Employer branding and employee attraction and retention.
A brand is a
distinguishing name and/or symbol (such as a logo, trademark, or package
design) intended to identify the goods or services of either one seller or a
group of sellers, and to differentiate those goods from those of competitors (Aaker,
1991). A brand is a name, term,
design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's good or
service as distinct from those of other sellers (AMA, 1960). A brand that wants
to be attracted by its own employees must not leave its branding to chance or
competitors. Simply, a brand attains
positioning when its customers show unflinching loyalty. The purpose of this
research is to establish a distinctive place for the brand in the minds of the
employees (Trout & Ries, 2001).
Employers are using branding as a strategic means in recent
business atmosphere with increasing consistency. Brands and branding are not
new philosophies, companies are applying them to more varied settings where the
role of branding is becoming progressively significant (Wentz & Suchard,
1993). Branding is “the process of developing an intended brand identity”
(Kotler & Lee, 2008:215). Branding is often used to distinguish products
and companies in order to build commercial value for both the customer and the
corporation. It’s concerned with the attraction, commitment and retention
ingenuities targeted at enhancing a company’s trademark.
Company branding is a fairly new methodology toward
recruiting and retaining the best possible human talent within an employing
environment that is appealing increasingly competitive. It is often used to
describe how establishments market their presents to potential and existing
employees, connect with them and maintain their loyalty “promoting both within
and outside the firm, a clear view of what makes a firm different and desirable
as an employer” (Backaus & Tikoo, 2004:120). Employer branding is probable
to be a valuable concept for both executives and intellectuals. Directors can
use employer branding as a shade under which they can passage diverse employee
recruitment and retention activities into a corresponding human resource
policy.
Therefore, companies can control brand supremacy to
engage their employees in emotional ways to achieve change, outstanding results
or increase attraction and retention. According to Dell and Ainspan (2001),
establishments have found that effective company branding leads to competitive
advantage helps employees adopt company values and assists in employee
retention.
Notwithstanding the growing acceptance of the employer
branding practice, educational research on the concept is restricted to a few
articles in the marketing literature. Priyadarshi (2011), observed that employer
brand is gaining significant popularity in HR practitioner literature,
empirical research is still comparatively inadequate (Cable & Turban, 2001;
Backhaus & Tikoo, 2004 & Davies, 2007) echo the same sentiments and
feel that the initiation of the company brand as a concept has been recent in
academic arena and its conjectural foundation is increasingly being developed
even though it is being careful applied by practitioners for some time now (Barber,
1998). One stream of existing research investigates organizational features and
their effects on attraction to the business. Structural attributes such as
decentralized resolution making and reward system (Bretz et al., 1989), are
shown to influence sensitivities of appeal. The popularity of employer branding
among HR experts and the lack of academic research on the topic raises
interesting questions for management scholars. This study seeks to examine the
role of employer branding in employee attraction and retention of the banking
industry.
PROBLEM
As the new battle for positioning of brands in the minds of employees intensify by the day, businesses continue to take advantage of branding by using it to structure and restructure employees’ memory schema towards their brand benefit. However, the poor branding may be a hindrance to the benefits of attraction and retention of employees. It is in the light of the above that the researchers intend to delve into a study that aims at examining employer branding and its impact on attraction and retention of employees.
KEY CONCEPTS
Employee Attraction
In
recent times employer branding has gained
popularity among companies. Many organisations
have taken a keen interest in branding
themselves to project their image, therefore anything that identifies with the organization,
they would brand to make it “unique”.
In 1986, Young Yun Kim’s contextual theory of
interethnic communication conceptualised
cultural identity as both a sociological (or demographic) classification and an
individual psychological attribute with a particular group. Employees are
internal stakeholders who are significant to the organisation playing an
important part in the sustainability and growth of the organisation (Malati
& Sehgal, 2013).
An
organisation’s growth is dependent on the kind of employees it recruits to
drive the vision and mission of the organisation in order to beat the competition
and stay on top. Employees of a company would want to be associated with the
brand, everything about the company makes it ‘the company’ they want to be
linked with. Organisations are making conscious efforts to attract prospective
employees and ensure that current employees are engaged in the culture and the
strategy of the organisation.
The
purpose of branding is essential to building the product’s image (Cleary, 1981). In
the 1980’s The Economist also say image influences the perceived worth of the
product and increases the value of a brand to the customer, leading to brand
loyalty. Therefore, creating a
compelling employer branding strategy is not a one-off exercise but rather a
continuous effort to build a brand and maintain the status quo.
Employee Retention
Job satisfaction plays a very important role in creating customer satisfaction (Heskett, 1997) and its understanding of various attributes of employer brand image can help facilitate customer satisfaction. According to the Conference Board report in 2001, employer branding organisations that have effective employer branding lead to the competitive advantage which helps employees internalise the company’s values which eventually goes to assist in employee retention. For organisations to succeed in the fast-growing competitive market it has become a serious requirement, therefore, the onus lies on organisation’s to attract correct skills and retain them so they are not left behind in the industry where everyone is striving to be the leading preferable brand (Heskett, 1997). Competition by various brands in various institutions does not leave room for organisation’s to dwell on past glories but strive to maintain its lead (Ibid).
IMPACT OF EMPLOYER BRANDING
Organisations
have come to understand there is the need to focus on strengthening their
employer brands in order for them to achieve their growth ambitions (Heskett,
1997). Over the last few years, the tactics to building a strong employer brand
has changed which has impacted on how
employers attract and retain their employees (Heskett, 1997). The rise of
social media has made organisations more transparent to the global market. The
impact of employer branding, therefore,
cannot be underestimated as the image of an organisation lies in its branding
(Ibid). Keller’s Journal of Marketing (2005) says the conceptual model of brand equity is from the perspective of the
individual consumer. Customer-based brand equity is the differential effect of
brand knowledge on consumer response to the marketing of the brand. The company’s
most important assets are intangible such as its name, brands, symbols,
slogans, underlying associations, perceived quality, name awareness, customer
base and proprietary resources like patents (Ibid). Keller journal of marketing
(2005) explains that, employer branding impacts greatly on the organisation’s
structure, incentives, planning, budgeting and controlling systems,
recruitment, promotion criteria, institutionalised
socialisation, education, training which
elements that attract and retain employees (Ibid). Employer branding increases
the customer base of an institution as people are attracted would stay with the
institution because they want to be attributed to the brand (Ibid). Employer
branding gives a sense of self-esteem as an organisation
want to feel good about themselves with their operations and activities. The
image of an organisation through employer branding makes an organization stand
out from its competitors (Ibid).
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