Employer branding A no-nonsense approach - CIPD

Every employer brand project needs its projectives
People’s relationships with the organisations they work for or might consider working for are highly
complex. Asking people to agree or disagree on a scale of 1–10 that organisation X ‘would look good on
my CV’ only tells part of the story. For real insights, particularly those that can drive the most original, yet
relevant, creative expression of a brand, we need to look deeper – and that’s where projective techniques
come in.
They get respondents to speak about something indirectly by ‘projecting’ their thoughts and emotional
responses onto something else.
Some are the typical techniques that many people are at least aware of – if the organisation in question
was a car, what would it be? If it were a person, would they be male or female? What would they wear?
What would their taste in music be?
Some are more specific to employer brands. For example, I’ve always found it very revealing to give
participants a sheet of paper with the image of two people at a party talking to each other. One happens
to mention (the way one does), ‘Me? Oh, I work for (the name of the organisation in question).’
The participants fill in the other person’s ‘thinks’ bubble – giving a real insight into that organisation’s
reputation as an employer, or even revealing issues (‘Why can’t my mum get her hip replaced sooner?’)
that can militate against brand advocacy.
Another technique that yields some telling and memorable results is image association. From an eclectic
collection of several hundred images, participants are asked to select one that, in their minds, seems to
symbolise the organisation in question. For a London local authority, the image of a drop-dead-gorgeous
fashion shoe suggested an unexpected element of creativity in the authority’s culture. For Land Rover, the
frequently chosen image of a little rowing boat bobbing haplessly in the wake of a giant supertanker
suggested to an external audience of graduates (inaccurately as it happens), ‘That’s poor little Land Rover,
struggling to keep up with the Japanese competition.’
Every picture tells a story
The images people choose to express their perception of an organisation as an employer can be very
revealing – as these real-life examples show:
Staff and management
seen as locked in
confrontation
Dictatorial/hierarchical
management approach
The service is seen as avoiding issues –
people expect support from
management but feel they don’t get it
Employer branding