An effective employer brand can make a dramatic difference to how successful businesses are, in recruiting, engaging and keeping their people as shown in a new Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) practical guide: Employer branding: a no-nonsense approach. This echoes recent CIPD research that shows around three-quarters (75%) of organisations that use employer branding as a recruitment tool believe it to be effective.
Employer branding: a no-nonsense approach features case studies from leading organisations, British Library, Diesel, Kings College NHS Trust, Lakeland, Orange and ScottishPower. It illustrates why and how they have developed and communicated an employee brand.
This step-by step practical guide allows organisations to explore and maximise their own employer brand. This is an important weapon for organisations as they compete for talent in a crowded market place and seek to engage, motivate and retain their best people.
The CIPD guide discusses some of the challenges that businesses implementing a brand might face and suggests how to overcome them. These include:
Employer branding is still seen as a new concept and lacks recognition as an important element of corporate strategy.
HR needs to ësellí to colleagues their ability to make a strategic contribution to the business in this area.
Fragmentation on ownership ñ poor communication between departments involved in the process.
Employer branding canít be imposed ñ an organisation needs staff involvement in developing the brand to ensure they relate to and sign up to its values.
Rebecca Clake, CIPD Organisation and Resourcing Adviser, comments:
ìIn their quest to be an ëemployer of choiceí, many organisations are recognising the potential of employer branding as a concept. There is a real opportunity for employers to use some of the techniques associated with branding and marketing, to understand how the organisation is perceived by current employees and the external labour market.
ìHowever, employer branding is not just about recruitment. Itís an opportunity to gather intelligence to help employers better understand what makes people stay with their organisation, and be prepared to ëgo the extra mileí.
ìBy working together with other departments such as marketing, internal communications and PR is important if branding initiatives are to be successfully implementedî
Paul Walker, Head of Employer Brands, Barkers and author of the guide, adds:
ìThe golden rule is to launch the brand internally, making sure itís fully communicated, understood and embedded then and only then can you launch the programme externally to see the real benefits.
ìDespite the success of employer branding, many companies still fail to accurately measure current performance in recruitment and retention in order to prove brand effectiveness and demonstrate return-on-investment. By measuring the success of employer brand, the HR community can really add value to their businesses.î
CIPD launches a one-stop guide to employer branding
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