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. In strengthening their employment brands, organisations have gravitated towards the use of technology in growing numbers. For instance, corporations are showing interactive videos on their careers websites in an effort to bring to life the reality of their brand. They are also making available interactive 3D tools so that a potential employee can get a feel of the office environment. Facebook is also being used to reach more targeted audiences. In Hong Kong and indeed in Asia, the most widely used employment-branding strategy has so far been referral programmes in which existing employees act as evangelists to help attract the right candidates for the company. 'This has been the most successful employment-branding strategy here because it is a network-driven type of market,' said Mr Mendes. 'There is a strong parallel between referral programmes and strong performers. People who are referred are usually the kind of people employees would want to work with,' he said, noting that such programmes must be managed properly or else organisations could risk damaging their brand. More than ever before, corporations will have to use employment branding as a competitive differentiator in recruitment and retention in the future if they are to keep up with the needs of tech-savvy Generation Y-ers, who are redefining the employment landscape with high expectations of themselves and their employers.
