Employer Branding: Just a Buzzword?

A decade ago the concept of employer branding was just another buzzword, the subject of an ever increasing number of books and articles.

In the last five years though employer branding has evolved significantly into an accepted component of corporate strategy.

Here’s my thoughts about why…

The War for Talent

The global war for the best talent (this has not been greatly affected by the GFC by the way!), combined with an ageing population and increasing job seeker sophistication means that attracting, engaging, motivating and retaining great staff is more critical than ever.

Your People As A Competitive Advantage

As most products, systems and processes are quite easily imitated, companies have begun to view their people and culture as a key source of competitive advantage. I believe that a strong employer brand is very difficult to imitate, at least in the short term.

More Sophisticated Retention Strategies

During the 1990’s and over the past few years, many companies have developed highly sophisticated ways of recruiting and selecting people. Whether they use recruitment specialists, their own in-house teams or internal talent databases, there is no doubt that companies have become increasingly savvy.

Over the last two years, we have also seen a strong focus on how to retain the best talent once they have been hired. I believe that creating and maintaining a strong employer brand is a key component of any good retention strategy.

Corporate Brand Is Often Not Enough

In the past, large ‘blue chip’ companies may have been able to rely on their strong corporate brand (company history, reputation, products and so on) to attract talent. Today, many employers are realising that a strong corporate brand is not enough and have begun focusing on creating a strong employer brand to position themselves as an employer of choice.

Employees As Brand Builders (or Destroyers!)

Employees today have increasing power as brand builders. The Internet and especially social networking tools and sites have meant that ‘word of mouth’ is now truly global and an organisation’s brand credibility can easily be undermined by a poor or inconsistent approach to their employer branding efforts.

The Push For Work-Life Balance

As society has changed over the past twenty years with lifestyle’s becoming more hectic and fast-paced, employees have started to demand more flexibility in their jobs so they can balance work with the increasing demands of their busy lives .

The Changing Definition of HR

Traditionally HR was mainly focused on systems, policies and procedures, however today HR teams have an increasing part (and accountability) in their organisation’s overall strategy and brand.

Discretionary Effort

In order to achieve real and sustained productivity gains, you need ongoing  discretionary effort from your employees. If you are not an employer of choice, you will struggle with this. In order to get the best out of your people, you need to engage them by providing leadership, challenges, empowerment and positive reinforcement which are all elements of a strong employer brand.

But Is It Really A New Concept?

I would argue that employer branding isn’t really a new concept and that thirty years ago, many of the same organisations that are today heralded as leading employers of choice were working hard to enhance the individual job satisfaction of their people by designing work environments that were positive, challenging, interesting, fun and flexible. It’s only now in the last decade that we have started coining phrases and terms for it.