The True Power of
a Magnetic Employer Brand ™
by David Lee
Reprinted from ERExchange.com
Q: Is all this talk about Employer Branding the latest
in a long line of management fads?
A: It depends
Q: Doesn’t it really just boil down to creating a
better recruiting sales pitch?
A: No
Q: Does it really make a difference in your ability to
attract talent?
A: Absolutely
Whether or not Employer Branding becomes yet another
flavor of the month fad depends in large part on whether it is seen as a
technique for luring talented people through the door, or whether it is seen as
a comprehensive, integrated approach to, first, being an Employer of
Choice, and then communicating this in a compelling way. Companies who get this
are exponentially more effective at recruiting talent. Their Employer Brand
acts like a powerful Talent Magnet. Having this kind of an Employer Brand is
like the organizational equivalent of having a magnetic personality. Who you
are draws others to you. Having a Magnetic Employer Brand™ draws the best of
the best to you.
The following hypothetical example illustrates the
power of a Magnetic Employer Brand™.
Imagine that at the next job fair, your organization’s recruiting booth
was staffed not by trained recruiters, but by a random selection of your
employees. As job hunters stop to talk with your employees, would they think:
“Wow, I’d like to work with these people!” and “This is the kind of company
I’ve been looking for!” or would they escape as quickly as possible, hurrying
off to the next booth? Would what your employees said, and who they were as
people, act as a Talent Magnet or a Talent Repellent?
When I present this scenario to groups of managers and
HR professionals, some blanch at this possibility,
some squirm, and some smile confidently. If your response falls into the first
two categories, you know you don’t have a Magnetic Employer Brand™. I see this
scenario as a litmus test for whether or not you have a Magnetic Employer
Brand™, because it illustrates the defining characteristics and benefits of a
powerful Employer Brand.
You know you have a Magnetic Employer Brand ™ when
your reputation in the marketplace and in the labor market is such that you
don’t have to spend your time trying to convince people why they should work
for you. People already know what a great company you are both in the
marketplace and as an employer. At our hypothetical job fair, if your
organization has a Magnetic Employer Brand™, the most talented prospects will
make a beeline for your booth. Unlike organizations who have either a poor
reputation as an employer or who haven’t differentiated themselves, your
conversation doesn’t need to be a sales pitch.
When you have a Magnetic Employer Brand™, recruiting
isn’t limited by the size and budget of your recruiting department. When you
have a Magnetic Employer Brand™, you turn your whole workforce into a tribe of
headhunters. I believe this is the most under recognized benefit of creating a
compelling Employer Brand: it unleashes the recruiting potential lying dormant
in your workforce. Although to some extent, monetary rewards will motivate
employees to refer friends and colleagues, they only become evangelical in
spreading the word when they feel passionate about their employer.
Think about your behavior as a customer. You’re far more likely to tell others about
your customer service experience if you were “wowed”, than if you were simply
satisfied. First, if your experience was merely acceptable, there’s no interesting
story to tell, there’s nothing to talk about. Second, when you’re treated to
exceptional service, you want others to experience it, too. Similarly,
employees are far more likely to tell others about their employer if they’re
wowed by a work experience far superior to any other they’ve had. This is why
the foundation of a great Magnetic Employer Brand™ is delivering an exceptional
work experience. If you don’t have that, your employees have nothing good to
talk about, and no sincere desire to bring others into the fold.
A strong brand requires coherency in the message. Good
brand managers carefully scrutinize the various messages, associations, and
experiences their brand delivers to make sure they don’t send conflicting
messages. For instance, if Coca Cola® started emphasizing the health benefits of
drinking plenty of fluids and how Coca Cola® helps you do that, such
a campaign would confuse and weaken the brand message they’ve invested in over
the years: the message that people should buy Coke® because it’s a
fun, tasty beverage; because it’s “the real thing.”
When you have a Magnetic Employer Brand™, everyone in
your organization is “on message” because they know what you’re about, why
you’re great, and the stories that convey this message. This is one of the
reasons why it is so important for employees to have a big picture view of your
organization. To be effective recruiters, they need to be able to tell others
about your organization’s mission, vision, and distinctive values. This doesn’t
happen by accident. Southwest Airlines is a great example of a company that has
consciously communicated over the years to employees about who
they are and why they’re a great company. Not only does it inspire employees
and strengthen their culture – and therefore their Employer Brand - it helps employees do a better job telling
others about why Southwest is such a great employer.
Great
brands are a collage of great stories, stories about experiences people have
had with that brand. Companies with a strong Employer Brand have a set of
defining stories that capture the essence of who they are and what they are
like as an employer. For instance, one of the defining stories about Tom’s of
This
story tells a lot about who the company is and how employees are perceived. It
is also far more memorable – and believable - than simply saying “We value our
employees” or “If you work here, your ideas and input will matter.” By
collecting and sharing stories that capture what’s great about your
organization, you enable your employees to communicate to others in a more
compelling way, thus increasing the recruiting power of your workforce.
When you have a strong Employer Brand, your employees
are your best recruiters not only because they tell great stories about your
organization, but because they also embody your company’s unique spirit and
value-set. They themselves become walking talking Talent Magnets. They become
brand and culture strengthening forces, because they attract people who
resonate with your organization’s vision, values, and culture.
Employees become brand messengers by experiencing your
Employer Brand in action. They absorb it experientially by working in an
environment where your vision, values, and culture are reflected in everyday
work life. They also learn it overtly, through the telling and retelling of
Employer Brand defining stories in orientation, training programs and coaching
interactions. They also learn it overtly when your mission, vision, and values
become an explicit part of making operational, customer service, and marketing
decisions.
Having a workforce that embodies your brand also comes
from holding people accountable for delivering on your Employer Brand promises.
Without this conscious effort at strengthening your culture - and therefore
your Employer Brand – you will have some employees who are inspiring
messengers, some who leave no impact, and others who are Talent Repellents. As
mentioned previously, lack of coherency and consistency weakens an Employer
Brand. Just as hearing conflicting messages weakens a brand, so does
encountering brand representatives who demonstrate conflicting ways of being.
It would be like the Ritz Carlton allowing some of their hotels to be staffed
by morose, self-absorbed people. It wouldn’t take many customer interactions
with these employees to damage their brand. Creating an environment that elicits
brand strengthening behavior in employees doesn’t happen by accident. It
requires ongoing communication, coaching, training, and accountability.
When you have a Magnetic
Employer Brand ™, your cachet attracts “A” employees –
the kind of people other “A” employees want to work with. Thus, your Employer
Brand, recruiting process, and culture create a self-reinforcing Talent Magnet
success cycle that continually increases your ability to attract and retain the
best employees.
“A”
employees are also more likely to know other “A” employees, further increasing
the recruiting power of your Employee Referral Program. Not only does this give
you a huge competitive advantage, it also makes your managers’ lives easier.
Because you have a higher quality talent pool to draw from, you can “hire hard”
and “manage easy.” Rather than taking any warm body that slouches through the
door and then micromanaging them to keep them from wreaking
havoc, you can afford to be rigorous in your hiring process and then give your
employees room to move. Such self-motivated, low maintenance employees are
possible if you have a strong Employer Brand.
If you want to enjoy the recruiting power of a
Magnetic Employer Brand™, if you want your employees to be rabid recruiters,
you need to deliver on your Employer Brand promise. As you can see from the
above benefits of a Magnetic Employer Brand™, they’re all predicated on
delivering a great work experience.
This is where many, if not most, organizations drop
the ball. They think of Employer Branding as the process of creating a better
sales pitch. Developing a Magnetic Employer Brand™ is far more than just making
sure your ads, radio spots, internet postings, and recruiting booth
presentations work synergistically. It’s far more than a marketing make-over.
If you don’t actually do the great things you say about your
company, you don’t have a brand, you have a recipe for high turnover. Thus,
creating a Magnetic Employer Brand™ requires that your management team look
honestly at themselves and your organization’s daily operations and ask “Do we really
deliver a great work experience… or even a good one?” It requires asking this
question not only in a self-reflective way, but more importantly, asking
your employees.
I believe, based on my experience conducting employee
focus groups, that many of the day to day experiences that drive a wedge
between employees and management go unnoticed by management because employees
don’t speak up. They remain silent because they don’t want to be seen as a
whiner or get the dreaded label of “not being a team player.” So instead, they just grin and bear it, while
growing increasingly more disengaged - and becoming increasingly less likely to
refer someone for employment. To counteract this, you need to put in place
processes that invite employee feedback, and communicate that giving “customer feedback”
to management is appreciated and important.
If
you do the work required to develop a Magnetic Employer Brand™, you will
dramatically increase your ability to recruit talented people, both because
you’re able to attract them (rather than always having to sell to them), and
because you unleash the recruiting power of your workforce. Developing such a
powerful brand requires more – far more – than crafting a great image. It requires
that you do the hard work it takes to create a great work experience. If you
are willing to do that, you get to enjoy the tremendous recruiting power a
Magnetic Employer Brand™ will provide you.
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by David Lee
About the
Author: David Lee is a consultant, speaker, and executive coach.
The founder of HumanNature@Work, he has worked with
organizations and presented at conferences throughout
For More Information:
David Lee, President
HumanNature@Work
P.O. Box 430
Bar Mills, Maine 04004
Tel: 207-929-3344
E-mail: info@HumanNatureAtWork.com