Employer branding: What is the future for employer branding?

Section seven of the Personnel Today Management Resources one stop guide to employer branding, covering key trends in employer branding, including corporate social responsibility. Other sections .


Use this section to

  •         
  • Examine the future of employer branding

  •         
  • Focus on corporate social responsibility

  •         
  • How to find the heart of your organisation

    Like any term, employer branding has suffered from people not really understanding what it means, not liking the term, or not knowing where to place responsibility for it in an organisation. However, the principles of joining up the key parts of your business and finding the heart of your organisation will, I hope, find resonance with the majority of you that read this guide.

    Organisations need to recognise the importance of rising to the challenge of what is currently happening in the market and think very seriously about the service that they are providing to their customers and their employees. It is also about thinking about the greater good, going beyond the day-to-day running of a business and elevating interactions between customers and employees to a higher level.

    In Brand Manners (see Resources ), the authors identify four key dimensions of interaction:

    1. The rational quality of the transaction

    2. The emotional benefits springing from the feelings generated on both sides

    3. The political realities of perceptions of win-win

    4. The spiritual experience in terms of its inherent worth.

    They identified that all four in combination create better potential, so should be worked on in harmony. They suggest that most organisations tend to operate on a 'command and control' way, where pressure increases as you go down an organisation. They suggest that moving beyond this is tough, requiring vision, will and capability.

    When these are applied effectively, an organisation can break into new space and become what they describe as the 'self-confident organisation' - the one required to deliver consistently the brand manners needed for long-term success of the individual, the company and the well-being of the customer.

    Corporate social responsibility

    One company with perhaps the longest tradition in this area is Whitbread.

    Whitbread is known for attracting and retaining the best people in the industry and developing them to their full potential, and is rapidly gaining credibility as the employer of choice in the leisure sector. It put a great deal of effort into creating and maintaining a working environment where committed, talented people can thrive.

    It is committed to implementing policies that make it the employer of choice - addressing equal opportunity, diversity and providing a healthy and safe working environment.

    Employees are encouraged to get involved in their local communities by:

  • Matched-giving: up to £200 will be made available to a charity of the employee's choice which they already support themselves, either in cash or in-kind

  • Payroll giving: employees donate regularly to their favoured charities

  • Involving them in choosing the projects Whitbread supports: for example, BigHelp in Luton, Sport Relief, Comic Relief, Steve Redgrave Charity Flag Relay

  • The Employee of the Year award: recognises employees' contribution to the local communities.

    Innocent, another of the case studies in Section 8 , is a very young company that is committed to 'putting something back'; it takes its social corporate responsibility very seriously.

    From the very beginning, because its products are so fresh, it has always given any surplus to the charity, Fair Share, to give to the homeless.

    In 2003, to celebrate its 4th anniversary, it held a two-day free music festival in Regents Park 'Fruitstock'. It invited all its outlets, journalists and other contacts to a special enclosure called 'Very Nice People', which was an opportunity to get to know people in an informal way.

    In 2004, 80,000 attended a similar festival, with members of the innocent team baking cakes and making chutney to raise money for charity. This has now been formalised with the setting up of The Innocent Foundation, with an aim of helping other charities who have a commitment to bringing nature and community closer together both in the UK and globally.

    For the full case studies, please go to Section 8 .

    Have you found the heart of your organisation?

    You may like to consider these questions:

  • Have we developed a definable organisation/employer brand?

  • Do we actively demonstrate our values and brand in the way that we conduct our business?

  • Does this equally apply in the way we handle our people?

  • Have we created the right environment: welcoming, meeting the needs of all sections of the community?

  • Are we committed to identifying andrecognising talent at all levels in the organisation?

  • Do we have an infrastructure that allows individuals freedom to innovate, generate ideas and receive feedback?

  • Are we sure that our management structure is developing new talent and creating a coaching and learning culture?

  • Have we created an environment thatattracts potential employees to want to come and work for us?

  • Do we encourage individual employees to use their initiative, to innovate, and if they come up with good ideas, make sure their suggestions are taken seriously?

  • Do we give honest, open and supportive feedback on performance?

  • Have we created internal forums that allow for healthy debate and discussion?

  • Do we involve users, taking and acting on feedback from our employees, customers, suppliers on how the processes and procedures can be improved?

  • Do we communicate the same messages internally and externally?

  • How can we make sure that we don't say one thing in words and send a different message with our behaviours?

  • Do we make continuous effort to achieve all our customer's desired outcomes?

  • Do we give our employees complete empowerment to look after our customers, to take responsibility for sorting problems?

  • Do we encourage all our employees at all levels to identify other potentially talented people to join our organisation?

  • Do we actively share our experiences and demonstrate best practice to other organisations? Do we undertake honest and open benchmarking with other organisations?

  • Do we have a diverse and multi-talented workforce?

  • Do we actively champion talent?

    Above all, the implementation of employer branding should raise the standards and competencies of the whole organisation, and raise its profile as an employer of integrity.

    When asked to describe the brand of the organisation, there should be a common belief based on shared vision, goals, aspirations, behaviour and practice.

    Everyone who is touched by your employer brand should share these common perceptions. Importantly, this is not just an internal process. In the broader context of employer branding, it means the way organisations position themselves externally as well as internally. This will have a particular relevance in the way organisations promote themselves in the recruitment market, or in supplier contracts.

    The most fundamental part of the process is built on behaviours, self-esteem, confidence and pride in the organisation. People must take responsibility for meeting challenges and providing innovative and creative solutions to problems. They will then rise above the mundane and gain tremendous personal and team satisfaction from providing excellent customer service.

    These concepts are not fundamentally new, what is different is gaining senior level commitment and linking all the stages together in a holistic way.

    By bringing all the initiatives together under an organisation's employer brand, not only is there more coherence, there's a constant benchmark. All employees should ask the question, 'Does this action, this behaviour and this response, really reflect the brand?', and in doing so, they create an organisational conscience so powerful that organisational success has to follow.

    Any feedback from individuals undertaking employer branding would be welcome. E-mail: kaye@theinspirationnetwork.co.uk

    Core employer brand



    Personnel Today Management Resources one stop guide on employer branding

    Section one: What it is and why it matters

    Section two: The process

    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?

    Section eight: Case studies

    Section nine: Resources