Employer branding A no-nonsense approach - CIPD

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Foreword Why is the CIPD interested in employer branding… and what is the link to HR? Employer branding seems to be offering HR an intriguing model by which to link their people strategy and the company brand to achieve differentiation in the labour market. Results from CIPD research show that companies are struggling to attract, recruit, engage and retain talent for their organisations. These are reported as top priorities for HR in many countries around the world. Brand management is a well-established concept – why can it not be directly transferable into companies to help drive internal value from a company’s most valuable asset – its people? A company brand is used to gain customer loyalty and therefore increased profits/success through market differentiation. An employer brand can be used for similar effect by HR and organisations, to compete effectively in the labour market and drive employee loyalty through effective recruitment, engagement and retention policies. Employer branding is how an organisation markets what it has to offer to both potential and existing employees. A strong employer brand should connect an organisation’s values, people strategy and HR policies and be intrinsically linked to a company brand. The number of definitions and theories about employer brands can make your head spin. But we suggest here that the most sensible, workable definition goes something like this: An employer brand is a set of attributes and qualities – often intangible – that makes an organisation distinctive, promises a particular kind of employment experience, and appeals to those people who will thrive and perform to their best in its culture. What will this guide deliver? This guide starts at the beginning and shows the HR practitioner how to develop and communicate an employer brand. In support, case studies from a very wide selection of employers and organisations illustrate why and how they have developed and communicated an employee brand to attract, retain and/or engage both potential and existing employees. This work is supported by an interactive practical tool www.cipd.co.uk/tools If you would is comment on this research then please email research@cipd.co.uk Further research and insights on employer branding from the CIPD can be found at www.cipd.co.uk/ research/_empbranding.htm This guide has been written for the CIPD by Paul Walker, Head of Employer Branding, Barkers, and project-managed by Andrew Platt Higgins, Planning Director, Barkers. Employer branding
Part 1: Introduction ‘The power of the brand in all its forms is likely to become even more deeply embedded in our cultural landscape.’ Dr Shirley Jenner and Stephen Taylor, Manchester Metropolitan University Business School If you’re bracing yourself for a long, challenging, jargonladen read, arguments and counterarguments that zoom back and forth like tennis balls on Wimbledon’s Centre Court, and theories that make your head spin, relax. At the risk of mixing metaphors, the best way to think of this guide – and to actually use it – is as one of those ‘I can’t imagine life without it’ cookery books that you clutch thankfully in one hand while you stir the béchamel sauce with the other. And the more its pages become well-thumbed or metaphorically stained, the more it will have served its purpose. But what is its purpose? And why is it appearing now? After all, with Amazon able to show you at least one hardback treatise on the employer brand, when the CIPD itself has already published on the topic, when virtually every recruitment advertising agency lists employer branding among the services it offers, isn’t yet another guide, well… just a little late in the day? There’s no glossary of technical terms; something as logical and common sense as employer brand development shouldn’t need one. Employer brands and the whole discipline and practice of developing and implementing them aren’t new. And that’s the reason why this guide is so timely. It’s based on the collective experience of many different organisations – large and small, public sector, commercial sector, ‘third sector’ – who shared their experiences with the CIPD and with the author and his colleagues in an extensive programme of research that, not surprisingly, used some of the techniques that feature prominently in brand development projects. It’s Employer branding also based on the author’s own practical, sharp-end experience of actually doing employer brand development for organisations ranging from multinationals to individual NHS trusts over a period of seven years. So this isn’t a prescriptive, ‘this is how you must do it’ guide; it’s the accumulated experience, the knowledge, the learning points of dozens of people who have taken the plunge, done the work, faced up to the challenges – and derived the benefits. They’re in the unique position of being able to say: ‘This is how it worked for us, therefore this is how it can work for you.’ But if we look at the employment market, the economy and how the fundamental relationship between people and work is changing, this guide hasn’t arrived a moment too soon. The ‘war for talent’ – that HR catchphrase of the turn of the century – is turning hot again. The HR profession is seeking new ways to demonstrate the true value it brings to an enterprise. The CIPD’s own recent survey shows that recruitment and retention are big, big headaches for many organisations. It also says that, ‘Employer brands are very much in fashion at the moment.’ That’s both a good thing and a bad thing. It’s good to see they’re receiving the attention they deserve. But if people don’t fully understand what they are and what they can and can’t do, there’s a danger they’ll go the way of power breakfasts, big hair and padded shoulders. So the time is right for a guide that lives on the same planet as every hard-pressed HR practitioner, that mixes the authority of collective experience with a degree of humility, that seeks to teach, not preach. This is that guide. Read, react, learn, practise. And enjoy.
Page 1 and 2: Guide Employer branding A no-nonsen
Page 3: Acknowledgements Thank you to those
Page 7 and 8: Part 3: How did we get here? Backgr
Page 9 and 10: Figure 3: Employer branding objecti
Page 11 and 12: Part 4: What is a brand? ‘I’m p
Page 13 and 14: work, showing more of that ‘discr
Page 15 and 16: e worth it since it shows the true
Page 17 and 18: For your last big recruitment drive
Page 19 and 20: that organisation’s vision and va
Page 21 and 22: ScottishPower (continued) Who had o
Page 23 and 24: Part 6: Making the case, getting th
Page 25 and 26: Project management will involve dis
Page 27 and 28: King’s College NHS Trust: clear d
Page 29 and 30: Case study learning points ‘We es
Page 31 and 32: Part 7: Overcoming objections ‘Th
Page 33 and 34: British Library: step by step, gets
Page 35 and 36: Part 8: Choosing your partner ‘We
Page 37 and 38: Building internal partnerships and
Page 39 and 40: The list of actions and activities
Page 41 and 42: Telephone depth interviews What are
Page 43 and 44: Figure 7: Brand development process
Page 45 and 46: A proposition that grows naturally
Page 47 and 48: gives you the means to plug them. I
Page 49 and 50: Diesel (continued) Applicants were
Page 51 and 52: The tools for the job In many organ
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Part 11: Building brand loyalty, cr
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approach their work. ‘Your M&S’
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Second, they’ll realise that they
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Thirty things you need to remember
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