Traditionally, we've tended to look at employer
brands in the context of other components of a
company's brand - and also by benchmarking
ourselves against competitors. This has served us
well so far and we've also learnt the commercial
benefits of aligning product brands with employer
brands and vice- versa. So, if you say, "We're
looking for waiters and waitresses who can sing
opera", then expect your customers to respond by
saying, "You employ people who can do that? I'd
love to eat in your restaurant!"
Right now, we're entering a new era of
'resourcing experience'. We're going beyond
simply selling the employer brand to a prospective
employee - we're having to ensure that everything
to do with the process of an individual becoming
an employee is both consistent and appealing,
whilst reflecting an individual personality.
However, by perfecting our employer brand
we can actually create a rod for our own back.
Picture yourself as the candidate. You've been told
the company is renowned for its caring approach
to staff. Then they clamp your car whilst you are
on- site for an interview. And subsequently, they fail
to let you know for six weeks whether you've been
successful or not.
Admittedly, this could just be an
unfortunate sequence of events and nothing like
the positive experience an employee could expect.
But in a market where as a candidate you can pick
and choose freely, you might not give the potential
employer the chance to prove otherwise.
All of the research we've conducted at
Bernard Hodes Group on behalf of our clients -
regardless of candidate type or industry segment -repeatedly
reminds us of this. The recruitment
process is used by applicants as an opportunity to
test the culture and environment of a prospective
employer before making a choice. Consider this
quote from a recent focus group, "Any company
website or brochure can feed me a positive spin. I
look at what their interviewers are like. Am I
treated like a number or a person? What do the
current employees say at the job fair?"
So what's the solution? Well, we can start by
defining corporate brand values and seeing how
they could dovetail with the employer brand. In
most cases, this involves the corporate version of a
day on the Gaza Strip - HR and Marketing getting
together in the same room. It's painful but
necessary - and as a minimum this session should
aim to ensure that everyone understands what we
want to say about ourselves as an employer - and
how it relates to our masterbrand positioning.
Armed with this information, we can conduct
a recruitment process audit which dissects the
current resourcing experience into all of its
component parts. Then we can create a strategy
to make sure each part - marketing, application,
interview, response, assessment, induction - is
conducted in accordance with the key
masterbrand values. Ideally, we'll already have done some external
research for you, in order to understand what the
target audience thinks about your organisation -
and what they would like to hear in the future.
This means that we can ensure your new and
improved resourcing experience is relevant and
thus more effective.
The audit itself can cause discomfort. It deliberately airs your dirty
laundry in public in preparation for
improvement. With the risk of over- burdening the cliché, this is actually
positive because ultimately it
ensures that your resulting 'whiter than white' resourcing approach would
stand any doorstep challenge.
Let me give you some examples.
Your corporate strategy is to be 'an innovative and technologically advanced
market leader'. Do
candidates have the opportunity to apply on- line and get an instant e-
acknowledgement of their
application? Or do they have to wait for a communication through the post?
Your mission is to 'value the wellbeing of our employees'. Do candidates
find themselves staying in
a quality hotel at a location and time to suit their needs? Or at some place
out of the way at a reduced
corporate rate?
'We are a dynamic and exciting organisation. ' Does the interviewer 'live'
your brand? Can he or
she quickly identify and attract others to do the same?
To suggest that all of this is simple is at odds with my own personal brand
positioning, 'Let's get it
right and not be caught out'. It's an extensive process, and depending on
where you are, could take
place in one location or in sixty across the globe. It may require a
carefully executed communication
exercise and a radical culture change amongst people not just within HR, but
right across the
organisation. Most importantly, it involves getting everyone from the
security guard to the interviewer
to consistently define your corporate culture and say unequivocally, "this
is what it's like here, bust a
gut at interview and you could be part of it".
So, can you be certain that your recruitment process could stand up to the
most intense spotlight?
Can your employer brand be sampled at every stage of the recruitment
process? Do you actually know
what your employer brand stands for and means?
Score one point for each 'yes' answer (this is getting like Cosmo), and any
score below three
means that you are in grave danger of not converting the best possible
candidates into employees -
which in itself could mean the loss of the inventor of your next great
strategy, product, design,
detergent or whatever else you sell or make.