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measuring the effectiveness of your brand
When was the last time you benchmarked your employer brand against the best in the industry? Are you aware of the key drivers of why people enjoy (or dislike!) working for you? Founding partners of the Employer Brand Institute, Brett Minchington and Kaye Thorne discuss employer brand effectiveness.
Developing a leading employer brand is not just important for attracting and retaining new talent; it is a ‘whole of business’ concept that can be used throughout an organisation to identify employee, customer and stakeholder satisfaction.
Developing your employer brand will assist in creating a nurturing culture which enables individuals to give their best performance and supports the organisation in delivering on its brand promise. As a holistic process it has a strategic and dynamic role in delivering a truly competitive edge to organisations.
Recruitment is about attracting the most talented and capable people efficiently and effectively, so any positive messages and demonstrable actions that you can transmit into your local community about your employment offering gives a company the advantage it needs. Equally important is engaging and retaining these people beyond the initial induction period.
It's an employee's market and job candidates can be very choosy about where they work. It is not just about pay and benefits, increasingly employees are looking for organisations who match their values, who care about the environment they work in, and the service they offer to their customers.
The biggest challenge in employer branding is ownership. As it is often not clear who should sponsor it, the responsibility can fall down the middle between marketing, corporate communications and HR. To succeed, it needs an integrated process linking all departments with endorsement from the highest level within the organisation. As an aspirational goal it also needs a pragmatic approach to achieve it.
Consistency in the delivery of the employer brand is very important. The companies who really live by their employer brand are those who consistently deliver through their people, products, premises and processes, a level of service excellence that is forever consistent. Employer branding is not about smart advertising, the best recruitment advertising is pointless if the communication inside the organisation is disconnected or the time to hire is slow due to bureaucratic processes.
Minchington and Thorne developed the Minchington-Thorne Employer Brand Global IndexTM measure to link all the stages together in a holistic way.
Through extensive research and analysis of the key drivers of an employer brand, 14 constructs or enablers were identified, which fundamentally contribute to the development of a company’s employer brand. These include:
- Strategic intent
- Recruitment & induction
- Communications
- Leadership
- Internal business processes
- Performance management
- Innovation and re-invention
- Work environment
- Measurement & evaluation
- Thought leadership
- Global perspective
- Corporate social responsibility
- Developing people
- Customer relationships
Having identified the constructs, they then drilled down to analyse the day-to-day touch points (or pain points!) which significantly impact on the development of an employer brand. Interestingly, every organisation has an employer brand. Whether you own it or not, your organisation is influencing its employer brand constantly. Even as you are reading this article, someone is either reinforcing the key behaviours and positive messages about your employer brand, or quietly destroying it.
This is not just relevant to your front line customer facing employees; it equally applies to the CEO, the Executive Board and your interactions with suppliers. The most fundamental part of the development of a strong employer brand is built on behaviours, self-esteem, confidence and pride in the organisation.
The execution of your employer brand strategy should raise the standards and competencies of the whole organisation and raise its profile as an employer of integrity. When asked to describe the brand of the organisation there should be a common belief based on shared vision, values, aspirations, behaviour and practice. By bringing all these aspects of an employer brand together, not only is there more coherence, there is a constant benchmark. Minchington and Thorne recently had an opportunity to undertake a benchmark survey with a sample of middle-senior managers from a mix of ASX100, private companies and government departments using the MTEBGITM.
Respondents were asked to rate how effective they believed their organisation was in delivering on the total employment experience. A scale of one (to a very little extent) to seven (to a very great extent) was used to rate the responses. “The results from the Australian benchmark study revealed some very interesting findings,” said Minchington.
In the analysis of the results one of the highest scores related to Corporate Social Responsibility (see figure 1). An increased global emphasis on becoming a preferred employer and the need to be an ethical employer is reflected in the high scores for this construct. Increasingly organisations are realising that brand loyalty is created in many ways, but essentially it is all based on the relationships that an organisation builds with its partners and its local community.
This is equally reflected in the scores about the work environment at a time when retention is on the minds of employers, improving the working environment is one way of improving the commitment from employees. Most organisations also realise the importance of communicating with their employees, however one of the lower scoring individual questions related to the statement, ‘employees are empowered to provide feedback’, highlights the idea that communication may only be one way in some organisations.
Surprisingly, leadership was also comparatively low scoring and ascpects within this construct such as ‘having a clear strategy for succession planning’ and having ‘active mentoring programmes across the organisation’ were areas also lacking in attention. Adopting a global perspective also appeared low on the agenda of many organisations. In many ways, SME’s are ahead of their corporate counterparts by recognising and leveraging the power of the internet in creating a global marketplace and how increased use of technology has opened up the world for trading, as well as global communication. No longer can organisations afford to trade just in their own back yard.
Other areas, which require greater emphasis, based on the results from the study include:
- Employees requiring training in how to deliver the employer brand promise to customers
- Increased involvement and engagement of employees across all levels in the development of the strategic plan
- Establishing and supporting a process for capturing, sponsoring and encouraging individual innovation
- Identifying employer value propositions for target audiences and reinforcing our unique employment offerings through internal and external communications
- Designing work spaces which are conductive to creating good working conditions
What the results of the study indicate is the beginnings of a benchmark in how effective organisations are in building their employer brand. Whether you own it or not, your organisation is influencing its employer brand 24/7. This article was written by Raj Thompson for HRINZ publication.
HR Tool Kit:
Relevant Related Articles:
Measuring HR and dismantling the myths
Measuring Human Capital-
How HR Adds Value
Defining Great Places to Work
Creating a Business Culture
HR Books:
CCH HR Manager
From Good to Great - Jim Collins
Leading Change - John Kotter
HR Scorecard: Linking People, Strategy, and Performance - Brian E. Becker, Mark A. Huselid, Dave Ulrich
CCH- HR Manager
HR Resources
HRINZ Course:
HR Business Performance
Know of a good tool or website, why not tell us about it by contacting researcher@hrinz.org.nz
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Disclaimer:
These examples are provided as generic examples that the employer may consider using and have been published in good faith for the general information of HRINZ Members of the Institute. HRINZ recommends employers seek independent advice before using these templates in the workplace.