Report: Creating an employment brand
EMPLOYMENT BRANDING AND RECRUITMENT
An employment brand should be utilised and promoted throughout all recruitment efforts. There are three steps through which to do this and for which we sought employees' opinions:
- Candidate attraction
- Recruitment process
- Retention
1. CANDIDATE ATTRACTION
Attracting candidates, particularly in a time of skills shortages, is critical. Your employment branding needs to communicate what your company offers which candidates also value. So what do candidates value? We asked them, and their responses follow:
In determining a company's reputation as an employer, 68 per cent of Australian and 70 per cent of New Zealand employees view treatment and support offered to employees as extremely important. Also highly rated as extremely important were the relationship between management and staff (65 per cent Australian; 62 per cent New Zealand), training and development offered to employees (51 per cent Australian; 60 per cent New Zealand) and quality of products or services (36 per cent Australian; 33 per cent New Zealand). Only 28 per cent of Australian and 25 per cent of New Zealand employees rated the company's financial health as extremely important, while the majority were indifferent about the company's recruitment website or advertising.
When looking for a new job, Australian employees view job security (43 per cent), work/life balance (42 per cent), the company's vision, values and culture (37 per cent), growth or success (33 per cent), project-based learning or formal training (31 per cent), salary and benefits (29 per cent) and engagement with the work undertaken (27 per cent) as 'extremely important'. In New Zealand, employees value work/life balance (47 per cent), the company's vision, values and culture (44 per cent), job security (40 per cent), growth or success (35 per cent), salary and benefits (32 per cent), project-based learning or formal training (28 per cent) and engagement with the work undertaken (22 per cent) as 'extremely important'.
61 per cent of Australian and 66 per cent of New Zealand employees would not apply for a job with a company who's vision, values and culture they didn't agree with.
According to the survey, people judge a company as an ideal employer primarily on their 'fit' with the company's vision, culture and values, followed by the company's products or service and experience received as a customer of the company. The right 'fit' is also the most important factor in 27 per cent of Australian, but 42 per cent of New Zealand employees' decision to work for a company, followed by training and/or career opportunities (22 per cent of both Australian and New Zealand employees) and challenging work assignments offered (16 per cent Australian; 12 New Zealand).
When asked about the importance of job vacancy advertising components, the following were rated as 'extremely important' or 'important' by Australian respondents:
Full position disclosure (86 per cent)
Salary and/or benefits mentioned (77 per cent)
Provision of company contact name (70 per cent)
Grammatically correct text (69 per cent)
A description of what it's like to work for the company (66 per cent)
Provision of company background and future focus (63 per cent)
Language appropriate to the specific vacancy (62 per cent)
Personal language used (47 per cent)
Visual presentation (47 per cent).
New Zealand respondents rated the following as 'extremely important' or 'important':
Full position disclosure (82 per cent)
Description of what it's like to work for the company (69 per cent)
Salary and/or benefits mentioned (65 per cent)
Grammatically correct text (62 per cent)
Provision of company background and future focus (61 per cent)
Language appropriate to the specific vacancy (59 per cent)
Provision of company contact name (53 per cent)
Personal language (45 per cent)
Visual presentation (41 per cent)
When placing job vacancy advertisements, 35 per cent of Australian and New Zealand employees said they only use the internet to search for a new job. Over half of all employees surveyed (52 per cent in Australia and 56 per cent in New Zealand) judge a company based on its website recruitment page, while a further 10 per cent of Australian and 9 per cent of New Zealand employees use a company's internet site as the main method to determine if they would like to work for the company.
However it's not just a company's own internet site that needs to be examined. 35 per cent of Australian and 34 per cent of New Zealand employees view a company's overall internet presence as 'extremely important' and 55 per cent of employees from both countries view it as 'important' when deciding to apply for a particular vacancy.
These responses clearly demonstrate the reputation and employment experience associated with a company are important elements to communicate in an employment brand. The responses also show that internal factors, such as the treatment and support offered to employees, service offered to customers, management style and job security are just as important as vision, culture and values in attracting candidates to a company.
These responses show that when writing a job vacancy advertisement, it should correlate with the employment brand offered. It should include a full position disclosure, mention the salary or a salary range, provide the company's background and future focus and be grammatically correct. It is also important to provide a company contact name.
Creating a successful online profile is also notable. Job vacancy advertisements should be placed online as well as elsewhere. A recruitment page on a company's website is vital and the company's overall website needs to correspond to the employment brand communicated and the company's values, culture and beliefs.
This is another reason why you need to ensure your communicated employer brand is based on truth and is communicated and reinforced internally.
2. RECRUITMENT PROCESS:
Employment branding throughout the recruitment process was also examined in our survey. It confirmed the recruitment process needs to correlate with the communicated employment brand; a failure to comply with what was promised during the attraction process is detrimental to the future employment relationship.
When asked about the importance of certain elements in the recruitment process, the following, in order of significance, were rated as 'extremely important' or 'important' by Australian respondents:
Real working environment communicated (87 per cent)
Speed of response (83 per cent)
Communication of company values (77 per cent)
Content of the advertisement (71 per cent)
Credibility of publication advertisement appeared in (55 per cent)
Dedicated recruitment section of company's website (46 per cent).
In New Zealand respondents chose the following:
Real working environment communicated (87 per cent)
Company values communicated (86 per cent)
Speed of response (85 per cent)
Content of the advertisement (62 per cent)
Credibility of publication advertisement appeared in (41 per cent)
Dedicated recruitment section of company's website (34 per cent).
So similarly to job vacancy advertising and the corporate career website, how a company presents during the recruitment process is vital in maintaining the positive reputation of the company and will differentiate your company in the marketplace.
3. RETENTION:
Once the recruitment process is finalised, a company still needs to live up to its overall employment branding in day-to-day operations for retention purposes.
31 per cent of Australian and 39 per cent of New Zealand employees would resign from a company where the EVP did not live up to what was promised in the recruitment process or marketing. Meanwhile, 23 per cent of Australian and 18 per cent of New Zealand employees would resign if the company did not adhere to stated company culture or branding.
So what do you need to focus on in your retention efforts?
A company's vision, culture and values are the most important factor in determining an employee's ongoing perception of the company they work for, according to 32 per cent of Australian and 44 per cent of New Zealand employees. 28 per cent of Australian and 29 per cent of New Zealand employees rated interactions with management as most important while 19 per cent rated customer service offered to clients as most important.
In order to maintain a company's culture and brand with existing employees, the following ongoing issues were nominated by respondents from both countries as requiring addressing:
- Communication
- Professional development and training
- Employee involvement
- Management style
- Employee recognition/respect
- Consistent image/vision
- Customer service
- Innovation
- Benefits and rewards
- Employer support
Cultural 'fit' with the company and its values is the most important factor in helping employees associate with the company they work for (27 per cent Australian; 38 per cent New Zealand), closely followed by contributing to decision making and company direction (25 per cent Australian; 29 per cent New Zealand).
When asked what makes them proud to work for a particular company, the top 10 reasons given by Australian employees were:
- Reputation of company
- Employee recognition/respect
- Good customer service
- Products and services
- Job satisfaction
- Company success
- Management style
- Ethical
- Service to the community
- Company values
The top 10 reasons given by New Zealand employees were:
- Reputation of company
- Employee recognition/respect
- Products and services
- Good customer service
- Good work environment
- Good work colleagues
- Management style
- Ethical
- Satisfaction in work
- Company's success
WHAT IS AN EMPLOYMENT BRAND?
BENEFITS OF AN EMPLOYMENT BRAND
POPULAR BRANDS
EMPLOYMENT BRANDING AND RECRUITMENT
CREATING YOUR EMPLOYMENT BRAND
A WORD OF WARNING
CASE STUDY : Hays
Issue 5: Creating an employment brand
