Employer Branding

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Employer Branding

🔥 It is well known that intellectual and human capital is the main source of competitive advantage and/or core competence in the modern economy. "People are our greatest asset". Accordingly, there is an intense "contest" among employers to attract and retain the best, most talented employees. So employers are keen to create and maintain a good image of the working environment they offer, offer nice work conditions and provide good employment conditions and social privileges to attract employees.
Your company may be the best employer on the planet, but you have to let prospective employees know. So as a main part of your total effort, companies are using to "Employer Branding" to recruit and retain the most talented people with superior skills and knowledge.

Ambler and Barrow were the first to explore "employer branding" through the combination of HR and brand marketing concepts. They defined it as a form of marketing based on communicating: "a combination of functional, economic, and psychological benefits provided by employment and identified with the employing company". The employer brand is normally managed by the HR and the marketing department together. Build an employer brand is a long and laborious job, but it is definitely rewarding.

Benefits of Employer Branding. Advantages

Here is a full list of the advantages of having a strong employer brand (some are somewhat overlapping). Companies with strong employer brands can:

1. Talent Management: Attract talented potential employees;
2. Obtain a long term and difficult-to-copy competitive advantage in the labor market;
3. Employee Engagement: Reach a higher level of employee satisfaction, which in turn affects the performance of an employer;
4. Build loyalty among current and potential employees which has a positive effect on labor productivity;
5. Organizational CommitmentProvide gratitude for employment, psychological contact with the employer, commitment to the organization, and incentives for employees to personally promote the company brand;
6. Potentially reduce the cost of employee acquisition;
7. Influence the work culture in the organization;
8. Improve employee relations;
9. Lower Attrition levels by increasing employee retention.

Features of a good Employer Brand

• Inspires and engages employees through a good working environment, innovative programs, and user-friendly procedures in the company, and activates the creativity of employees to develop better products and services.
• Reflects the friendliness, joy, comfort of teamwork, and satisfaction in the work environment organized by the employer.
• Is known to provide above-average pay, job security, and flexible working hours.<
• Recognizes the importance of accomplishments of employees
• Provides an experience that is conducive to wanting a career in this company. This experience serves as a starting point for future work.
• Offers employees the opportunity to apply and grow their knowledge and skills
• Provides the opportunity to help and train others through training, coaching, and mentoring.

Steps in Employer Branding. Process

In order to develop a strong employer brand in your company, you can apply the following steps:

1. Have a good understanding of your company and know the needs, attitudes, motivations, and preferences of today's (talented) employees;
2. Create a 'compelling brand promise' for employees that reflects the brand promise for customers;
3. Develop standards to measure the fulfillment of the brand promise;
4. Align all organizational practices to support and reinforce the brand promise;
5. Execute, measure and improve.

The process of building an employer brand can take five to ten years. It not only affects the HR strategy but is also related to the entire corporate strategy and vision. It is the basis of a balanced, harmonious employee-employer relationship, which is indispensable for a successful business.

⇨ Ho does your firm use employer branding? Please share your experiences with us below and help me complete this overview. Thank you.

References:
Ambler T., Barrow S., "The Employer Brand", Journal of Brand Management. – 1996. – №4 (3), P. 185-206.
Ahmad N., Daud S. "Engaging People with Employer Branding", Procedia Economics and Finance. – 2016. – №35. – P. 690-698
Lievens F., Slaughter J., "Employer Image and Employer Branding: What We Know and What We Need to Know", Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organization

		Comments by date▼ Comments by rating Rating
		2 Norman Dragt Netherlands
	Perceived Role of Intellectual and Human Capital You said: "It is well known that intellectual and human capital is the main source of competitive advantage and/or core competence in the modern economy." But is this really true? If you look at the development the last fifty years you clearly see the idea that intellectual capital is important and capital is important. Human capital however is more often than not seen as human cost. Most companies are trying to reduce their human costs by replacing humans with machines or automation or algorithms. As many companies are replacing humans because of the costs by machines, including computers, it would be rather strange to start with the conclusion that it is well known that human capital is the main source of competitive advantage, as it seems that what is well known is cost reduction at all cost, share price hiking at all cost and customer bullying by outsourcing customer service. It seems that very few companies are aware that their customers are humans and that to offer the best customer service you need to service your internal customers first, before you can serve your external customers the best possible service that will give you an edge.

		1 Rob Thompson Coach, United Kingdom
	Do you Want Increased Employee Retention? This all makes sense in terms of how I as an outsider (to a company say) might view an organisation I am interested in working for. Clearly if the benefits and features of good employer branding are i...

		3 David Wilson Manager, Canada
	Theory versus Reality Hi Sarah, it's a great posting. However, I wonder if theory and practice actually work for all organizations. I have seen organizations with the best employer brand, but they were not the best employe...

		4 Graham Williams Management Consultant, South Africa
	From Employer Branding to Employee Branding The tendency to refer to our people in the organization as the workforce, factors of production, human capital or resource, a competitive advantage... is give-away jargon that reveals how many think: ...

		2 Elvio Valchi Teacher, Argentina
	Employer Branding and High Personnel Turnover / Rotation Although correlation does not imply causality, my observation is that companies most focused on employer branding are, at the same time, the ones with high staff turnover and -rotation. Generally the ...

		1 paul lewis Manager, Grenada
	Serve your Internal Customer First @Norman Dragt: I totally agree with that statement. There is a proverb that says "Charity begins at home and the ends are broad". If we treat our employees right, they will in turn treat the customers...

		2 Maurice Hogarth Consultant, United Kingdom
	Companies are Branded by (Employee) Behaviour All organisations, whether they actively brand themselves or not, have an employer brand, at least within their local recruitment area. I once worked for an organisation in which all their policies w...