How do enterprises establish employer brand?

With the advent of the era of knowledge economy, more and more enterprises begin to attach importance to the construction of corporate brands. Employ

How do enterprises establish employer brand?

With the advent of the era of knowledge economy, more and more enterprises begin to attach importance to the construction of corporate brands. Employer brand, as an important part of corporate brand, first appeared in 1984 in the "Best Employer" selection activity organized by American Fortune magazine. So what?

The method of establishing employer brand: identifying core talents

To develop employer brand, the first thing to be clear is the company's future vision, long-term and short-term strategic goals and key success factors to achieve these goals. Secondly, what core talents does the company need to meet the requirements of key success factors? Thirdly, what is the current talent situation of the company and what are the gaps? This link is often neglected in practice. According to Watson Wyatt's consulting experience, we should consider the positioning of employer brand from the beginning of defining the strategy to ensure that employer brand can adapt to the core functions and talent needs needed for future development. For example, a domestic first-class manufacturing enterprise put forward the business strategy of "cultivating core technical ability and expanding overseas sales market", but found that the bottleneck of strategy implementation is the lack of high-level R&D talents and management and marketing talents with international experience. Therefore, in the employer's brand positioning, these talents become the focus of brand appeal.

Next, what should be considered is the driving force of core talent work? What are the core talents most concerned about, such as salary, welfare system, development and promotion opportunities, job satisfaction and working environment? Does the status quo meet its needs? Companies that are at the forefront often use first-class market research technology to tap the needs of internal outstanding talents, and on this basis, formulate the strategy of "seeking talents and retaining people". It is worth mentioning that Johnson & Johnson and Dah Sing Bank are investigating the demand for core talents: Johnson & Johnson uses a lot of seminars and data analysis to understand why outstanding employees join and why they stay at Johnson & Johnson; On the other hand, Dah Sing Bank identified the key factors to motivate talents through extensive information collection, including interviews with CEO and business department heads, discussions with outstanding employees at different levels, and even interviews with non-Dah Sing Bank employees.

For domestic enterprises, recognizing the voice of core talents is the basis for building employer brands. Enterprises can comprehensively examine the image of the organization in the hearts of core talents from ten aspects: salary, welfare, training/development, leadership, performance management, working environment, job satisfaction, innovation, communication and team spirit, and compare it with the benchmark, and formulate the strategy of "seeking talents and retaining people" according to the priority.

The method of establishing employer brand: providing good work experience

After determining the characteristics of target talents, it is necessary to provide "products" that meet the needs of "consumers" of working talents. For example, after discovering that excellent employees admire Southwest Airlines' concept of "freedom", Southwest Airlines formulated eight "free employee plans", including free medical care, free establishment of financial security system, free learning and growth, free positive change, etc., which not only enhanced the attractiveness of employers, but also made its "free flight" product brand deeply understood and implemented within the organization.

At this stage, fulfilling the "commitment" to talents is more important than any other part. Providing high-quality "products" for outstanding talents can not be limited to salary adjustment or rich work content, but should improve the quality of "products" from four aspects: structure, culture, talent management and process. Specifically, the structure is to improve the weak links in salary, performance management, incentive methods and communication. Culture means improving organizational culture, team building and leadership; Talent management means long-term planning for talents and promoting the role orientation of human resources departments; This process means to reform the weak links, form the system and manage the changes. If the method lacks systematicness, it is easy to be imitated by competitors, and employers are unattractive for a long time. The failure of enterprises to recruit people through high salaries has proved this.

The method of establishing employer brand: positioning

Sirgy, an academic master who is famous for his research on brand positioning, once proposed that product brand positioning and appeal include two strategies. One is the functional appeal, that is, the functional benefits brought by the product to consumers, such as the tooth cleaning function of toothpaste; The second is symbolic appeal, that is, to help consumers shape their ideal self-image. For example, BMW is a "symbol of identity and status". The employer brand is similar, and its functional connotation includes salary, welfare, workplace and environment. It follows the principle of "cost-benefit maximization"; Symbolic meaning is to help employees shape their ideal self-image and follow the principle of "value identification". For employees, functional appeal is a health care factor, which can only make core talents not dissatisfied, and the effective way to distinguish brand image is a symbolic factor.

Why? This is because the employer brand has the feature of visibility. Fame refers to whether the product is consumed privately or publicly. Products such as toothpaste, which are only consumed in private occasions, are not suitable for expressing values. Parents, relatives, friends and classmates/colleagues will pay attention to the company's potential and the work of existing employees, which has strong visibility and more effective appeal of values. The positioning of employers' brands, such as Johnson & Johnson's "Enjoy Differences", Southwest Airlines' "Freedom Begins with Me" and Citibank's "Anything is Possible", are all promoting employers' unique values and culture.

The method of establishing employer brand: employer brand promotion

The spreading process of employer brand is also similar to product brand marketing. The understanding of employer brand by potential and existing employees also follows the process of "consciousness-understanding-preference-choice-loyalty". It is very important to promote the employer's brand by giving consideration to both internal and external factors. Throughout his career from job hunting to resignation, Philips has been constantly promoting the employer brand, so that every employee can understand the meaning of the employer brand, which is the way to success. At the same time, don't forget that "internal employees" are the best spokespersons of the company. Many employers who enjoy a high reputation in campus recruitment, such as Shell Oil and HSBC, will choose to let their employees become the spokespersons of the employer's brand, so that potential employees can experience the unique work experience brought by their employers. Another essence of employer's brand promotion is to make good use of media.

With its leading online recruitment system, Standard Chartered Bank has attracted the attention of a large number of outstanding talents, thus recruiting outstanding talents who meet the requirements of values; Dah Sing Bank, which is less well-known, comprehensively uses chat rooms, news briefings, employee opinion surveys, internship plans, online publicity and other comprehensive means to enhance the brand's value in the eyes of potential and existing employees.