by Debbie Hatke, MA, PHR
Does your company have an employment brand? It should! No matter the size of your company or how frequently (or infrequently) you recruit, an employment brand is key to setting your company apart from the rest. As the labor market continues to tighten and finding qualified candidates becomes more of a challenge, standing out from your competition has definite advantages. An employment brand is just like marketing your product or services, except that in the case of recruitment, your competitors may comprise a much larger demographic. While your "widget" making company may only compete with the two other widget making companies in your region, when it comes to finding an accountant, receptionist or sales team, you may be competing on a much larger scale - not only with the other widget making companies you already compete with, but also with companies in different industries that haven't before been your direct competition.
So let's build a brand. It means just adding an employment webpage to your website - right? Wrong! Branding goes much deeper than your website. To brand employment you need to reach deep into your organization and brand from the inside out. It affects your website, your email signature, online job postings, recruitment tools (interview questions) your career fair booth, your application and any other collateral materials that are used for recruiting. It is often helpful to pretend that you are marketing your company's product or service and apply those same marketing principles to your employment message. What is your marketing department doing to attract and retain customers? Apply those ideas to attracting and retaining your "customers" - your employees.
The first step in creating your employment brand is to consider your audience. In other words, who are the people that you hope to attract to your company and hire. It used to be as easy as saying we want the best workers of those that are out there looking, but today you have to expand that wish list to include not only qualified applicants that come to you, but passive job seekers as well. The folks we want most for our jobs tend to already have good jobs. We have to entice them to leave the comfort and security of their current job to take a chance on something new. That's were branding comes in. The focus of branding is to create a message about your employment opportunities that make the job seeker want to work for you as an employer of choice. You can determine who your target audience is by looking at those in your current workforce and determining which ones are the "A" players. Then create a list of those characteristics they have that you want in your new employees, establish how to determine if a candidate has those characteristics and where those possible candidate might "hang out".
Identifying the target audience is just the first, but a very important step. Next you have to craft your message. You'll need to communicate distinguishing characteristics about your organization that makes it the best place to work. The strong brands have an Employer Value Proposition (EVP). The EVP communicates in actions and behaviors why you are the employer of choice and they often evoke emotion and provide tangible benefits. In marketing, we often rely on the four D's, meaning your message must be:
- Desirable - something that your customer (your future employees) want,
- Distinctive - your organization provides something that is different from your competitors (different from their current employment situation),
- Deliverable - what you offer potential employees must be accurate and truthful,
- Durable - the message should be one that is durable over time (not that it can't be tweaked and rewritten, but it must be a long standing attribute).
Your brand/message needs to focus on those key issues that matter most to the people you want the most. These attributes were likely determined when you identified your target audience. Remember, your communication of the EVP's must be articulate, honest and appealing to all, not just to management or executives (unless that's your target audience). Also, it's important to remember that your current employees are the most effective communicators of your brand - make sure they understand (and believe) in the brand you are trying to communicate.
While the employment brand is present on many levels, it is true that most of us learn about a brand from the organization's website. And as most job seekers are using the Internet for a large portion of their job search, it stands to reason that the company website is one of the strongest vehicles for the employment brand. Go out on the web and there are some really good examples of employment brands that you can refer to for examples.
- Target Corporation (target.com) has a bold message on their career page "See Yourself Here". They also share the message "The strength of many, the power of one" when referring to their employment diversity and they finish big with "At Target we bring our personal best to work every day".
- Microsoft (microsoft.com) is not only a behemoth in the IT industry; it's also has a well respected employment brand. Their career page asks "How far will you go?" and then goes on to answer the question for job seekers with additional employment links: a life@microsoft page, a meet our people video clips section, an online careers newsletter and a fantastic blog. Microsoft goes out of their way to permeate the job seekers space.
- Local employment giant Proctor & Gamble (pg.com) has a good employment brand as well. Their career page states at P&G there is "A new challenge every day" and defies the job seeker to "Discover your challenge. Discover your future. Discover P&G".
True these are all multi-million dollar organizations with a lot of marketing (and recruitment) dollars to spend, but the principles they use can be applied to even the smallest of employers on a less-grand, budget conscious scale.
An employment brand isn't something that can be determined in an afternoon meeting. Neither is it a "program" that can be created and rolled out to the organization as a transformation initiative. The employment brand is a reflection of what your organization represents as a culture; it is deeply rooted and above all else is truthful. On the outside, your employment brand is an expected employment experience, while internally it's how you treat your employees and a mirror image of your organizational culture. If after examination you find that your culture isn't creating the type of environment that creates a positive employment brand, then it may be time for a cultural assessment and transformation. But that's another topic…
Debbie Hatke, MA, PHR is a Human Resources Management Consultant with Strategic Human Resources, Inc. If you have questions or comments about this article, you can contact Debbie at Debbie@StrategicHRinc.com.
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