‘What you can’t measure, you can’t manage’ – the sage words of the now departed Peter Drucker seem very much with us this week. There was certainly plenty to measure in Felix Baumgartner’s frankly astonishing leap from a giant helium balloon over New Mexico yesterday. The Austrian leapt from 128,000 ft at an estimated 833mph, hitting Mach 1.24 and breaking the speed of sound. The jump lasted no less than nine minutes. Possibly just as impressive as those statistics were the amount of people watching Mr Baumgartner’s exploits via Google’s live stream on their YouTube site – no less than 8m people. Or roughly the same as logged onto the BBC’s site on the first day of the Olympics this year.
I was struck yesterday too, on a far more prosaic level, with how much we measure that which is important to us. Sunday morning saw me rugby coaching and Wimbledon u15s involved in a travesty of a defeat – or certainly as much of a travesty as a 26-5 reverse can be. On the final whistle, we rushed home to work on my daughter’s UCAS submission and her predicted A level grades (fortunately looking healthier than the rugby). We were interrupted by a builder who was round to measure up for some long overdue work to our kitchen. On his way, he commented on the unofficial height chart pencilled on the wall, showing the kids’ growth rates over the years.
Given the unparalleled access to metrics now available, do we always apply such rigour professionally, particularly across the field of employer branding? I’m reminded of the famous quote attributed to several of the industry’s luminaries, “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.” Even John Wanamaker, alleged author of the quote would have been impressed with some of the measurement delivered by Linked In last week around the field of employer branding. The research across more than 3,000 resourcing professionals, and its findings were spectacular and worth repeating.
91% of organisations across the world are either spending as much or more in 2012 than they did in 2011. Two of the key reasons for this heightened investment were ‘increased belief in the impact of employer brand’ and ‘difficulty recruiting quality candidates’. No less than 83% recognised the impact of their employer brand, although a confusingly low 54% adopted a proactive approach to their employer brand. Consistent with the belief in investment, the drive to upgrade an organisation’s employer branding is considered the sector or function’s second most essential and long term trend in the industry. Consistent too with a significant piece of research from TMP last year, Linked In’s survey also painted a fascinating picture of the sense of competition within the sector. The number one competitor initiative that talent acquisition leaders fear most of all is that their rivals will invest in their employer brand. Regardless of the straitened economic times we inhabit, there has never been a more challenging and competitive time for an organisation’s employer brand.
However, the main puzzle to emerge from this research, despite the profession’s clear understanding of what an employer brand delivers and how clear their fear is around the competition stealing a march, the notion of measurement seems curiously neglected. Just 38% of Linked In’s survey measured their brand relative to that of the competition, just 37% ask recent joiners about their perceptions of their new employer’s brand and an even more anaemic 32% regularly canvass external candidates as to how they perceive and understand their employer brand.
Employer branding is not necessarily a cheap investment, yet investment it is. However, can organisations be doing anything other than guessing the shape, form and message their employer brand should take if just a third of them are basing their employer branding conclusions on research and insight, rather than guesswork and intuition? Organisations are rightly concerned about what the competition might be doing in the employer branding space. They should be just as concerned with what their target audiences (both internal and external ones) might be doing, thinking and understanding about employer brands and reputations.
And what are our key learnings from this? Felix Baumgartner certainly measures up. As of October 14th 2012, I’m still the tallest member of the household. We’ll bury Rosslyn Park next time up. Lots of luck to my daughter. And both employers and their employer branding partners should be more rigorous and meticulous in creating robust thinking rather than pretty constructs around their employer branding strategies. Otherwise their landing might not be as serendipitous as everyone’s favourite Austrian.
Getting to the heart of your employee mindset 