Employer branding: Using employer branding to gain competitive advantage
Section six of the Personnel Today Management Resources one stop guide to employer branding, covering metrics relating to employer branding, and how to design an organisational brand audit. Other sections .
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There is a well-known saying that what gets measured gets done. Equally, however, perhaps there should also be a saying 'Is what is being measured worthwhile to our business?' One of the very real challenges that underpins employer branding is how effectively to measure it.
Measuring the new assets
One area closely linked to employer branding is intellectual capital (IC). In their book of the same title, Edvinsson and Malone chart the early stages of research into this area. Skandia, the largest insurance and financial services in Scandinavia, had been researching this area under the leadership of the author Leif Edvinsson and, in May 1995, released the world's first public Intellectual Capital annual report as a supplement to the financial report.
At the heart of the Skandia IC model was the idea that the true value of a company's performance lies in its ability to create sustainable value by pursuing a business vision and its resulting strategy.
From this strategy, it could determine the success factors that must be maximised. These success factors could, in turn, be grouped into four distinct areas of focus:
Financial
Customer
Process
Renewal and development
This is in addition to a commonly-shared fifth area - human.
Finally, within each of these five areas of focus, one could identify numerous key indicators to measure performance. Combined, these five factors created a new holistic and dynamic reporting model, which Skandia called The Navigator.
Edvinsson and Malone suggested that IC accounting 'uniquely recognises what counts in the modern economy of fast-moving knowledge-intensive virtual corporations':
Strong and enduring business relationships within networked partnerships
The enduring loyalty of customers
The role of key employees, upon whose knowledge and competencies the company's future rests
The commitment of the company and its employees to learn and renew over time
And most of all, the character and values of a company - a crucial tool for investors and executives when looking at mergers, acquisitions, alliances, personal hiring and partnering.
They also reported on the work of Annie Brooking, founder and managing director of The Technology Broker (UK). Brooking believed that it is vital for a company before beginning an IC audit to identify its strategic intent: "Otherwise," she says, "a company could spend huge sums and waste innumerable hours measuring every company intangible, conducting psychometric tests on employees, and counting up the value of every intellectual property right - and end up with 'an immense amount of knowledge'... that would help us generate statistics that may or may not be useful information."
They go on to quote Brooking's value of IC measurement, saying that it takes many forms including that it:
Validates an organisation's ability to achieve its goals
Plans research and development
Provides background information for re-engineering programmes
Provides focus for organisational education and training programmes
Assesses the value of the enterprise
Expands the organisational memory.
Edvinsson and Malone assert that Brooking's work supports the view that IC reporting will not only "help the company increase its worth in the eyes of partners and investors, but by keeping it on track towards its internal structural goals, also make the company more efficient, profitable and competitive."
It is a theme further developed by Kevin Thompson in Emotional Capital. He discusses how to create a financial model to reflect the true value of emotional and intellectual capital on the balance sheet, so that book value and market value start to equate. He created a term called 'triple A accounting', which was his vision of how the true value of a business might be assessed in the future. The 'As' are:
Assets
Assets will comprise intellectual capital, emotional capital and business capital - these are best understood as hearts, minds and tangible assets:
Emotional capital (hearts): The feelings, beliefs and values
Intellectual capital (minds): The data, information and knowledge
Business capital (physical and financial): What it owns in terms of inventory, materials, equipment, cash etc.
Achievements
The words and deeds that drive the business and the payoffs that result:
Process, or actions
Language or words
Results or payoffs.
Accounts
Accounts will comprise the figures in the income account:
Financial: the figures from the top to the bottom line
Facts: The results of efforts to produce savings, increase productivity and cut costs
Feelings: The marketing and corporate communication adding value to the brand and image.
In The New Leaders, Goleman highlights a number of key issues. One of these is discovering the reality of an organisation. He suggests that examining employee attitude surveys can be helpful for systematically evaluating employee attitudes, values, and beliefs, but that they rarely tap into the more subtle layer of underlying feelings and complex norms that flow through an organisation.
Goleman refers to a process called 'dynamic inquiry', which was developed by Cecilia McMillan of the University of Massachusetts and Annie McKee, which uncovers an organisation's 'emotional reality' - what people care about; what is helping them, their groups and the organisation to succeed; and what is getting in the way.
The authors say that through a process of discovering the truth about their organisation, people begin to create a shared language about what is really going on, as well as what they'd like to see - their ideal vision of the company. And that while this may strike some leaders as a bit removed from the business issues, it is only when people talk about their feelings that they begin to uncover root causes of problems in the culture and the true sources of inspiration around them.
What is very apparent is that this is a very dynamic area of measurement. Thompson suggests that his triple A accounting is very much a straw man, and is under development. Even harder is trying to measure the soul of an organisation.
Inviting feedback
By embarking on a process of branding your organisation, you will inevitably become involved in a number of aspects of receiving feedback. In fact, one of the reasons why an organisation may be considering its brand is because it may have received negative feedback from its employees or customers.
However, measuring the effectiveness of any intervention of establishing an employer brand will be different. We have already examined in earlier sections how far reaching this approach can be, and in this context, it will be important to establish clear guidelines on what can and should be measured.
Many organisations use external organisations to support their benchmarking processes. Belonging to an employer's forum and meeting with representatives from other organisations is another way of keeping up to date with how other organisations are approaching employer branding (See examples in Resources ).
What is perhaps challenging is recognising the scale and scope of employer branding. The organisational brand audit below indicates just a sample of some of the questions that you may want to consider.
Organisational brand audit
Translating the brand into day-to-day actions can consist of the following:
1. Organisational objectives
Are the CEO and the board well respected by staff, customers and shareholders?
Do all members of the board seek to support the performance of all functions?
How are objectives developed and transmitted to employees?
Is there an overall vision/values statement?
How are the objectives measured?
What business planning processes are used?
How is responsibility delegated?
When and how do individuals and their teams meet?
Is there a straight line of communication from the newest recruit to the CEO?
How is the organisation addressing its corporate social responsibility?
2. Recruitment
What messages are conveyed to potential employees?
What do our recruitment advertisements say about the organisation?
What selection criteria are applied - is it transmitted to potential employees?
How are unsuccessful applicants handled?
How do we involve existing employees in the recruitment process?
What is our commitment to developing a diverse workforce?
How much progress have we made towards helping staff achieve work-life balance?
How flexible are our patterns of working?
3. Induction
What process is used to induct employees?
What use is made of the time between the acceptance letter and an employee taking up their post?
How is the company image conveyed - is it easy to understand and assimilate? How is ongoing induction managed - is there the opportunity to test understanding of corporate values?
What opportunity is there for new employees to meet the CEO and the board?
4. Performance review
Are job roles clearly defined?
Have competencies been defined for the various roles?
Does the review include behavioural and emotional intelligence measures?
Are line managers trained to assess?
Does the assessment process fit into an ongoing performance review?
Is competence rewarded in recognition as well as pay and benefits?
Are the measures owned by and relevant to the individual?
How do we reward people who think differently?
5. Innovation and new product development
Does our organisation innovate, accelerate and innovate again?
Do we champion people who think differently?
Do we have a process of continuous improvement?
Do we share and build on internal successes?
Do we share our success externally?
Do we have a process for capturing, sponsoring and encouraging individual innovation?
6. Employee development
Is there a clear employee development programme?
Is the HR function seen as a true business partner?
Are its objectives aligned with the rest of the business?
What progress has been made in the use of blended learning?
Are line managers trained to deliver on-job training?
Is there a coaching environment, and does it really work on a day-to-day basis?
How well do we handle change?
7. Communications
Do all communications reinforce the organisation brand - both internal and external?
Are employees kept informed - memos, newsletters, and personal letters, intranet?
What messages are being conveyed to our customers, both informally and formerly?
Does our people brand match our product brand?
8. Advertising/PR
Is the best use being made of the organisation's marketing budgets?
Is there a systematic review of each year's advertising?
Are the results measured?
Are employees given full details before any marketing campaign is launched?
Are employees and their extended families actively used as a sounding board/ambassadors for our products/services and the associated campaigns?
9. Marketing
How informed is marketing on organisational objectives?
Is the marketing strategy regularly reviewed and measured against outcomes?
Who is responsible for briefing marketing on the HR/training/personnel issues and vice versa?
Is the marketing strategy regularly reviewed/measured against outcomes?
10. Premises
Does the building reflect the brand?
How are visitors greeted and received?
When customers/suppliers arrive, are the organisation's values clearly presented?
Do our employees reflect the image? Do they understand and actively demonstrate the values?
11. Quality monitoring
What systems are in place to monitor and evaluate the success of the business?
If standards are set, how are they measured?
Is responsibility for quality delegated?
Does each employee feel ownership for quality measures?
How informed is the organisation on their competitor's performance?
How does the company champion and celebrate success?
12. Becoming an employer of choice
Do we:
Create vision, values, share beliefs and seek to engage hearts and minds of all employees?
Work across all aspects of the business with employees, suppliers, and other stakeholders, to deliver our brand promise to our customers?
Maximise the potential of cross-cultural and virtual team working?
Recognise and respond to the different needs of individual learners?
Provide learning and development that is focused, innovative and inspirational?
Adopt a proactive approach to researching current trends and new developments?
Adopt a holistic approach to the development of all employees?
Seek to be leading edge and an organisation that others benchmark against?
Implement a process of continuous improvement and transformation?
Embrace change, work flexibly, and recognise and reward individual contribution?
Believe in making a major contribution in terms of corporate social responsibility - do we encourage all employees to 'put something back' into their community?
The Organisational Brand Audit is copyrighted by The Inspiration Network
Having identified answers to these questions, you should be able to put together an action plan that you can share and discuss with the rest of your colleagues in your organisation. This is also something that could be used as part of a climate audit, and the results could form part of the agenda at a workshop for your senior executives.
The brand audit can be used as a starting point for you to tailor your own internal measurement processes, which can then be supported by external measures.
Before entering into a dialogue with an external provider or undertaking your own process, clearly identify what is important for your organisation to measure, or to receive feedback about.
Time is a precious commodity for most professionals. Only embark on any process of data capture if the end result will perceived to be of value. Unfortunately, it is quite possible for you to undertake extensive surveys, only to find that the resulting information is not valued, or rapidly becomes out of date. Before undertaking any process of measurement ask the question: Why do we need this information and what will we do with it once it is presented? No evaluation should ever be undertaken unless there is a clear process for sharing it and acting on the outcomes.
Measuring the effectiveness of employer branding
When selecting your measures consider the following:
Make use of all existing data, such as customer and employee feedback, results of attitude surveys, customer satisfaction, exit interviews, and press coverage. In short, any data that gives a picture of the organisation in its current state
Make sure that any form of measurement has a practical purpose that relates to the real needs of the organisation
Build in measures of success from the very start of the employer branding process. Once the success criteria is established, it should be shared with the organisation. It is important to record the achievement of the success by keeping records of employee retention, and graduate recruitment and other measures of preferred employer status. This should also be linked to other measures such as employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction
Invite feedback from others on the criteria
Pilot it first before widespread use, then fine tune the measures
If you are considering benchmarking, remember that it is only one form of measurement
If you do use an external firm to undertake a benchmarking process, be very clear on your expectations, use a reputable company that has enough clients to provide meaningful results.
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Section one: What it is and why it matters Section three: Creating a framework for branding your organisation Section four: Developing your people Section five: How to communicate the employer brand message internally Section six: Using employer branding to gain competitive advantage Section seven: What is the future for employer branding?
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