As we buckle our collective swashes with some degree of trepidation for the new year, it’s worth reflecting on the progress of the Employer Brand.
I’m sure we all have our little guilty secrets about what we might go about collecting through life. One of mine are the stats and metrics that go towards making the business case for Employer Brand investment.
Happily, it’s increasingly rare that I need to use them. Those people seeking finance and focus to develop or re-shape an Employer Brand tend to be pushing against a door much more open that was the case 5-10 years ago.
And few organisations now see their Employer Brand purely in terms of their recruitment communications and marketing. Rather something much more holistic, cultural and impactful.
Similarly, the debate around which function should own the Employer Brand flickers today as it once burnt brightly. More important to drive the Employer Brand, than which part of the business is actually doing so.
However, in attributing some form of functional ownership, has the Employer Brand become a silo? Something for Talent Acquisition or Recruitment or Comms to own and take responsibility for? And because such departments are driving the concept, do other parts of the organisation either get excluded or feel excluded?
“Hopefully the days are gone when we were all a bit precious about employer brand. Once we’ve all had a fight about brand guidelines, then maybe we can just see it for the important tool in our organisational arsenal that it is?” Julie Griggs, Interim HR Director, Greenhill HR
“I know the most important thing we need to continually work on as a business is our employer brand, providing clarity on who we are, what we stand for and why anyone would want to join us. But it goes deeper, it’s the continual reminder internally of why we are here and where we are going. Employer brand and EVP has gone beyond the slick promotional video and needs to be taken more seriously.” Martin Dangerfield, CEO, immersive.
As owners of the Employer Brand, is it inevitable to unconsciously hoard its outputs and delivery mechanisms? Colleagues across the organisation may well get involved in the original discovery phase. They may, too, get to tell their stories as a means of landing employer messaging. But is that as far as their involvement usually goes? Because the success and judgement of an employer brand will rest with those people who have ownership, can it be all too easy for the general organisational population to feel little in the way of connection.
And this would be a shame.
“Hiring was, and still is, the most important thing we do” – the wise words of Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce.
“Whilst I agree that the Employer Brand is much higher on the agenda than it was 10 years ago, I still believe it is still perceived as something that ‘Recruitment/TA’ do. I think that is mostly because of the complexity around measurement. How easy is it to quantify the impact of the employer brand? If you measure on applications (there are so many other factors affecting those, particularly this year) and if you measure on retention (ditto). The only way to really measure is on positive engagement, so much of which is outside of the measurement control. I think the EB has to start at the top with the CEO and if they are not wholly invested, then it is frankly a dead duck because others won’t follow. The best example of an organisation which does this brilliantly is Timpsons, where not only is James Timpson well invested in the Employer Brand but the main spokesperson for it”. Adele Swift, Talent Attraction and Recruitment Manager, Toolstation.
Although they will have little or nothing to do with advertising and communications, so many people right across your organisation hold the keys to your Employer Brand. Whether they are aware of this is perhaps another thing.
A quick and very unscientific look at some those key internal communities and their relationship to your Employer Brand:
CEO/Senior Leadership – obvious really. They should be walking the talk around your EVP and being hugely positive advocates of your Employer Brand internally and externally.
Sales – anyone really with external contact with your consumer base. They deliver your consumer brand but they also provide a window for external contacts into your organisational culture. If these people appear engaged, enthused and positive, then your Employer Brand benefits. Not so much, if they appear pressurised, stressed and worried.
Equality and Diversity – it’s not much of an Employer Brand if it doesn’t reach out externally and extend internally and represent everyone. Increasingly ED&I has to have a key role in defining as well as delivering the Employer Brand.
Facilities – the people responsible for that first-day feeling for new joiners. What impact does turning up day one to encounter tech that has been effectively and personally configured? That demonstrates an organisation ready to welcome you with both passion and professionalism?
IT – so many people have changed jobs over the last 20 months without setting foot anywhere near their corporate office. In their new job, how does tech enable and empower them? Does it validate their decision to change jobs or make them question it?
Occupational health – never has this function been so important. We have, and will continue to have, a huge amount of residual scarring from Covid and its various implications. Are people working in an organisation characterised by understanding, empathy and compassion?
Reception – the easiest and quickest way of picking up organisational culture is to spend 20 minutes waiting at reception. What sort of tone are people giving off? How do employees communicate with each other? Does walking through reception feel like a positive start to anyone’s day? Or the beginning of an 8 hour sentence?
Third parties – there’s an unfortunate story doing the rounds about a number of John Lewis Christmas temps being laid off on December 23rd, thereby missing out on a bonus. The temps were employed not directly but through a third-party agency, who were responsible for the lay-offs. However, it’s not the agency’s Employer Brand which suffers as a result of the story. What message are your third parties, either passively or actively, communicating about your employee experience?
I’ve probably missed out any number of other key parts of an organisation which have responsibility for helping to deliver an Employer Brand. But do such people realise that such responsibility is theirs?
“I would agree about ownership throughout the organisation and that it’s not just a recruitment issue, but very much one of retention, touching every moment that matters in the employee lifecycle. We should live and breathe our EVP at each moment, it should reflect in our communications, our reward, our OD strategy and in the way we treat people, especially when times are tough or the subject matter is difficult. An Employer Brand/EVP is for life, not just for Christmas!” Julie Griggs.
“I think it’s fair to say the world has recently changed and potential employees have more choice when it comes to their next career move. Many organisations are struggling to make themselves relevant and to stand out, but many have focused on developing their employee value proposition and employer brand.
Those who get this right understand that’s it’s so much more than just pretty pictures which sit within recruitment communications. Building your brand takes time, consistency and a strong long-term strategy. It also needs a strong community of ambassadors, who play a fundamental part in both the build and promotion of your employer brand – they hold the keys to your brand, having the potential to amplify the reach exponentially.
We’ve recently started this journey, with an ambition to define and develop an authentic, future-focused EVP/EB which is both distinctive and credible. But what’s key to this is the fact that the EVP lives and breathes throughout the employee experience, fuelling the next era of our organisation. Our early stages of this project have been highly focused on making the connections with those who have the responsibility to support and deliver, gathering insight, highlighting responsibility, and aligning ambition.” Craig Morgans, Acquisition CoE Leader, Direct Line.
Do such employees all too easily assume that an Employer Brand is a set of messages delivered by HR/TA/Recruitment? Interesting, important, but not much to do with them?
Or has the EVP been broken down and explained to them? Made real? Contextualised to their own area, their own contact and engagement with both internal and external audiences?
The Employer Brand doesn’t so much belong to the whole organisation as it is the responsibility of everyone in the organisation to live and deliver it. But it’s the responsibility of whoever owns the Employer Brand to make that connection. To highlight everyone’s role and responsibility. To make it real, understandable, relateable through your organisation.
I don’t have the comparable UK figures to date, but the most recent metrics from the US suggest that 4.5m Americans voluntarily left their job in November, the highest ‘quit rate’ since such records began in 2001. And some 370,000 more than the previous monthly record.
Much more anecdotally, I can’t remember seeing so many LinkedIn notifications from senior HR and TA contacts notifying the world that they have a new job. And we are just days into the new year.
People have the confidence and the opportunity to leave jobs at an unprecedented rate. If there’s little or no pan-organisational initiative to remind people what a great place they might currently be working in, what’s to stop them looking elsewhere?
Getting to the heart of your employee mindset 