As the economy grows and sectors expand good talent in particular becomes a scarce commodity with too many employers chasing too little talent. One of the obvious ways to try and attract people in such a scenario is to pay above the curve and buy talent. However, this is not a great strategy to follow as this could have cascading impact on organisational compensation, creating pressures of cost. The other way is to ensure that the employer brand itself makes talent choose a company that may not necessarily pay the highest compensation.
What makes a company a preferred employer or a great place to work? The answer lies in the kind of culture a company creates and follows in dealing with all its stakeholders. The culture of a workplace determines the attractiveness of a workplace, work environment, compensation and benefits, employee policies and processes. What is the relationship between the brand as it is marketed to customers and the employer brand is another pressing question. The relationship between marketing and the employer brand is symbiotic in nature – each feeds off the other, to create a holistic brand ecosystem. Marketing serves to build a pull for a company and its products and services. It consists of advertising, customer experience, product and service delivery and media relations. Each of these determines how customers perceive the company and what it stands for. These are the elements that play a part in building the reputation of a company or a brand.
Employees are a subset of customers. They look at the reputation of a company while determining whether or not it is a company they would like to work with. Once the company passes this acid test other factors such as compensation and benefits, work environment and culture come into play. The reputation filter is important.
Marketing plays a key role in building corporate reputations over time. How does this impact the employer brand? Apple’s reputation for simplicity and innovation, built through great products and exemplary marketing, makes it a preferred destination for technical professionals. At the same time, the people there love the work culture and environment, one that drives and rewards performance, and become ambassadors for the brand. Thus, creating a self-sustaining and symbiotic link between marketing and the employer brand.
Great companies invest heavily in communication. They spend time and efforts on communicating with their customers through advertising, products and services as well as through different touchpoints. However, they spend an equal amount of time in constantly communicating with their employees to ensure that they are aware of what is expected of them to keep the company healthy and operating in the high performance zone. Often companies apportion an inordinate amount of resource to external communication and not enough to internal communication. This results in employees slowly disengaging with the organisation, impacting organisational performance that in turn has a deleterious impact on the company’s reputation and brand. This further has an impact on the attractiveness of the company to potential employees, thus creating a negative downward spiral.
The opportunity for the organisation to constantly communicate with employees is potentially unlimited. However, one has to ensure that the communication is relevant and useful. Irrelevant communication and general homilies often lead to employees viewing the communication as spam. This can have a negative impact on the engagement levels of the employees.
Structurally the marketing and internal communication’s specialists often sit in different parts of the organisation. While this may not be necessarily incorrect there needs to be a substantial amount of interaction to create synergy between external and internal communication. Marketing and HR need to sit together and cross-pollinate ideas to build relevant, engaging and impactful internal campaigns.
The brand and its reputation have a direct and symbiotic relationship with health of the employer brand. Since communication lies at the kernel of both, it is critical to communicate on a sustained basis. This is because communication builds a culture and culture is what has impact on individuals to determine their behaviour. A culture based on transparency, simplicity and respect is important to create open channels of communications. This kind of a culture, coupled with a focus on performance, encourages positive and engaged behaviour. Closed culture tends to create a sense of unease and leads to negative behaviour.
As the race for talent heats up, the reputation of employer and the employer brand will determine the quality of talent that a company can attract
