Employer branding and total reward - CIPD

Research report
March 2010
Employer
branding and
total reward
In association with
Employer branding and total reward 1

Introduction 1
Highlights from the interviews 4
How are organisations aligning
employer branding and total reward? 6
Our recommended approach to aligning employer
branding and total reward 9
The challenges of aligning
employer branding and total reward 13
Conclusion 15
References 16
Appendix: An overview of employer branding
at the participant organisations 17
Employer branding and total reward 1

Introduction
This report provides a holistic view of the areas
to consider when looking at the links between
employer branding and total reward. It can be used
to help HR, reward and branding professionals
develop their own employer branding offering
that links strongly to their organisation’s reward
approach.
It can be used by you to gain buy-in from other
members of staff and develop cross-functional
working relationships focused on ensuring these
concepts mutually support one another throughout
the business. This report can help you navigate your
way during economic recovery by offering examples
of ways in which remaining true to your employer
branding and reward strategy can help to position
your company positively for the upturn.
This report is based on in-depth interviews with
nine interviews carried out between August and
September 2009.
In this report, what do we mean by employer
branding? The CIPD defines the employer brand as
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
best in its culture.
Specifically, organisations that have a strong and
attractive employer brand:
• can use it to help them produce in turn a more
engaged workforce who ‘live the brand’ and in
turn reduce the costs of employee turnover
• are likely to perform better, have higher
attendance levels and deliver a more positive
customer experience.
What do we mean by total reward? The CIPD
defines total reward as a reward strategy that
brings additional components such as learning
and development, together with aspects of the
working environment, into the benefits package.
2 Employer branding and total reward
It goes beyond standard remuneration by embracing
the company culture and is aimed at giving all
employees a voice in the operation, with the
employer in return receiving an engaged employee
performance.
The CIPD Reward Management survey report (CIPD,
2008b) found concern among employers as to
how reward and recognition policies support their
employer brand. Hence, our research partnership
focused on the following question: What are the
links between employer branding and total reward
within organisations?
Research methodolgy
The research project consisted of two phases. The
first phase collected data from 44 organisations
during May and June 2009 using a web-based
questionnaire. The results from our first phase
of research can be found on the CIPD website.
Headline findings are shown below:
• Nearly 90% of organisations have an employer
brand or plan to within six months.
• Fifty-seven per cent of respondents developed
their employer brand to support their employee
value proposition (what an organisation stands
for, requires and offers as an employer).
• Seventy per cent of senior leadership understand
and 49% value the employer brand, compared
with 10% and 20% of employees/potential
employees, respectively.
• Almost half of respondents felt a positive or
negative effect of the recession on their employer
brand, for example it either offered them an
unrivalled selling point versus it was compromised
by reduced engagement, retention and reward.
The findings provided a general understanding
of the current employer branding and reward
environment (CIPD and Mercer 2009) and supported
the second phase of our research.

This phase consisted of in-depth interviews and a
panel discussion that provided insights into how
organisations are trying to align employer branding
and reward. Nine companies participated in this
phase of our research conducted in the second half
of 2009. Those that were happy to be named have
been listed below:
• Abbey – Maria Strid, Head of Reward (Please note
that Abbey was re-branded as Santander UK in
the beginning of 2010)
• Bacardi – Alison Campbell, HR Director Bacardi
Martini UK
• Malmaison and Hotel du Vin – Sean Wheeler,
Group Director of People Development
• McDonald’s – Neal Blackshire, Benefits and
Compensation Manager
• Midland Heart – Clare Fielden, HR Business
Partner leading on Brand Development
• tw telecom – Steve Hardardt, Senior Vice
President Human Resources and Business
Administration.
An overview of employer branding at the participant
organisations has been provided in the Appendix.
Employer branding and total reward 3

Highlights from the interviews
There are many benefits that can be derived
from having a compelling employer brand that is
supported by employee rewards, according to our
interviewees. Engagement can be enhanced by a
brand that is demonstrably aligned to rewards as it
provides an opportunity for companies to ‘put their
money where their mouth is’ in promoting desired
corporate behaviours and image. Engaged employees
who believe in the brand then promote this image
more effectively to customers. In our interviews, four
key approaches to strengthening the link between
employer branding and reward emerged.
1 Employee value proposition
The employers we have talked to acknowledge that
reward can influence employee behaviours, therefore
encouraging the right behaviours can strengthen
the employer brand. There is no point in paying for
X while hoping for Y; an employer brand that isn’t
supported by rewards can be perceived as little more
than empty words. In this approach, the employer
brand sets out the value proposition, outlining what
the organisation stands for and its reward philosophy.
It defines the ‘deal’ between employer and employee
and hence influences the ‘psychological contract’. At
McDonald’s, for example, to prevent its employer
branding proposition from becoming an empty
marketing campaign, it is supported by their reward
practices.
Organisations with an established, well-defined
employer brand are already using total rewards to
demonstrate the corporate culture to current and
potential employees. For example, tw telecom
has aligned incentives, performance-based equity
grants, traditional benefit programmes, wellness
programmes, and learning and development
opportunities to its employer brand and believes this
alignment has also been achieved via its performance
management system. Customer service firms within
our sample have achieved an advanced alignment
between employer branding and reward. We suggest
that this is due to the need to make a strong first
impression and build relationships quickly, particularly
during the current economic climate.
4 Employer branding and total reward
2 Rewarding desirable behaviours
The most effective way rewards can support
employer branding is through rewarding desired
behaviours. Often defined in a company’s values,
these behaviours can create a clear identity for
employees and support a positive customer
experience that together reinforces the company
culture. Some companies, such as tw telecom,
directly link their values within their performance
management system as a means to communicate
the employer brand and support employees’
understanding of the line of sight between their
performance, their reward and the company. For
such organisations, employer branding becomes
part of the deeper culture of the organisation, for
example Bacardi’s values define the work culture,
which is essentially the employer brand they market
during recruitment. What constitutes exceptional
behaviour or ‘living the values’ is included in the
performance management system and therefore
influences opportunities for development.
3 Communication
Effective communication of reward packages is a
key way to reinforce the employer brand as it raises
awareness to potential and existing employees
of the benefits of working for the company. For
example, McDonald’s was already investing heavily
in its people, therefore its branding work focused
on communicating this investment to strengthen
the employer brand both internally and externally.
Numerous media are used to communicate the links
between reward and employer branding. The most
common of these are: the Internet and intranet
sites; employee induction booklets; job descriptions/
advertisements and newsletters (CIPD and Mercer
2009). Effective communication from line managers,
however, is considered to be most important.

4 Ownership and measurement
Different companies position employer branding
in different functions, not always HR. Ownership
varies between the executive team, marketing,
employees, communications/operations and HR.
A number of companies we interviewed have set
up steering groups or reputation teams within
their lines of business to support and monitor
the employer brand. For example, at tw telecom
focus groups across the organisation help shape
the desired culture, based on company values and
associated competencies. The company’s values
(integrity, service, teamwork, flexibility) are used as a
foundation for all people-related processes and total
reward plan elements. Similarly at McDonald’s, a
planning team managed the employer branding
campaign and its launch, leading to campaign
success. Among the people we spoke to, it was
agreed that employer branding cannot exist solely in
HR but rather needs to be owned by the line.
In general, we found that most organisations are
not measuring the impact of employer branding
and reward on the organisation. However, of those
that do try to assess the impact, they use employee
attitude surveys and/or performance management
data. Detailed examples concerning measurement
for success are provided later in this report in the
section, ‘Our recommended approach to aligning
employer branding and total reward’ (see page 9).
Employer branding and total reward 5

How are organisations aligning employer
branding and total reward?
Almost half of companies in this research believe
there is a strong link between their employer brand
and rewards. Some believe compensation and
benefits should have their own ‘reward brand’.
Provided below are some examples from our
Figure 1: Mercer’s Total Reward Model
Source: Mercer
Compensation
The interviews highlight that for many organisations
cash is still king when it comes to attracting, retaining
and motivating employees. Even for organisations that
state that pay does not overtly support the employer
proposition, most agree that pay needs to be at the
right level to ensure that people want to work and
come to work for the company. Therefore, while
getting pay positioning right may not necessarily
enhance the brand, getting it wrong can be damaging:
• Pay is often viewed differently across industries.
For example, charities pay competitively to get
people ‘through the door’, but rely on other
benefits of working for such an organisation to
retain them, such as development opportunities
and a positive working environment. Alternatively,
for organisations in industries that are more
financially focused, pay is at the heart of the
employee value proposition and top quartile pay
is required to retain employees. However, even in
6 Employer branding and total reward
research of the various ways in which employer
branding and total reward have been successfully
linked. These have been included in the context of
Mercer’s Total Reward Model to illustrate the role of
each element discussed in the wider reward context.
these industries, the importance of looking at the
whole rewards package was highlighted rather
than looking at pay in isolation.
• Bonuses can support the brand in three key
ways. First, bonuses can enable organisations to
stay aligned with competitor reward packages.
This is particularly true in the financial services
and re-insurance companies where bonuses are
central to the psychological contract. Second,
bonuses can link rewards directly to financial
performance, which reduces risk to the firm and
aligns employees with stakeholders. However,
some employers also use bonuses to reward
employees for demonstrating behaviours that
support the company values.
For example, at Malmaison and Hotel du Vin
‘everything we do links back’. Bonuses encourage
excellence and positive employee behaviour, which

are both at the heart of the company values and
improve the guest experience. As such, employees
are measured and rewarded against company values,
the guest experience and personal achievement.
Benefits
For many organisations, the employer brand
determines the type of benefits offered and in turn
these benefits support the messages aiming to be
delivered via the employer brand. That is, they are
mutually supportive. For instance:
• Malmaison and Hotel du Vin Group has
introduced a varied benefits offering including
contributory pension, private medical insurance,
shopping discounts, foot treatment, childcare
vouchers and staff discount rates at their hotels.
All of these benefits can be accessed easily
online via the new benefits website. This benefits
offering is intended to mirror the company’s
values of value for money, relaxation and making
life easier, which also make up the employer
brand.
‘The benefits offered aim to make life easier for
employees, which ultimately works to support
the employer brand as our employees feel looked
after and are in a position to perform when they
get to work.’
• A large energy exploration and production
company has an employer brand that promotes
longevity and partnerships, which for them
means long service and employee loyalty and
commitment. As part of this, it has designed
benefits to ensure the employee gains financially
over the longer term. It drives home simple
messages to employees such as, ‘the longer you
participate in our pension plan, the bigger your
pension will be.’ Similar messages about share
plans are also communicated.
The quotes below illustrate the feelings of
organisations in our study regarding the alignment of
their benefits provision with their employer brand:
‘We expect our employees to work flexibly,
therefore we offer a flexible benefits programme.’
‘Our brand says we are the best in the market,
therefore the benefits we offer our employees
have to be the best.’
‘Our benefits provision reflects the type of work
our employees undertake and the lifestyles they
lead.’
Non-financial benefits: development and career,
and work lifestyle
For many employers in our research, offering
development and career benefits helps to ensure
employees have the knowledge, skills and capabilities
to carry out their roles effectively. This is not only
good for business but it enhances engagement
and encourages employees to ‘live the brand’.
Recognition awards are often used to influence the
employee experience.
Recruitment and induction
At McDonald’s, employer branding is centred on
four key propositions: improvement opportunities,
flexibility, an energising environment and continuous
learning. McDonald’s launched its competitive reward
package – the ‘It’s not bad for a McJob’ campaign –
back in 2006 in response to low levels of awareness
around the reward programmes in place to support
the propositions. The focus of the campaign was
on existing reward programmes, as these resonate
with current employees and create a sense of brand
reality. McDonald’s stresses that employers have a
responsibility to keep enhancing and communicating
what they are delivering and now feel they are
getting the respect they deserve from the public and
so are perceived as a credible employer.
Externally, McJobs had become synonymous with
low-paying jobs with no growth opportunities. The
‘It’s not bad for a McJob’ campaign included 18
advertisements depicting a startling array of positive
business practices. In particular, various elements of
the pay and benefits package are highlighted using
posters. One example of this is that the company
promoted the opportunities for people to move
Employer branding and total reward 7

from training manager to business manager within
three years, with a salary of up to £45,000. It also
promoted the flexibility in shift patterns that promote
work–life balance for all employees. For instance, one
of its recruitment posters emphasised flexibility by
showing a person doing yoga.
Similarly, Malmaison and Hotel du Vin’s ‘Best
Start’ programmes for new joiners focus on engaging
employees in their first 12 weeks and giving people
the confidence they need. All new staff are given
a full starter pack and induction on joining, and
a mentoring scheme is in place to make sure
new recruits settle in. The firm gives rewards for
completing induction training.
Career development
For Malmaison and Hotel du Vin, ongoing
development of employees is key. The company
offers education and numerous training and
development opportunities. For example, each
property has its own food and wine training school
and also regular supplier-funded trips are used to
educate staff and reward good performance, such
as a visit to the Champagne region, which was one
recent success. Plus it keeps education fun and holds
annual competitions, such as the ‘Ultimate Cook
Off ‘ for chefs, the ‘Housekeepers Olympics’, and a
cocktail competition for bar staff. These development
opportunities and incentive vehicles aim to ensure
that employees live and own the brand themselves.
McDonald’s supports career development by
offering apprenticeships and management A-level
equivalent awards. They are an awarding body for
diplomas in shift management. They also encourage
staff into personal development through its
performance stars on the employee uniform.
For Bacardi, the biggest challenge concerning
their employer branding efforts has been enabling
their managers to communicate reward decisions
clearly to employees. Therefore, Bacardi developed
a management training program in order to achieve
improved and consistent development and associated
8 Employer branding and total reward
reward communications and to help managers make
their decisions more transparent. Bacardi believe this
has enhanced their employer brand.
tw telecom’s non-financial benefits, such as
performance management, training and career
development, are designed to ensure employees
have the required knowledge and skills. This
has the dual impact of increasing engagement
among employees and creating brand champions.
Recognition programmes at tw telecom align with
internal employer branding and provide opportunities
for employees to recognise fellow employees who
demonstrate company values, which underpin
the employer brand. The programmes also allow
managers to recognise team members for both results
and how they achieve those results.
Work lifestyle
Malmaison and Hotel du Vin recently involved
its employees’ feedback in decisions surrounding a
change to their uniform. It feels this has increased
employee engagement and motivation. Since the
new uniform also helped to present a coherent
brand to the guests, this process has made both the
employee and the guest experience more positive.
McDonald’s has promoted flexibility and introduced
the innovative ‘family’ contract whereby members
of the same ‘family’ working in the same location
will be able to swap shifts without prior notice or
needing to seek a manager’s permission. The new
contracts were designed to cut absenteeism and
improve retention.
Summary
We have found that pay is driven in part by external
factors and therefore there is a balance to be
realised between alignment to external factors,
such as the market rate for a particular role, and
alignment to the internal drivers, which includes
the employer brand. While it is accepted that the
benefits provision should align with the employer
brand, we found that it can be easier to do this for
non-financial benefits.

Our recommended approach to aligning
employer branding and total reward
What is the ideal world?
There is no one ideal world because the solutions will
vary significantly between organisations, industries and
geographies. However, based on our research, there are
a number of small steps that you can take in aligning
reward with the employer brand.
1 Management buy-in
The role of senior leadership is essential to drive the
concept of employer branding into something that
is achievable within the business strategy. Often the
most successful brand strategies are those that are
presided over by a CEO who is visible and active in
the process:
• At tw telecom, the CEO and senior team are
actively ‘shaping’ the employer brand via all
ongoing communications, including quarterly
town hall meetings. The senior executive team
is actively involved in building awareness of the
firm’s vision and values and they have a clear
understanding of the importance of people,
leadership, talent management and total rewards.
In addition, round table discussions hosted by
executives across the organisation foster two-way
communications and help reinforce tw telecom’s
values-based culture.
However, it is also important for you to involve all
lines of business and harness the strengths across
different teams within the organisation:
• While its chief executive is actively signed up to
the employer branding concept, Midland Heart
stressed the importance of involving several business
areas that work closely together (for example
HR, marketing and communications) towards a
centralised branding plan. Following a series of staff
forums, an employee brand engagement steering
group was developed to test and ensure that the
employer brand accurately reflects the experiences
of employees across the company.
2 Employee feedback
Feedback from employees is essential since, as
the example of Malmaison and Hotel du Vin
highlights, senior management might be responsible
for keeping the employer brand alive, but it is the
employees that live the brand, through creating
the desired work environment. At the ‘Your Voice’
Committee, established as a result of employee
feedback, the board of directors meet with employee
representatives to discuss employee issues and ensure
continuous improvement and communication:
• One company also used a ‘Jam Session’ to assess
the impact of their policies on employees. This
was a global session that lasted 72 consecutive
hours with leaders online for the whole time
discussing different themes. The session could be
adapted to target the employees’ understanding
and experience of the company’s employer brand
and reward policy and therefore the impact they
were having. There were 10,000 posts!
It is also essential to obtain feedback from
line managers, especially concerning what the
organisation wants to be known for as an employer,
since this allows HR and the senior leadership team
to determine how the employer brand might be
achieved and implemented.
Employer branding and total reward 9

3 Setting boundaries
A fundamental understanding is needed regarding
how much you want each employee, by grade or
band, to associate themselves with the employer
brand. Engagement surveys can indicate where the
biggest gaps between what the empoyer needs the
employee to understand and what the employee
actually understands.
Figure 2: Employee associations with the employer brand
Impact
Communication
Aware
Understand
Agree
Promote
Champion
Psychological alignment
10 Employer branding and total reward
Influence
Figure 2 illustrates the different levels of employer
brand association possible and the factors that
influence it. You might want a non-client-facing,
junior employee with little influence and impact
just to be aware of what the employer brand is. By
contrast, at senior leadership level or in a client-facing
role, an employee would be needed to promote
or even champion the employer brand to make it
successful and ensure expectations are realised.
4 Measuring success
Understanding and assessing the impact and return
on investment of reward changes is important to you
achieving appropriate business outcomes. Assessing
the impact of employer branding is about ensuring
everything is aligned across the whole employee
experience as desired. Measuring the impact of total
reward is about you looking at reward holistically
and making sure your approach is aligned to the
brand and the value for money achieved.
Determining the level of alignment between
employer branding and total reward at a given
organisation can be difficult, but a variety of
measures mentioned by our case studies can help
you examine the impact of employer branding and
total reward.
Employee surveys
Analysis of employee attitudes can help you
uncover whether the employer brand is being
realised throughout the organisation and also
reveal how employees feel about total reward –
specifically, whether or not they understand the links
between the employer brand and their day-to-day
performance and how this links to the way that they
are rewarded:
• For example, one organisation cited
engagement surveys (which examine team
relationships and if the organisation is living the
values), satisfaction surveys, retention surveys
(where one of the main things to look at is
whether the job reality matches expectations),
external surveys, staff road shows and also exit
interviews as methods to use to gain insights into
the thoughts of employees.
• Malmaison and Hotel du Vin uses employee
feedback gathered through appraisals, as a way of
determining how employees feel about working
for the company. On the basis of staff feedback,
it has been able to introduce new strategies that
have strengthened the brand and, it believes,
make a bigger impact than it would otherwise
have achieved. For example, the chief executive
now visits each property twice a year to answer
staff questions. An online academy has been set
up to provide learning and development, this
in turn links to the performance management
system. The firm checks that the staff facilities
are clean and comfortable as this impacts on
the service quality. All of these measures seek
to ensure that employees are having the best
possible experience at work.

Performance management systems
Performance management systems offer another
way for you to examine the links between employer
branding and reward. Managers can be trained to use
the company values in behavioural-based assessments
to aid their decision-making process.
These values, for many organisations, define their
employer brand and, therefore, if the reward
employees receive is linked to brand behaviours then
success is assumed:
• tw telecom recently completed development of
a 360-degree feedback tool that will be gradually
rolled out to the organisation through its employee
development processes. At their discretion,
individuals will be able to access this tool online
and provide developmental feedback to determine
whether employee behaviour is living the brand.
The tool also trains coaches within the organisation
to help interpret the results and integrate them into
employee performance and development plans,
including employer branding.
• Bacardi uses the performance management system
to measure how well its employees demonstrate
company values and their attitudes to identify
development opportunities. Therefore, through
testing whether or not its employees are displaying
the desired behaviours, it is examining whether the
employer brand values have been communicated
and understood.
These examples of measurement techniques are only
a few of the many ways you can assess the impact of
employer branding on total reward and it is important
to define measures of success that are achievable
within your own unique organisation.
Employer branding and total reward 11

Our recommendations
• HR needs to identify and spell out the employer
brand for the whole organisation, since if
it is not universally defined or understood
then this inhibits a link to the overall business
strategy. Defining what the employer brand is
not is equally important. HR can then act as a
reference point during change and help produce
agreement between the key stakeholders.
• Ensure that senior employees and, where
appropriate, junior employees buy in to the
employer brand. HR needs to contribute to the
wider business issues and communicate the entire
package to all employees.
• Where cultural changes are taking place, help
employees understand and accept the change
using clear and honest communication and
offer the chance for them to provide feedback
during the process. This can help involve them
in the process and maintain levels of employee
engagement.
• Make the most of the programmes you already
have in place and focus resources on those
elements that will have the greatest impact on
the brand. Leveraging existing reward policies
that are likely to be well established among
employees helps to create stability and enhances
understanding while implementing change. Often
it is the small and cheaper elements of total
reward, such as recognition programmes, that
can have the highest impact on the brand.
12 Employer branding and total reward
• When considering the measurement of employer
brand alignment, HR and business metrics need
to be based on the rationale behind the employer
brand. For example, how many employees
have moved and how many have stayed?
Measurement should also take into account
customer satisfaction as well as employee
satisfaction to ensure alignment between the
internal and the external brand.
• HR can use the firm’s internal marketing and/or
press department for ideas on how to sell the
brand and engage individuals. It can also make
use of the various CIPD resources concerning
employer branding (see page 16).
• To help HR approach these tasks effectively, we
have provided below a list of HR practitioner
key skills and capabilities described in our
case studies that HR should hold if they are to
successfully develop, implement and maintain
an employer brand. The skills identified are:
affiliation to the business; commercial link
to the business; understanding of what
differentiates the business; marketing (connect
business needs and aims); business acumen;
change management/adaptability; knowledge
of employee experience and judgement;
and the ability to communicate/translate the
employer brand to employees.

The challenges of aligning employer
branding and total reward
1 Preparing for the economic recovery
The recent recession has necessitated reducing
reward levels for employees in many companies. The
Mercer Salary Indicator survey (Mercer 2010) showed
that more than half of organisations froze salaries in
2009 and the widespread use of pay freezes has also
been found in the CIPD Reward Management survey
report (CIPD 2009) and Employee Pay Attitudes
survey (CIPD 2010b). This inevitably has an effect on
employee engagement. The majority of companies
in this report said that the impact of the downturn
to date had not had a major negative impact
on them, due to them being in relatively stable
industries. However, just under half of the companies
interviewed have felt a direct impact of the current
recession on the amount of money available to spend
on reward and the value of long-term incentive
awards and pensions. While these companies have
put a hold on, for the immediate future, any pay
reviews or reward design changes, they are still
making efforts to limit the impact on employees and
maintain levels of investment in such programmes
as learning and development. This, they hope, will
maintain the strength of the employer brand in the
long term.
The CIPD’s Employee Outlook survey (CIPD 2010a)
identified that during the last quarter of 2009 fewer
than half of employees felt fully/fairly well informed
about what was happening in their organisation
and that job satisfaction had decreased across all
organisation sizes and sectors. With a third of the
respondents also reporting redundancies and a
quarter having cut back on training opportunities
in response to the recent recession, employers will
need to ensure staff motivation levels are maintained
and, if necessary, stabilised during 2010. The
key challenge for employers now is to retain key
talent during the upturn and rewarding positive
behaviours helps retain talent in a recovering job
market and improves and enhances productivity and
engagement. The employer brand also helps create
trust, which can make ‘selling’ any potential changes
to those who will be affected easier:
• At Bacardi, knowing the company has invested in
them is making employees feel more motivated,
which in turn promotes a positive employer
brand. An aligned employer brand will also
position Bacardi well for the upturn, since it will
enable it to communicate its messages both
powerfully and honestly.
• While Malmaison and Hotel du Vin has had to
make salary and bonus freezes like many other
employers, it believes what sets it apart is the
focus on the future. It communicates to its staff
that if they all work hard, achieve every sales
opportunity and deliver amazing hospitality while
keeping a lid on what is being spent, then they
will share in the success of the firm. Rather than
focusing on redundancies and there being fewer
workers, the firm emphasises that there is more
opportunity for job enlargement and job sharing.
While these approaches have worked for Bacardi
and, Malmaison and Hotel du Vin, it is important
to remember that, during turbulent times, any
changes must be in line with your unique business
strategy. Sometimes, redundancies may be
unavoidable in order to maintain business success
and the employer brand in the longer term.
2 Resistance to change
In any major organisational change, there is likely
to be some resistance and difficulty in meeting
employee expectations. However, involving
employees in the decision-making process can help
them feel more involved in the change and believe
that their contribution is being recognised.
Employer branding and total reward 13

• Malmaison and Hotel du Vin highlights the
importance of involving employees’ feedback
in tough decision-making in a recent uniform
redesign. It has turned the cost reduction
required during 2009 into a positive by
surveying the views of all employees during
one of its staff ‘wear your own clothes’ day.
The company used this feedback to determine
that employees sought more personality in
their uniforms. Involving employees in that
decision-making helped to make the uniform
more personal while saving the company
around £250,000 a year. When the uniform
is launched, the firm can communicate that
the decision was informed by employees’
feedback. This will help to create employee
engagement and motivation throughout the
company during this period of change.
14 Employer branding and total reward
What are the key success factors in overcoming
these challenges?
• First, work out what the employer brand is and be
able to articulate how it can be strengthened and
improved. For example, identification is needed
between the business strategy and the employer
brand before you can begin to think about
alignment.
• Gain senior leadership buy-in to the concept. It is
HR’s role to ensure that senior leaders understand
the concept and why it is important to the
organisation. HR should work with the senior
leadership team to define what the employer
brand is and how they can ‘walk the talk’.
• Involve line managers in the roll-out of your
employer brand. Depending on where you are
in the employer branding journey, line managers
will have different roles. Early on in the journey
organisations should obtain feedback on how
the employer brand might be achieved and
implemented. Later in the process you will want
them to communicate the brand and ideally
become brand champions.
• Communicate what you want to be known for as
an employer and what you are offering employees
in terms of reward and experience.
• Keep the promises you make to both existing
and potential employees. This will ensure that
employer branding and its links to total reward do
not become an empty marketing campaign.

Conclusion
All participants in this research agree that aligning
rewards with the employer brand can help in
attracting, retaining and motivating staff. Such
alignment can demonstrate the employer’s financial
commitment to the employer proposition, which
in turn assists in fostering a positive employee
experience. Some companies in this study have made
a conscious effort to demonstrate the alignment of
total rewards to their employer brand, often as part
of a branding campaign, for example McDonald’s
and Malmaison and Hotel du Vin.
However, our research indicates that many other
employers struggle to develop a link with their
employer brand. The research team spent a
long time trying to identify possible case study
organisations for this study, which indicates just how
few employers at the time were working at aligning
their reward approach and employer brand.
While most organisations do not have an
established employer brand, in such a situation
the current reward programmes can help play a
key role in developing and communicating what
the organisation is trying to achieve through its
employer brand.
Branding and reward should be mutually
supportive, emphasising the need to get the
initial alignment correct and ensuring authenticity
within the organisation. Aligning employer brand
with reward can help companies meet employee
expectations, from attracting them into the
company to developing trust and commitment
during their careers. During future research it would
be interesting to determine whether there was a
difference between organisations hiring temporary
versus those hiring permanent staff with regards to
the employer’s focus on employer branding and its
alignment with total reward.
Overall, it would appear that while many
organisations aspire to clearly align employer
branding and total reward, for some the journey has
only just begun.
The CIPD and Mercer would like to thank all
respondents for their participation in this key
piece of research.
Employer branding and total reward 15

References
CIPD. (2008a) Employer branding: your online
companion for the journey. Practical tool. London:
Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.
[Accessed 10 March 2010].
CIPD. (2008b) Reward management. Survey report.
London: Chartered Institute of Personnel and
Development. [Accessed 10 March 2010].
CIPD. (2009) Reward management. Survey report.
London: Chartered Institute of Personnel and
Development. [Accessed 10 March 2010].
CIPD. (2010a) Employee outlook. Survey report.
London: Chartered Institute of Personnel and
Development. [Accessed 10 March 2010].
16 Employer branding and total reward
CIPD. (2010b) Pay management (UK) survey:
employee pay attitudes. Survey report. London:
Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.
[Accessed 10 March 2010].
CIPD and Mercer. (2009) Employer branding and
reward research summary. Survey report. London:
Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.
[Accessed 10 March 2010].
Mercer. (2010) Mercer Q4 salary indicator survey
[Accessed 31 March 2010].
Further reading
CIPD. (2007) Employer branding: a no-nonsense approach. Guide. London. Chartered Institute of Personnel and
Development. [Accessed 10 March 2010].
CIPD. (2007) Employer branding: the latest fad or the future of HR. Research insight. London. Chartered Institute
of Personnel and Development. [Accessed 10 March 2010].
CIPD. (2009) Employer branding: maintaining momentum in a recession. Guide. London: Chartered Institute of
Personnel and Development. [Accessed 10 March 2010].
CIPD. (2009) The impact of mergers and acquisitions on employer brands. Research summary. London:
Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. [Accessed 10 March 2010].
CIPD. (2010) Your employer brand: keeping it real through mergers and acquisitions. Practical tool. London:
Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. [Accessed 10 March 2010].
CIPD. (2010) Employer brand. Factsheet. London: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.
[Accessed 10 March 2010].

Appendix: An overview of employer branding
at the participant organisations
Abbey
Please note that the information in this report is
the perspective of Abbey prior to its re-brand as
Santander UK.
• Abbey is in a ‘unique situation at the moment with
regard to employer branding’ as the external brand
has not been stable for some time. The company
went through a number of logo changes prior
to being acquired by the Spanish banking group
Santander in 2004 when the brand logo changed
yet again.
• Since 2008 the group has acquired parts of
Bradford & Bingley and Alliance & Leicester. The
external brand is changing to Santander during the
beginning of 2010, at which time the Abbey brand
will be dropped. Abbey and Bradford & Bingley will
change to Santander in the first half of 2010 while
the Alliance & Leicester will follow suit in the second
half of the year.
• The new organisation is currently in the process of
identifying working groups to help them define
what that the brand will mean from an employer
brand perspective, from an employment perspective,
and from a reward perspective as well.
• Unsurprisingly, Abbey (now Santander UK) are at the
very early stages of the employer branding journey
and have therefore thus far had difficulties defining
the links between reward and their employer brand.
Bacardi
• Bacardi is a family owned spirits company with an
impressive portfolio of premium brands including
Bacardi Rum, Martini Vermouth, Bombay Sapphire
Gin and Grey Goose Vodka.
• Employer branding at Bacardi has two key angles:
‘Firstly, recruitment – potential employees
and candidates see employer branding as a
representation of the culture, the way that we
are and they way that we do business. Secondly,
retention – with a focus on engagement. This
is about two way communication between the
employees and the business, and being able to
link the two together.’
• Much of the focus of employer branding is on
defining what it means to work at Bacardi and
incorporating the company values.
• While Bacardi are quite far down the employer
branding journey and were able to define the
employer brand, they acknowledged there was
more work to do in defining the links between
employer branding, engagement and achieving
outstanding results.
Malmaison and Hotel du Vin
• Malmaison and Hotel du Vin is recognised as the
UK’s leading lifestyle hotel group, with 1,900
bedrooms across the UK.
• Employer branding is focused on aligning the
external and internal brand:
‘What our guests see externally – the look, the
feel and how we advertise in the marketplace
for our guests actually – there’s a link to what
our employees should have in terms of the look
and the feel and the experience. It’s completely
joined up. There isn’t one look for the guests or
employees. It has to be seen as seamless. If we sell
the guests a good experience and it’s a sexy/fun
place, then we need to make sure that’s what we
do for employees.’
• Malmaison and Hotel du Vin do not explicitly
state what their employer brand is; instead they
communicate what employees should expect
from the company and what is expected of
them in terms of service delivery, behaviour and
appearance. These expectations are underpinned
by a series of nine behaviours called ‘Our priorities’.
• Malmaison and Hotel du Vin is well along the
employer branding journey and was able to
articulate the links between employer branding
and reward.
Employer branding and total reward 17

McDonald’s
• McDonald’s is the world’s largest chain of
hamburger fast food restaurants, serving over 60
million customers daily worldwide.
• The employer branding focus at McDonald’s has
been linked to making sure that there is a more
accurate and positive public perception of the brand:
‘Employer branding is about further enhancing
the people story that we have within the business
and the people programmes we have within the
business to both change public perception and
also to ensure existing employees feel better about
the job they do.’
• They have developed an employer branding
proposition that is built around four key
propositions: improvement opportunities, flexibility,
an energising environment and continuous learning.
• McDonald’s is well along the employer branding
journey and clearly articulated the links between
employer branding and reward.
Midland Heart
• Midland Heart is one of the top ten housing
and regeneration groups in the country and the
largest based in the Midlands.
• Employer branding at Midland Heart is about:
‘Defining what it is we want to sell externally to
new applicants who want to join the organisation
in our recruitment but it is also about selling
ourselves internally – this is the part which is key
to us at the moment. Defining what we want to
be as an employer, how we’d like to let staff know
about that and ensuring that we measure up to
that. We do what we say we’re doing.’
18 Employer branding and total reward
• Midland Heart is currently working to define
exactly what their employer brand is. They
are working to underpin the employer brand
with their values and also to promote a one
organisation feel (the organisation was recently
formed from the merger of a number of smaller
housing associations).
• The concept of employer brand is new to Midland
Heart and they are at the early stages of the
employer brand journey.
tw telecom
• tw telecom is a provider of managed voice and
data networking solutions for businesses.
• While the external brand is well defined at tw
telecom, the employee branding is less well
defined. The external brand work focuses on the
relationship between employees and customers. It
is the work within this latter group that tw telecom
have interpreted to be employer branding:
‘Our brand is, in fact, our reputation and it comes
to life through the solutions and service we
provide our customers. We have made a conscious
effort to support employees’ understanding of the
brand and recognise the line of sight between the
work they perform and how they provide the tw
telecom customer experience.’
• The company continually works to support its
brand in the marketplace and the role employees
play in delivering on the promise of the brand.

About the CIPD
The Chartered Institute of Personnel and
Development (CIPD) is a globally recognised
professional body for HR and development. With
over 135,000 members we pride ourselves on
supporting and developing those responsible for
the management and development of people
within organisations. Our aim is to drive sustainable
organisation performance through HR, to shape
thinking, to lead practice and to build HR capability
within the profession. Our topical research and
public policy activities set the vision, provide a voice
for the profession and promote new and improved
HR and management practices.
www.cipd.co.uk
About Mercer
Mercer is a leading global provider of HR consulting,
outsourcing and investment services, with more than
25,000 clients worldwide. Mercer’s global network
of 17,000 employees, based in more than 40
countries, ensures integrated, worldwide solutions.
Our consultants work with clients to develop
solutions that address global and country-specific
challenges and opportunities. Mercer is experienced
in assisting both major and growing, mid-sized
companies. Specifically of relevance to this report,
Mercer’s human capital business line is involved in
establishing competitive and appropriate reward
packages and performance management systems
and has previously been involved in helping clients
develop and enhance their employer brand.
www.mercer.com
Employer branding and total reward 19

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