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Employment branding is the hottest strategy in employment.

It is one of the few long-term solutions to the "shortage of talent" problem. Whereas most employment strategies are short term and "reactive" to job openings, building an employment brand is a longer-term solution designed to provide a steady flow of applicants.

What is an employment brand?

Employment branding is the process of placing an image of being a "great place to work" in the minds of the targeted candidate pool. It is a concept borrowed from the business side of the enterprise. Product branding is designed to develop a lasting image in the minds of the consumer so that they start to automatically associate quality with any product or service offered by the owner of the brand. An employment brand does the same in that it creates an image that makes people want to work for the firm because it is a well managed firm where workers are continually learning and growing. Once the image is set, it generally results in a steady flow of applicants. Employment branding uses the tools of marketing research, PR, and advertising to change the image applicants have of "what it is like to work at the firm."

The goals of employment branding

A successful employment branding strategy does the following:

1. It develops a common theme so that current workers tell friends and contacts a similar story about what it is like to be an employee of the firm.
   
   
2. It builds and reinforces the public's image of the firm's culture, work practices, management style, and growth opportunities.
   
   
3. It coordinates the employment brand with the company brand and its different product brands.
   
   
4. It continually monitors the firm's employment image both inside and outside the firm to ensure the brand image remains strong.
   
   
5. It energizes the best potential candidates to apply for jobs at the firm.

What is included in a firm's brand image?

• The company's culture
• Management style
• The quality of current employees
• Career opportunities
• Stable employment image
• Impact of the product/service on the quality of peoples lives
• Image as the leading firm in the Industry or geographic area
• Benefits and work/life balance options
• Learning and growth opportunities
• Awards and honors it has received
• The quality of its products
• The fact that it is a challenging but fun place to work

Characteristics of a great branding campaign:

1. It creates a sense of urgency and an intellectual curiosity to act immediately. It encourages people to visit a web site, ask others about the firm, or apply for a job.
   
   
2. It engages your mind, heart, and dreams.
   
   
3. Is complementary with the firm's product ads and PR.
   
   
4. Gives a clear, compelling reason to work there (save lives, change the world, be the thought leader, be on the bleeding edge of knowledge).
   
   
5. Is consistent with the views of our current
   employees as an accurate representation of what
   it is like to work here.
   
   
6. It gives the impression that it is fun, challenging, prestigious, and rewarding to work here and that people look forward to coming to work everyday.
   
   
7. It has "legs" and can serve for a long time as our employment message.
   
   
8. It works just as well for the whole company as it does for
   individual business units and geographic areas.
   
   
9. It is believable, sincere, and isn't a slick PR piece that says "phony".
   
   
10. It sends a message about our products, tools, projects, management style, culture, and opportunities. It gives the impression that "people like me" are proud to work there.
    
    
11. It is thought provoking and makes you think about your future career.
    
    
12. It makes you compare your current firm to ours.
    
    
13. It has a catchy theme or slogan.
    
    
14. It makes small firms look bigger and big firms look more agile and like a start-up.
    
    
15. It makes me feel that "this could be my dream job and dream company"
    
    
16. It works equally well in any form of media.
    
    
17. Its message is "current but timeless" and excites across generations and job functions

Part 2 of a two part series on Branding Employment branding is the hottest strategy in employment.

It is one of the few long term solutions to the "shortage of talent" problem. Where most employment strategies are short term and "reactive" to job openings building an employment brand is a longer term solution designed to provide a steady flow of applicants. Steps In Building An Employment Brand Strategy

1. Set program goals and define what branding is expected to do for our employment efforts over the next 1-3 years.
   
   
2. Define or re-fine your current employment strategy and where branding fits in.
   
   
3. Define measurable employment goals.
   
   
4. Coordinate your efforts with your internal PR and product branding department.
   
   
5. Benchmark and learn all you can from successful product and employment brands.
   
   
6. Calculate the potential ROI for branding.
   
   
7. Show how branding will bring a firm closer to "Employer of Choice" status and increase applications, referrals and sales.
   
   
8. Develop lists of the criteria used by leading publications to identify "great places to work" and use them as the beginning criteria for your branding effort.
   
   
9. Identify the success/failure factors for branding by looking at other companies using branding.
   
   
10. Identify the target market (candidates) for our branding efforts.
    
    
11. Develop a target profile (who they are/where to find them, etc.).
    
    
12. What are our competitors employment "brands" (non-employment and employment) that we will be competing against?
    
    
13. Assess our current employment image among current employees, applicants and the general public using surveys and focus groups.
    
    
14. Assess our firms current management practices, benefits, culture etc. to identify what we "have to sell" and what we need to improve.
    
    
15. Identify key product/programs and company needs for the next two years that require new talent.
    
    
16. Identify critical skills/competencies needed to meet these product goals (and the related jobs).
    
    
17. Identify who else is targeting the same candidates? And what tools/strategies are they using?
    
    
18. Develop a formal branding plan to build brand awareness.
    
    
19. Get manager buy-in to the plan.
    
    
20. Assess how it can differentiate our firm from its competitors? What competitive advantage does it offer? What will be their response to our plan?
    
    
21. What are the potential problems with branding and how will we avoid/minimize each?
    
    
22. Show why our branding solution is the best among other possible recruiting strategies (using numbers and dollars).
    
    
23. Develop our branding message and pre-test it.
    
    
24. Rank potential media and tools to convey branding efforts.
    
    
25. Select the media/methods to convey the branding message.
    
    
26. Prove that the medium works to attract our profile candidate through pilot/beta testing.
    
    
27. Create a process to continually measure and evaluate the program's effectiveness.
    
    
28. Implement the plan.
    
    
29. Identify any subsidiary benefits from program.
    
    
30. Monitor its progress and improve it

Miscellaneous things you can do to build an employment brand as well as other Employer of Choice possibilities:

1. Speak at events where potential applicants may be in the Audience.
   
   
2. Go to events that "passives" attend and in a neutral way reinforce our brand to attendees.
   
   
3. Co-advertise and co-list our jobs with other major employers that are strategic partners with you and that also have a strong employment brand.
   
   
4. Having CEO/HR of VP write a book or get profiled in a major publication.
   
   
5. Make other managers aware of our best practices and WOW employment features to share with reporters and others that inquire about our firm.
   
   
6. Ask current employees why they work here and get the word out of what they like.
   
   
7. Get on Fortune magazine/Working Woman etc. best places to work/most admired company lists/
   
   
8. Speak at analysts events to make them believers also and to cut down on their "sniping" on us. Influence/sell market analysts to rate your firms stock a buy based on your strong people programs.
   
   
9. Invite family and friends of employees on site to see "what it is like to work here" and the importance of the employees work so that they will help spread the word on what a great place this is to work.
   
   
10. Develop a slogans, mascot, songs, colors, jingle, Logo, and/or image that is identified independently of the firms product.
    
    
11. Develop brand recognition and specialized names (catchy names) for individual employment systems (independent of the firm's image) Ex profiler, referral program, internship program reference check (Sun screen).
    
    
12. Copyright and sell employment branded items (Hats, T-shirts, pens, etc.) that depict work at our firm.
    
    
13. Involve former employees (alumni) in the process of spreading the word.
    
    
14. Offer benchmarking, consulting or training services to teach customers, suppliers how we do employment in an attempt to "convert" the attendees.
    
    
15. Publish a recruiting newsletter/magazine/brochure for other recruiters and possible applicants that highlights what it is like to work here.
    
    
16. Publicize any Baldridge/Optima/diversity-type awards to indicate excellence in a great place to work.
    
    
17. Come up with cool names/titles for our jobs to give people something to talk about.
    
    
18. Develop affinity groups and diversity programs that might get us mentioned in national publications and help make us a better place to work.
    
    
19. Get local restaurants/suppliers to name food after our people/programs/products.
    
    
20. Put famous celebrities/professors on your advisory board to help build our image.
    
    
21. Get EE's to put decals, license plates on their vehicles to broadcast their loyalty.
    
    
22. Get mentioned in movies/ video games as a fun place to work.
    
    
23. Get written up as a Harvard type case study.
    
    
24. Have movie stars/athletes endorse our products and visit our sites.
    
    
25. Co sponsor "career workshops" in schools to build our image early.
    
    
26. Start an employment cartoon...tell them Kenny works at X company!
    
    
27. Sponsor a sports/employment speaking tour or running events.
    
    
28. Have a X company sponsored academic contest/scholarship.
    
    
29. Have a X company credit card to show businesses the financial impact of your employees.
    
    
30. Have individuals write columns for publications.
    
    
31. Get us on clean up highway signs.
    
    
32. Have a B or E school/professorships named after us.
    
    
33. Sponsor Internet features like push information newsletters/joke of the day/quote of the day, etc.
    
    
34. Sponsor technical chat rooms/listservers/conferences.
    
    
35. Develop an Alumni club for ex-employees/Retirees.
    
    
36. Give kids X company bookbags and sponsor school events.
    
    
37. Add WOW benefits (concierge, dry cleaning, childcare, etc.) that gets you talked about in the local press. Develop a list and make sure employees send a unified message about what it is like to work here.
    
    
38. Ask your employees and the union to help spread the word about what a great place to work we are.

© July, 1999

by Dr. John Sullivan

Click here to email Dr. Sullivan
Head and Professor of Human Resource Management
College of Business, San Francisco State University

Click here to go to Dr. Sullivan's Index Page