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Articles Communication What’s employer branding without communication!
Articles Communication What’s employer branding without communication!| What’s employer branding without communication! |
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| Written by Brett Minchington |
| Wednesday, 03 June 2009 11:43 |
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Since its inception in the early 1990’s the concept of Employer Branding has been the domain of the Human Resources department. Today best practice employer branding is involving the input of the internal marketing and communications departments to support the HR function in what can be a complex process to develop an employer brand for competitive advantage in today’s market where talent and skills are in short supply and increasing demand. International employer brand strategist, author and presenter, Brett Minchington MBA discusses the role of communication in executing your employer brand strategy. Your employer brand can be defined as “the image of your organization as a ‘great place to work’ in the minds of current employees and key stakeholders in the external market (active and passive candidates, clients, customers and other key stakeholders).” Defining, creating and nurturing your employer brand requires the input of communication expertise but we are only just starting see the impact of the marketing and communication department’s input into the company’s employer brand strategy....and the results are encouraging! When internal communications, marketing and HR departments fail to collaborate on the firm’s employer brand strategy you end up with nothing more than a HR project that burns cash and creates employee cynicism. The major role communication specialists play in the employer branding process can be grouped into four key areas:
In its simplest form an EVP consists of a set of associations and offerings that characterizes an employer or position and differentiates it from its competitors. The EVP should answer the following questions:
2. Ensuring the delivery of highly targeted messages about the employment experience to the company’s target audience. The key to building an employer brand that attracts and retains talent is to effectively communicate the key offering employment offering to the target audience. Companies can no longer rely on traditional media such as press advertising to recruit talent. Today’s talent have access to numerous online and offline communication channels and companies need to ensure the communication of their employment offering cuts through the clutter of increasingly fragmented media (see figure 1). Figure 1 – Examples of employer branding communication channels Online channels
Open communications builds trust amongst employees and on a foundation of trust anything is possible! 3. Tracking, reporting and responding to emerging communication trends in recruitment The explosion of social networking sites over the past few years provides a wakeup call for recruiters that candidates and employees now had a forum where they can openly express their opinions about their employment experience. Companies such as Ernst & Young realised early the power of social networking sites to provide transparency in an informal medium for talent to connect with the corporate sector. I believe this was a very smart move by E&Y who now have a Facebook ‘fan’ club of over 15,000 members. A graduate looking at job options will find a wealth of information about the company on their site and they can even post questions about how to join E&Y upon graduation. 4. Optimising the role of the company’s career website Developments in internet technologies have been rapid and are assisting employers to attract the best minds in the talent marketplace. The use of the internet platform for activities central to the employment process has shifted the paradigm of the traditional recruitment process. The recruitment process is now being supported by online RSS feeds, Podcasting, Blogs, rich media and e-recruitment technology platforms. The careers website must be a communications vehicle and process enabler and the development process should begin with defining the objectives, scope and resources available to build the site. Best practice career sites such as www.pwc.co.uk, www.phillips.com and www.thewarehouse.co.nz rate highly on key attributes such as content, design, functionality and candidate relationship management. Given the rapid adoption of the employer brand concept worldwide communication professionals should take the initiative to get involved in the company’s employer brand strategy and offer up their support, insights and resources to the HR department rather than wait to be approached. Just because you haven’t been asked doesn’t mean your help is not required!  Brett Minchington, Chairman/CEO of Employer Brand International and Managing Director of Collective Learning Australia is an International employer brand strategist, author and educator. Brett’s expertise in Employer Branding led him to author “Your Employer Brand attract-engage-retain” in 2006 which has since been sold in over 42 countries. Brett has delivered employer branding key note addresses, executive briefings, masterclass events and chaired Summits in over 30 cities in 20 countries and has been published in HR, Marketing and Management magazines globally including 'The Economist' and 'Business Week.' He is also a regular commentator on employer branding for the media. To contact Brett please click here
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