organisations still have annual appraisal systems, which are not linked to the day-to-day activities of an individual. It is important clear objectives are set that are regularly monitored, and that an individual receives feedback and has the opportunity to discuss their view of their own progress. In a coaching environment this will happen more naturally. This is covered in more detail in Section 6 .

Create opportunities to regularly recognise achievements, both individually and in the team. Take time to thank people who have met targets, helped others achieve, or gone out of their way to be helpful.

Review and progress: establish a process to learn and grow

How often do you celebrate success? Be open about measurement and success factors, never forget where you started or realise how much progress has been made. There should be a process of continuous improvement, ask 'What have we learned?' and 'Where can we innovate?'

To prevent a distorted view of the organisation, the process should be seamless from the front to back and from the top to the bottom of the organisation. The most innovative organisations innovate, accelerate and innovate again. The larger the organisation, the more opportunity there is to learn from different parts of the business.

The collective knowledge within an organisation is rarely captured effectively. You will find many examples of reinventing the wheel if there is not an effective process of data capture and sharing of best practice, as well as the opportunity to learn from mistakes in a blame-free environment.

Once employer branding is initiated, you will want to build on and learn from the experience. Employer branding does not require huge resources, but what it does often need is a change of mindset. People need to be prepared to learn from the experience, to share successes.

All too often people move on to something new before reviewing the experience and sharing the lessons. Success can be celebrated at different stages depending on the size of the challenge. It is all too easy never to celebrate because the goal keeps moving. In reality, the process of employer branding is never completed. Therefore celebrating the small achievements is vital in order to keep individual motivation alive. This point is covered in more detail in Section 7 .

Making it happen

Once a model for employer branding has been established, it is likely that a number of projects will need to be co-ordinated. As has been mentioned, it is important to view the overall picture, identify where the best starting point is and decide how to incorporate other initiatives that may have already started.

Ideally, you will need support from other members of your team.

Team action plan

1. Commit to meeting once a week, at a time that is least disruptive and most productive to review all the projects that are in your plan.

2. Arrange a session where people are open and honest about the real progress that has been made.

3. Keep to a sensible timeframe for this session; encourage short updates not long debate. If there are issues that need real discussion this should be arranged outside this meeting. Use this session to identify resourcing and timeframe issues.

4. Use project planning tools - having a detailed project plan with an agreed timeline is a vital part of any employer branding process.

5. As part of the process, identify exactly what has been achieved, what has slipped and how the time can be recovered. There will be times when there are real difficulties over an action being carried out on time. Teams and organisations have different ways of coping with this. One approach is to accept it and almost collude with it happening on a regular basis. The other approach is much tougher and not to accept slippages. But, as ever, there is a middle way. The most harmonious solution is to set a realistic time frame in the first place.

6. Map out the total journey and a really detailed action plan, effectively working through all the actions before they happen, questioning, challenging the assumptions and exploring the 'what ifs' and building in a contingency plan.

7. Tasks are allocated, regularly reviewed, and absolutely no assumptions are made. Communication across all parts of the project is well maintained and the 'best fit' people are allocated to key roles.

8. In this way if things do go wrong, there are mechanisms all along the way to ensure that the impact on the problem is minimised. Without this attention to detail, when things do go wrong, the impact is much more serious.

Dealing with the unexpected

If the project has been planned in detail, the incidents of the unexpected may be less dramatic, and so the impact can be minimised. However, even with the best planning, things do go wrong and it's important that the right resources are deployed to fix the issue. This should be a carefully selected individual or team whose task is to clearly identify what has gone wrong and to seek help and support as required. Sometimes perceived problems and issues can be an excuse for inactivity. With stretched resources, everyone all running after the same ball can mean that problems occur in other areas simply because the focus has shifted.

Giving regular progress reports, communicating on how the issue is being tackled and identifying the lessons learned can be reassuring and useful, but a policy of business as usual should be maintained for the customers and the rest of the employees.

Other approaches and models of employer branding are illustrated in Section 8 .

Organisational Brand Model

Our vision

(Where we want to be)

Our values

(What we stand for - our integrity)

Behaviours/competencies/standards

(What we demonstrate daily)

Creating an environment where people want to work.

(Develop coaching, feedback, sharing)

Working in partnership

(Employees, customers, suppliers, community and the media)

Communicate the key messages

(Internally & externally, gain commitment to key goals )

Sharing with our competitors

(Best practice)

Rewarding performance

(Real measures, that we all recognise)

Measuring our success

(Establish a process to learn and grow)

Source: The Inspiration Network

Five commitments that underlie the Rodel Way

1. Listening generously: Learning to listen for the contribution in each other's speaking versus listening from our own assessments, opinions and judgements

2. Speaking straight: To speak honestly in a way that forwards what we are up to. Making clear and direct requests. Being willing to surface ideas or take positions that may result in conflict when it is necessary to step toward reaching our objectives

3. Being for each other: supporting each other's success. Operating from a point of view that we are all in this together and that anyone of us cannot win at the expense of someone else or the enterprise

4. Honouring commitments: Making commitments that forward what we are up to. Being responsible for our commitments, holding others accountable for theirs, and supporting them in fulfilling their commitments

5. Acknowledgement/appreciation: each member commits to be a source of acknowledgement and appreciation for the team; this includes giving, receiving and requesting.

Source: Louis Patler, Don't Compete, Tilt the Field!

Summary of key points in the process of employer branding

1. Recognise the reality of what you're trying to do

2. Be brave but not foolish

3. Carefully research how others have achieved it, build on their findings, but create your own plan

4. Always keep your overall route map close by, ready to show others and to reinforce your own beliefs

5. Don't try to do it alone - identify key members of a support team and keep in close communication

6. Break the journey up into bite-size chunks and set key deliverables

7. Review each stage and learn the lessons from what has worked and what hasn't

8. Don't be afraid to amend the plan in the light of the lessons learned

9. Don't let apparent difficulties or failures overwhelm you - have contingency plans

10. People often give up when they are closest to achieving their goals - take regular breaks, do something different, return with new energy