Employer Branding: A Strategic HR Tool

Employer branding is a tool which is used by every organisation be it small, midsized or a transnational organisation. The organisations need to market themselves as the best place to work for if they want to get the right talent in this competitive market. Employer Branding is like Sales where you have to sell your practices, culture and your USP to the prospective candidates. You have to differentiate yourself form what the competitors are already offering.

The process of creating your brand in the talent market starts right from how you do the onboarding, what are your practices and procedures in the organisation till the employee exits from the organisation. The employer brand is not created in a single day or through a single advertisement. It’s a long process that is built step by step. Organisations often believe that by simply having the best entrance and stringent recruitment processes they will create their brand in the market. However, the employer brand is built on the basis of what you are going to offer him/her on a daily work day and through his/her career path.

Trust and Transparency in the organisation plays a vital role in creating a strong employer brand as the rewards and recognition does. The Gen Y specifically believes in this theory where they want that the organisation should have a total trust in them and in their work, a place where there is transparency in the system and processes. If the organisations can place themselves a transparent organisation Gen Y employees will flock that place. 

Many organisations design catchy slogans and advertisements to attract the right talent. But they forget that every organisation is doing the same in some other way. They have to search within themselves and analyse their own respective strengths and weaknesses. They have to identify their own distinguishing feature that separates them from the rest of the crowd. Based on that USP they can sell their brand to the prospective candidates.

Organisations have to constantly sell their brand to the candidates as it takes time to build brand as an employer. When the time comes for recruitment an organisation cannot build its brand in a week or two, they have to constantly keep on building it even though there have been instances where they have to give pink slips.

The best way to build the employer brand in today’s scenario is the social media where the organisations can post the testimonials from the employees on how their every day of work is which will help the candidates to understand better about the organisational culture and would make them a better fit.

By making a flashy recruitment process and showing candidates descriptive JD’s where there is every possible task to be performed for that role will not build the company’s brand. They can get the candidates for that opening but very soon such candidates after coming inside the organisation will start sending the resumes again !!!

Apps and Us

Are we ready to take the ride on the various apps that are being used by the new generation?

There are number of apps available for free download for the Android, iPhone or Blackberry users. Android with over 130,000 apps is becoming very popular with the new recruits entering the organisation. The question that arises today is that are We, the organisations, leveraging on these mobile applications which are becoming the new fad among the Gen Y people.

Recently one of the largest Food and Nutrition Company of the world launched an android app that targets the new recruits. The app is freely available for download and explains the values and culture of the organisation. The app also has links to the Youtube videos which help in creating and establishing the organisation brand.

Through these apps we can propagate the best practices of our organisation that will help us in attracting the best talent. In order to make ourselves as an employer of choice we need to enter the mobile software market. The reason is that the new generation frequently uses these apps to find the right career opportunity. It will also help us in finding the right candidate if we post our job requirements via such apps.

Organisations should make a strategy to use these increasingly popular apps to be included in their recruitment and branding strategies. In the near future the mobile market would be the place where all the job posting and search will be done. To become the leader in this market, organisations should start focussing and also developing applications that will help in employer branding. 

The 7E’s at the workplace

We always put more stress on the Intelligence quotient part throughout our school and college days that we neglect the emotional intelligence part. We forget that finally we have to work in an organisation where we would have to deal and interact with people. Today, many organisations are stressing on the emotional intelligence as a part of their recruitment policy. The interaction of the employees in a company affect the company’s ability to remain competitive in its given market or industry. The managers and the leaders must realise that these interactions will have a positive or negative effect on the company as a whole.

Important skills that managers and leaders will need to thrive in the current environment includes communication, discussion, negotiation and being able to manage the conflicts and also inspiring others to operate at a higher level. Equally important is the organisation’s ability to deal and handle the changes. It is also important for the organisations to work towards the stated business goals. This is where the Emotional Intelligence becomes very important and is directly related to do all these things.

There are seven emotional competencies, first of which is Emotional Self Awareness. This is all about understanding the impact of one’s feelings in the organisation and creation of self awareness. Self introspection is an important tool and employees in this category are aware of self understanding and ask for more feedback. 

Second is Emotional Expression. The outcome of this competence in an organisation is creating trust, genuineness and also creating understanding among other employees. People in this area of competence generally discuss various issues at work. 

Third is Emotional awareness of others. The outcomes of this are engagement of the employees, employee motivation and connecting with the employees. In this area, employees think differently about things that are causing and affecting them adversely. People create or identify more effective ways of responding to events and create environment that makes people feel more positive and optimistic. Employees understand their and company’s values and listen to the feelings.

Fourth is Emotional Reasoning. The outcome of identification of this competency is enhanced decision making and greater buy in. People in this area are beware of how they feel and react. Fifth is Emotional Self Management which is all about effectively managing your own emotions. The outcomes are better job satisfaction and people in this area remain more optimistic and are happy in the face. They feel the power of positive psychology. Sixth is the Emotional Management of Others. Outcome of this competency is positive satisfaction with the environment. People generally empathise with the other employees and engage with other as well. 

Lastly is the Emotional Control. The effect of identification of this competency is better dealing with the conflicts and improved relationships. Employees in this category overcome anger, identify issues and events and take some time out.

As per Daniel Goleman, about 70% of the communication is non-verbal and the impact of which is very important for an organisation. Hence, the organisations should include emotional intelligence as a part of their assessment of candidates in the recruitment and selection processes. The awareness of the level of EI will define how ‘fit’ is the employee in the organisation.