Employer branding A no-nonsense approach - CIPD

But the whole notion of improvement begs the
question: ‘improvement against what?’
I can’t overemphasise the need to establish a robust set
of baseline metrics for your brand as it is now
(remember, every organisation has one, just not the one
they need, want or deserve) compared with how it will
be after you and your team have done their stuff.
I’m always amazed by just how sparse the data is that
many organisations hold to give a true picture of their
performance – and that includes financial performance
– in recruitment and retention. The required data is
almost certainly there somewhere; it just needs a little
digging to bring it to light. And any gaps that your
quest reveals can be quickly and relatively easily
plugged. Getting the measure of your current
performance may not be as exciting as running your
first internal focus group or delivering the new,
brand-based creative brief to your agency, but it needs
to be done and done well. Without it, the whole brand
development project will be seriously compromised.
The areas of performance you need to fix some robust
numbers on include:
• recruitment advertising spend – is it increasing or
decreasing? What proportion has migrated online,
and what is still based on print media? Do you have
results for specific titles/recruitment sites?
• the prevalence and full cost of premature
resignations (typically 150% of first-year salary),
and taking ‘premature’ to mean any departure
before the individual concerned has delivered the
kind of performance that repays your investment in
their training and development
• your expenditure on recruitment consultants – do
they feature on your preferred suppliers list? Or
are they chosen on an ad hoc basis by hiring
managers? Do you even know?
• the volume of spontaneous applications and
employment enquiries you receive – how many are
there? What happens to them?
• the ratio of acceptances to offers – I always regard
this as one of the absolutely critical metrics, since
it shows the degree to which candidates have
started to experience the alignment – or lack of
it – between promise and reality, expectation and
early experience.
You also need to measure softer issues like employees’
own perceptions of working for the organisation.
What’s the mood like among current employees? Do
you discern any trends in current perceptions – either
downwards or upwards?
Getting the measure of your current
performance may not be as exciting as
running your first internal focus group…
but it needs to be done and done well.
If you’re unsure that you have enough information to
really give you a handle on these and similar issues,
some research will provide the reassurance you seek.
You can quickly commission some internal focus
groups (but remember that, if you want to know
how people really feel about their organisation,
they’ll be more likely to open up to a third party than
to a member of your own team). You can run an
online survey. You can delve more deeply into your
most recent staff surveys or, if you’re due to run one
in the near future, you can include some
brand-related questions. But remember that staff
surveys create the expectation (or at least a forlorn
hope) that something will actually be done about the
issues they raise. Manage respondents’ expectations;
tell them that they’re making a real contribution to
the development of a new brand, and that their
concerns, comments and observations will be a key
part of its development.
…then set your course
In the opening paragraph of this guide, we used the
metaphor of a cookery book. We’d now like to
extend that metaphor: the plates are warming in the
oven, that modest little Beaujolais is gradually
reaching room temperature, your guests arrive in
an hour.
Time to get moving
In this section we show the basic shape and structure of
a brand development project – the sequence of events
that starts with research and discovery; leads to analysis
and interpretation; then to the initial creative
expression; to internal and external launch and ongoing
communication; and finally to maintenance and
measurement.
Employer branding