Working with Employer Branding sounds easy, but when companies start working with it they realize that it involves a rather complex set of activities.
Universum has conducted a global survey among 875 HR professionals that have been working with Employer Branding for some years (November 2008).
Some key findings:
- Access to resources is the main challenge for both the short and long term, indicating difficulties in showing the value of investments in Employer Branding
- Less than half the respondents are comfortable with their evaluation metrics
- Wide spread involvement throughout the organization is critical for success
- The employers strongly believe that communication should be centered around intangibles such as "culture" and "image".
However, "Universum Student Surveys" shows that students consider tangibles such as "job characteristics" and "remuneration" more important than "culture" and "image". Analyzing and understanding research before starting the Employer Branding work is therefore critical.
The good news is that the survey shows that communication departments and HR have started to talk to each other, and that's a good start for a sustainable work within Employer Branding. As much as 49% of the companies said that communication department is involved in the Employer Branding work, and 59% said that top management is involved.
I am therefore looking forward to some exiting coming years in the field of Employer Branding!
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Nice post Carlo,
ReplyDeleteAn interesting topic and I am sure as you state it will be a major requirement over the coming years.
I particularly relate to your point regarding getting "widepread involvement" which seems to be a stumbling block with most forms of consultancy and/ or change issues.
Ric http://www.orglearn.org/
ps. I found you through Twitter, http://twitter.com/rictownsend
Employer branding is an unused key to getting the right people. It wont make a change over the course of a day but do it right and for the long-run you will be a winner.
ReplyDeleteEven companies in Sweden will see the value in this, someday. I hope :)
The ones that have, are often very successful
ROI is one of the difficult aspects. I like to try and combine EB with something more tangible.