Selling the employer brand (Web sight)

Employees have a large role to play

Building an organization’s brand is a complex and difficult job but employees can play an integral role to help make the task easier. In their everyday dealings with both customers and potential recruits, workers are an excellent way for an employer to communicate its corporate brand. Unfortunately, many employees don’t understand the components of their organization’s brand, let alone how to convey it to others. HR can take a major role in helping employees with the basics of employment branding.

Too few employers follow through on brand promise
www.ere.net/articles/db/
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“Before You Waste Your Time and Money on So-called Employer Branding,” an article on the Electronic Recruiting Exchange site, says most companies invest a great deal of money and effort on advertising and recruiting campaigns, but almost nothing to ensure the delivery of a great work experience that leads to an excellent employer brand. HR professionals tend to “talk about updating logos, creating spiffier collateral material and coming up with the perfect tag line. They follow this up with their ‘internal branding campaign’ (i.e., trying to convince their employees this is who they are as an employer). Those things are great, sort of, but it’s putting the cart before the proverbial horse.” The article includes a list of things HR should do first, including talking to employees about what they think about their employer, what they think the employer’s strengths and weaknesses are and how the employer compares to others.

Eddie Bauer case study
www.stud.uni-wuerzburg.de/s176603/Datenbank/Perso/eb05df292f_Eddie_Bauer_Employment_Branding_Initiatives.pdf

The case study “Eddie Bauer’s Employee Branding Initiative” is an instructive look at the steps the company took to tackle a set of challenges, including low unemployment rates, increased competition for candidates and a lack of transparency in HR services. Steps included assigning ownership for employment branding, understanding employee preferences, creating a positioning statement, communicating the brand and ensuring its maintenance. The company then studied the lessons learned and looked at future initiatives.

Recruitment experience speaks volumes

www.ere.net/articles/db/
AF86481B50BF4525BA1848940047306C.asp


“The Best Employment Branding is Free, If You Earn It” discusses perhaps the best — and cheapest — way to reach millions of people: “It is none other than the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of candidates your company comes into contact with each year. These are individuals who apply to your company, are interviewed by your company and/or are made offers to join your company.” Candidates who have had a bad recruiting experience will likely share that information with at least one other person. Those who have not received a response to a job posting, heard a vague response about an application or interview or were “blown off by a hiring manager who forgot about the interview” are likely to talk about it. “Good old-fashioned common courtesy and honest communication are cheap (free!) and easy means of ensuring that your company’s ‘serendipitous networks’ are perpetuating a positive employment branding that yields immeasurable return on investment.”

7 steps to employer branding
www.bcjobs.ca/re/hr-centre/
hr-tools/branding/focus-groups-7-steps-to-defining-your-unique-employment-brand



“Focus Groups: 7 Steps to Defining Your Unique Employment Brand” advocates doing a comprehensive evaluation process when outlining a distinctive employment brand. “This includes analysing previous results, setting goals, defining a possible employment brand, substantiating the employment brand proposition and, possibly, conducting a focus group.” The article sets out the steps necessary to setting up a focus group, including recruiting participants, formulating questions and capturing information gathered.

Employee buy-in essential to brand success
www.shrm.org/hrmagazine/articles/1006/1006cover.asp


“Branding Together” on the Society for Human Resource Management site discusses how employee buy-in is an essential success factor for employers differentiating themselves in the marketplace. The article looks at one effort that failed — United Airlines’ “United Rising” 1997 campaign, where customers were promised an improved travelling experience with the airline. Unfortunately, there was a major problem: “The company’s operations were completely unprepared to deliver against that brand promise.” Many employees were involved in labour disputes with management or had reductions in compensation and benefits and were hostile towards re-branding efforts.

Ann Macaulay is a Toronto-based freelance editor and regular contributor to Canadian HR Reporter. Her Web Sight column appears regularly in the CloseUp section.

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