You may have come across my most recent piece of research, partnering with WDAD Communications, which sought to take the pulse of the UK recruitment landscape through the lens of the Employee Value Proposition. I’ve found the results fascinating (https://employerbrandingadvantage.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/whitepaper_p-copy.pdf) and they generally paint a positive picture, in terms of the status of the profession and the investment it is attracting. There were challenges, of course, and constructing and communicating appropriate and actionable metrics were probably the most prominent of these.
If not entirely a challenge, certainly a conundrum, was the internal reception and reaction to the Employer Brand.
An interesting, and rare, positive outcome of the pandemic, appears to have been the raised internal profile of the Employer Brand. Delivering a clear, consistent and compelling message at a time of doubt, fear and confusion has been of real importance. Time and perception move forward at pace. However, just months ago, we could conceive of no escape from Zoom, our immediate surroundings and our very real anxiety.
There will undoubtedly be further bumps along the road, however, there is increasing optimism about a strengthening economy, greater personal and professional mobility and a future which is returning to some form of normality.
When asked the extent to which their organisation’s Employer Brand had attracted greater internal recognition during the past year, just 3% of our survey participants disagreed.
“I think on a macro level that whilst EVP/employer branding may be more recognised internally these days. Those actual phrases themselves still probably aren’t. Of more resonance to the business is likely to be ‘communcation, values, culture, the way we do things around here’”. Julie Griggs, HR Director, Buckinghamshire New University.
Keeping in touch with people, wherever they were, ensuring they were kept informed about what was happening and why it was happening could hardly have been more important.
The way an organisation supported its people will have indelibly shaped its Employer Brand. And its employer branding messages will have been central to whether its people felt supported or otherwise.
‘Articulating the very tangible and practical support that you have provided, and continue to provide, for your employees ,and demonstrating that you genuinely care about their wellbeing and mental health during recent lock downs, will build a sustainable ‘employee centric’ reputation which will, undoubtedly, help attract, hire and retain future key talent’. Jane Dennis, Experience and Brand Lead, London Stock Exchange Group.
“Employer Brand has seized the moment internally, but if your messages are feeling like throwaway lines with a limited shelf life, go back and look at your EVP. Make no moves until you understand the arena in which you now exist. If your company strategy has pivoted in response to COVID as well as your recruitment proposition (e.g. home working/wellbeing focus) hit pause, do the diagnosis piece and use this insight to inform your EVP. Sounds obvious, right? But if this isn’t done the only thing consistent your internal population will get is an inconsistent employer brand message.” Tom Portingale, Senior Employer Brand Manager, People and Culture, Nationwide.
It would, then, be easy to draw the conclusion that internal understanding of the Employer Brand has never been higher.
The answer to other questions within the survey make such a conclusion far less clear cut.
When asked what represented the greatest challenge to their Employer Brand over the next 12 months, 34% of our survey felt this lay in the inability to convey a consistent message across their organisation.
“This feels to me like a perennial challenge – how do we ensure our messaging lands with every segment of the organisation? Sometimes I think we can be quite one dimensional on this stuff and think we are only talking about people who have a back-office type role”. Julie Griggs.
This feels a hugely telling response.
The implication is that internal stakeholders have a tendency to play fast and loose with employer branding messages. The outputs of this are bad enough. Confused, confusing, diluted and duplicated messaging. A lack of unified purpose and actions. And an employee base unsure what is expected of them.
So much for the outputs. Perhaps even worse are the potential sources of such inconsistency. Has the employer brand messaging not been communicated with enough vigour, clarity and cut-through across the organisation, with the associated business case not made?
Or perhaps is such inconsistency the result of employer branding that has perhaps become diluted and tired, with stakeholders beginning to adopt their own take on key messages, feeling the employer brand has lost its way, its mojo and its impact?
Or, possibly worse still, is such a situation the result of an employer branding function that does not have the heft and presence sufficient to address those who might deliver inconsistent messages. Such stakeholders feeling that there is no point in following nor consequence in not following the employer branding guidelines?
“Employee advocacy has always played a huge and vital role in bringing to life your employer brand. We’ve ensured that our teams have been given both the voice and authority to bring to life an authentic message on what life is like behind the scenes.
Bringing your teams on this journey is critical as they’ll not only believe in the messaging and the values, but honestly (and consistently) translate this when communicating the employer brand message”. Craig Morgans, Global Head of Talent Acquisition, IWG plc.
So, two different answers. Although the construct of the employer brand is something more real and tangible today across many organisations, than was the case pre-pandemic, it feels as if many internal stakeholders are unaware of how they should work with it.
Another perspective around this important point emerged from the research.
The employer branding professionals feel in control of only certain parts of the candidate (and employee) journey.
We asked our participants which element of the employer branding journey they were most concerned about over the next year.
As far as the fixed elements of the journey – attraction messaging, candidate communications, the ATS and the careers site – these appeared not to be keeping our participants awake at night.
“Getting the basics right is still of utmost importance. In some ways as HR/TA functions, this is where we get judged the most. Great messaging is only as good as the often horrible and vanilla ATS you funnel people through”. Julie Griggs.
Of much more concern were elements such as the candidate experience, the employee experience once joiners landed in the organisation and hiring manager’s awareness of the times in which we are living.
Around three quarters of those responding selected these three options in broadly equal measure.
And this is where the employer branding professional effectively loses control of the promise their EVP is making, or trying to make, to candidates and joiners alike. They will craft a beautiful careers site and award-winning attraction messaging, but their ability to communicate the essence of their EVP and influence hiring managers and other internal stakeholders feels much less secure.
The challenge and the opportunity, then, is about this sense of internal influence. To cajole, inform, educate those people with responsibility for the candidate and joiner experience, that they have a huge amount of sway in terms of an applicant’s decision to join and to stay.
And, not that any TA professional needs reminding, but the resourcing landscape has shifted significantly during the course of 2021.
“This does feel like a crucial period for the sector. Our experience over the last 6 months is that the roll-out of planned EB projects has fluctuated wildly – reflecting the Covid-driven variations in market confidence. The second and third waves of lockdowns had far more impact than the first, with projects moving slowly or stalling. Now, many employers are finding they are playing catch-up on two fronts – the roll-out of existing EB projects and at the same time scrabbling to understand and define changes to their EVP.
The business case for new investment in Employer Branding should be more and more obvious, as a clearer picture emerges. The danger, however, could be that some internal stakeholders find themselves distracted by their organisation’s urgent resourcing needs, with increasing skills shortages meaning budgets are diverted to pay for short term recruitment solutions rather than longer-term branding investments”. Mike Jefferies, Client Services Director, WDAD Communications.
GDP is set to increase by 7.25% this year, according to the Bank of England. In February, they estimated this figure to be just 5%. There was a 16% surge in vacancies in Q1 according to the ONS. Azuma stated that job postings in April matched those of February 2020. The PMI index is at its highest since 2013. And the monthly index of demand for staff from REC/KPMG rose this month to its highest level in 23 years.
The battle for the hearts and minds of candidates and employees alike are significantly fiercer than they have been for 18 months.
And whilst the Employer Branding industry is often judged by what it delivers externally, perhaps the real struggle is how it influences internally.
Getting to the heart of your employee mindset 