Honesty and consistency in employer branding

Anne Bahr Thompson, head of consulting at Interbrand, highlights the importance of brand credibility.

The test of a company's relationship with its workforce is most obvious in times when job opportunities abound. With this in mind, it is interesting that, even today during a period of economic uncertainty, the concept of "employer branding" continues to be at the forefront of many human resource agendas. A scan of the papers, however, reveals that the need for HR to visibly boost employee relations and morale is here to stay, regardless of the economic climate, and particularly given the DTI's focus on work-life balance initiatives and EU labour Directives.

But is the concept of an "employer brand", as something distinct from the corporate brand, an appropriate one? Or are initiatives labelled as such really HR policy and messaging aimed at defining the corporate brand with employee audiences?

Clearly, HR initiatives sit in the wider context of a company culture. And company culture itself is a reflection of the corporate brand, the things executive management value and behaviours they reward, whether purposefully or revealed serendipitously. As Simon Barrow says in the Recruitment and Retention feature (pp.42-48), the overarching objectives of an employer brand, particularly to "make organisations employers of choice", nicely support the goals for a corporate brand. With a given targeted audience, employer branding helps develop a relationship with stakeholders, which secures preference, loyalty and future value.

For many, the idea that there should not be a distinctive employer brand set apart from the corporate one may be an onerous concept. Some organisations do not necessarily have a clearly delineated brand strategy, while others may see branding initiatives as related solely to communications campaigns or new logo development. This, however, should not deter them from well-intended and value-enhancing cultural development efforts. Yet an organisation's image among prospective employees may stem more from current employee attitudes and experiences than from formal recruitment programmes. The proliferation of multimedia message vehicles, many of which are organic and out of an employer's control, such as specialist industry posting and message boards, offer both current and prospective employees a wide array of resources to learn the truth about an organisation, its culture and values.

This is of concern, as discussions and focus groups with employees across a breadth of corporations and industries teach us that there is a cynicism about the honesty of published visions, missions and values. They are not always echoed by senior management behaviour or, perhaps, even more importantly, in reward and recognition schemes. Efforts focussed on enhancing corporate culture (an expression of your brand personality) by closely aligning it both with the organisation's philosophy and ambitions (arguably, the starting point for brand strategy) and with employee policies, evaluations and, ultimately, compensation (all reflections of brand values) are well spent. In this way, the HR professional can become an unexpected catalyst for defining the essence of the corporate brand and how it should codify processes and policies throughout the corporation.

Honesty and consistency are clearly the code by which a brand should live, whether we label it the employer brand or the corporate brand. Perhaps today's emphasis on the employer brand opens the long-awaited possibility for marketing and HR to work hand-in-hand on credibly bringing the brand to life across a corporation, and among its many audiences.

Anne Bahr Thompson, director, head of consulting, Interbrand.

See Employer branding: fad or fact? for more.