Globalisation and the shortage of skills worldwide are putting employment branding high on every chief executive's agenda. Senior managers are catching on to the fact that a well-honed concept of branding can lead to a substantial return on investment in the long term.
Employment branding is a long-term strategy that helps to create the right perception of a company's unique employment experience.
'Organisations have been doing this type of branding for a while, but their approach has been quite disjointed,' said Martin Cerullo, director of resourcing communications at Alexander Mann Solutions, a recruitment process outsourcing company. 'The concept has now reached some level of maturity as companies have begun to recognise effective employment branding's return on investment.'
Mr Cerullo and James Mendes, Alexander Mann Solutions managing director in Asia-Pacific, will be the guest speakers on employment branding at the 2008 Hong Kong Institute of Human Resource Management annual conference.
Over the past decade, managers have increasingly seen what strong employment branding can do, resulting in higher staff retention levels, lower recruitment costs and increased ability to attract the best applicants.
Employment branding had also shifted up a gear, becoming an end-to-end approach that had moved beyond focusing only on recruitment, said Mr Cerullo.
Today, effective employment branding addresses an employee's entire life cycle from the moment a prospective candidate lays eyes on a job advertisement to how the package of benefits is communicated on joining, the process of leaving and the alumni programme in place for former employees.