- Introduction
Employer branding is established as a way to pool up for new potential employees simultaneously retaining the current taskforce. Now employees don’t want just money or it can simply be stated that they don’t get motivated with monetary rewards alone. There is a list of other factors that together affect the choice of employees for an organization. They want to affectionately associate themselves with the name of the employer or the organization they are working for and true essence of employment encompasses many factors including the styles of management, company’s culture, its goals and of course the compensation package. Employment branding plays a key role in implanting this idea on the hearts and minds of people that their company is the best place to work at. It is an idea how skillfully an organization differentiates itself in terms of recruiting the best people and later retaining that talent to maintain unbeaten edge in the market.
This paper is consisted of previous literature reviews of the course and also includes a points from a journal article “Employment Branding” from the Wall Street Journal by Lara Moroko dated 19th June, 2012 and a magazine article “The Finance Sector: How can employer branding still attract graduates in the recession-battered banking sector?” from HRMagazine by Peter Crush dated 25th August, 2009. Both of these articles are found to be closely related to employment branding and are compared and contrasted to form a concise view point for this paper.
An employer needs to thoroughly understand the business already set goals and clearly communicate them to HR personnel so as to ensure their involvement in the formulation of overall strategy including designing and implementing processes in order to establish branding of both the product on offer and the employment. The power of employment branding lies in the fact that having a brand spares the company of the fatigue to convince people that we are the best employer rather the magic that is associated with the brand name will ultimately drag the best talent to the organization. To build an employment brand it takes accurately examining all aspects related to work experience the company’s organization provides and ensuring the company creates an experience which leads to the employer with a choice reputation. In order to address the various aspects and factors which impact the company’s employer brand, the company requires to get those people involved in who show these unique perspectives. It is highly significant to deliver the promised privileges because employees experience whether the company is fulfilling its promises and that perception plays a vital role in the development of overall employment brand. So company should fully manifest what it talks.
Employee retention involves taking measures to encourage employees to remain in the organization for the maximum period of time. It involves the process of implementing initiatives to encourage the retention of staff in the workplace. There are variety of pros associated with employee retention which include retention of expertise, cost savings of induction, harmonious team work, interpersonal relationships, career progression opportunities, strong HR, and many more. These pros of retaining employees are of wide range and are clear indication that retaining skilled manpower has become a prime objective of HR nowadays. The cons of retention are quite fewer and include stagnant expertise, lack of innovation and creativity, non-exposure to new talent etc. These cons of retention can be reduced through continuous training and other formal activities in order to keep the employees’ skills and knowledge in a never ending improvement process .
- Summary of the previous investigations
Following is the critical analysis and summary of the previous investigations covering various topics related to Employment Branding and retention:
- Review of previous literatures in relation to Employment Branding and Employee Retention:
- The first literature review on the topic of “Employee Attitude and Job Satisfaction” was closely related to the topic of “Employment Branding and Employee Retention”. Since Employee’s attitude con be altered through the employment branding and in turn the job satisfaction level of the employee determines his level of motivation and in turn ensures his retention. Organizations must involve employees in the decision formulation process and assign tasks according to the skills and expertise of the employees. If employees are satisfied due to good employment brand then they will be easy to retain as employees for long time.
- The second literature review was on the topic of “HR perspective on executive coaching for organizational learning”. The gist of this literature review is that coaching, training and regular mentoring all together serve best if these are embedded in the company’s framework of performance. Such sessions of professional and individual grooming are highly recommended so that it will enhance the decision making capability in leaders and keep them completely associated with the targeted goals. Therefore, to meet the demands of the stakeholders and to maintain market leader label organization are striving hard to get hold of the most proficient ways to train and equip leaders with latest concepts and information. These concepts aid in creating a good image of the organization by bringing good employment branding and hence enhancing retention.
- The third literature review was on the topic of “Role of New Competencies in HR”. This article was indirectly related to the topic of employment branding and employee retention in a way that organizations strongly need to implement and introduce new and competitive competency models and detailed elements of competency skills in order to make every step of human resource development perfect. The world of business is changing at a rapid pace and the role of HRM is turning more and more strategic and brand oriented in nature. HR acts like a prime resource of the organization and therefore new and improved set of competencies and models are implemented to ensure retention of organization’s employees. Human capital is the strongest asset of an organization and therefore should be capitalize in an effective way which is possible only if a defined set of competencies would be used by the HRPs to improve every step in the development of human capital. A competitive workforce is the key to survive in today’s business environment so proper training and assistance of the workforce can only be done if standardized set of competencies and models are implemented which will consequently ensure employee retention.
- The last literature review had the topic of “Key role of (SHRM) in advancing the degree of team learning”. The article on the topic gives an insight to the fact that SHRM can substantially enhance the value added business approaches and also align the strategic goals of organization with the goals of employees. HRM can be very helpful by proactively participating in the effective team learning process which brings employment branding to the company. It is very important for HRPs to evaluate and identify learning technique according to the members of team. The prime parameter in gaining lead from competitors is making team interactive and strong sense of coordination among the members of team. Therefore SHRM is the best possible way for the managers to face the challenges and to take corrective measure accordingly in order to create employer branding to retain the employees.
- Solution
So it is estimated that management of the organization should tailor its policies and working environment as per its operations and the need of employees. To understand where an employer is positioned in the employment market and appropriate action plan is fundamental. Following are some valuable recommendations for a company to build a reputable employment branding in order to attract and retain best possible employees:-
- Employer Value Proposition (EVP)
The organization needs unique employer offer and it gives the employees a purpose to work with an employer while reelecting the competitive advantage of the company. Companies which manage EVP effectively get benefit from increase in their intellect pool and employee retention which also decreases salaries. Typically employers require to pay wage premium in order to get best talent while attractive employers simply avoid it. By analyzing various factors influencing employers’ brand and defining strong and effective EVP the company will be confident to deliver best and consistent results during communication phase as well as develop attractive and unique employment brand .
- Communication Strategy
Development of an effective communication strategy always bases good research results and consequently results in effective EVP. The EVP can be considered as a useful tool by HR and Marketing experts through effective communication by emphasizing the attractive factors with consistent employer communications. Once the employer knows to whom they want to communicate and what they need to communicate, then the employer has to make the choice of efficient and reliable medium of reaching them. The choosing of right medium and understanding to target the groups with most effectiveness invariably based on research .
- Communication Solutions
The main objective of this step can be to express EVP through using best words as well as best images in order to make it consistent with corporate identity as well as branding efforts. This way brings communication material with same look along with feeling of it without any relation to the communication medium. Since organizations utilize various different mediums it is critical that target groups organize organization in order to relate to employer’s offer with no regard to the matter that if they seems to reach via their corporate website and reading an advertisement of newspaper or playing their part in some event. The employers should try to develop the consistency throughout the communication material .
Employer branding can be considered as match-making and creating a perfect relationship among the employer, the employees and even clients. Employers must research their workplace environment in order to know the perception of their group about them and understand the needs of them according to the position in the market. The employees require to develop their abilities through implementing effective EVP with good communication and supporting the overall operation of the organization.
Works Cited
Helen, Rosethorn. The Employer Brand: Keeping Faith With the Deal. Surrey (UK): Gower Publishing, Ltd, 2009. Print.
LARA, MOROKO and D. UNCLES MARK. "Employer Branding." The Wall Street Journal (2012): 5. Print.
Peter, Crush. "The Finance Sector: How can employer branding still attract graduates in the recession-battered banking sector?" HRMagzine (2009): 6. Print.
Simon, Barrow and Mosley Richard. The Employer Brand: Bringing the Best of Brand Management to People at Work. Hoboken (NJ): John Wiley & Sons, 2011. Print.
