Ch7 - An Overview of Employer Branding With Special Reference To Indian Organizations
Ch7 - An Overview of Employer Branding With Special Reference To Indian Organizations
Ch7 - An Overview of Employer Branding With Special Reference To Indian Organizations
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Naman Sharma
Amity University, India
Swati Pathak
Invertis University, India
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Chapter 7
An Overview of Employer
Branding With Special
Reference to Indian
Organizations
Shikha Rana
IMS Unison University, India
Ravindra Sharma
Swami Rama Himalayan University, India
ABSTRACT
Talent acquisition is the most crucial activity an organization goes through. The
reasons for its criticality are not just confined to the cost and time involved in
recruiting talent but also matching the right incumbents at the right place and at the
right time along with the organizational fit are the most essential factors to deal with.
Nowadays, organizations are working in VUCA (volatile, uncertainty, complexity,
and ambiguity) environment that seeks a lot in terms of employee performance.
Employer branding was initiated by Ambler and Barrow (1990) with an aim to
attract and retain the best talent through various activities, and the contemporary
research has proven that if branding of the organization is done in an effective manner
then it retains the best talent; further, it enhances job engagement and motivation.
The present chapter elaborates the concept of employer branding, benefits, and
importance of employer branding. Recent surveys and trends of employer branding
in Indian organizations have also been discussed.
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-4933-8.ch007
Copyright © 2018, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
An Overview of Employer Branding With Reference to Indian Organizations
INTRODUCTION
Employer brand was first coined in early 1990 by Ambler and Barrow and through
this the concept of brand, was introduced to the field of human resource management.
It is the identity of the organization as an employer of choice. An organization
becomes attractive place for its employees when it is able to get a tag of good brand.
According to a research study percentage of job offers accepted, no. of job applicant
per role, average length of tenure and staff engagement if is high in an organization
as compared to its counterpart in a particular industry then that organization would
emerged as an attractive employer brand (Moroco &Uncles, 2008). Further, employer
brand is also ascertained attractiveness of the sector, company’s reputation, quality
of products and service, location, work environment, salary structure, employee
benefits, people and culture, work/life balance and corporate social responsibility
(Figurska & Matuska, 2013). Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development
(CIPD) has accentuated the concept of employer brand in the following manner:
Employer brand a set of attributes that make an organization distinctive and attractive
to those people who will feel an affinity with it and deliver their best performance
within it. (CIPD, 2016)
The image of the organization as a great place to work in the minds of current
employees and key stakeholders in the external market (active and passive candidates,
clients, customers and other key stakeholders)
Employer branding and its relationship with retention and job engagement can
easily be understood by the following definition:
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An Overview of Employer Branding With Reference to Indian Organizations
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An Overview of Employer Branding With Reference to Indian Organizations
and future employability lastly the application value determines the degree to which
an employee is attracted to an employer that provides an opportunity to learn and
teach in a customer and human centric environment. All these values enhance the
employer attractiveness. Srivastava and Bhatnagar (2008) found out that in order to
attract the talent an organization should have characteristics such as caring, enabling,
career growth oriented, credible and fair, product and service brand image, positive
image, global exposure
As the organizations strive hard to sustain and develop their product brand
to attract the customers which is also called as “External Branding” in the same
parlance nowadays efforts too are put on developing “brand of employer” on “Internal
Branding” to recruit and retain the employees. Various researchers have proclaimed
that employees are the internal customers while jobs are the internal products therefore
these job products must attract and motivate the employees by satisfying their needs
and meeting the objectives of the organization (Berry & Parasuraman,1991). Kotler
(1994) too has emphasized the internal marketing as he argued that if the employees
are effectively hired, trained and motivated then they would effectively deal with
the customers. King and Grace (2007) stressed that employer branding is not just
confined to attracting the potential employees but it is equally important to brand
for the existing employees.
Employer branding conveys the “value proposition” the totality of the organization‘s
culture, systems, attitudes, and employee relationship along with encouraging people
to embrace and share goals for success, productivity, and satisfaction both on
personal and professional levels. Employer branding is a distinguishing and relevant
opportunity for a company to differentiate itself from the competition creating its
branded factors as its USP for employee satisfaction and happiness resulting in
retention, productivity and efficiency. Branding was originally used to differentiate
tangible products, but over the years it has been applied to differentiating people,
places and firms (Peters, 1999). According to a report effective Employer Value
Proposition (EVP) management which is a unique set of offerings, associations
and values an employer gives to its potential and present employees which further
gives employees a reason to work for an employer and reflects the company’s
competitive advantage. As per a report EVP can bring tangible benefits, including
a 20% increase in the pool of potential workers, a four-fold increase in commitment
among employees and a 10% decrease in payroll costs. It is the total package of an
employer offers including compensation, resources, culture, community, values to
employees in exchange for their valuable contribution. As reported by Vivek Rao,
HR Business Partner, Ashok Leyland Employee value proposition is an important
key to create a great workforce. EVP not only helps in attracting and retaining the
talent but also assist in appealing the people from different culture, age groups
and functions. Additionally it is beneficial for the existing workforce as process of
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An Overview of Employer Branding With Reference to Indian Organizations
creating EVP involves a huge level of interaction and conversation with the current
employees which in turn increases their trust for the organization and results in
enhanced motivation. By creating the EVP an organization understands the HR
priorities as it identifies the factors which are important for the existing and potential
employees. Further EVP notifies the organization about the specific areas which
needs to be focused in order to attract, engage and retain the employees. EVP creates
a strong people brand.
Further, employer branding identify and create the company brand message,
apply traditional marketing principles to achieve the status of employer of choice
(Sutherland et al., 2002). Employer branding is used not only to transfer the message
of the personality of a company as an employer of choice, but it also has been used
to adapt the tools and techniques usually used to motivate and engage employees.
Like a consumer brand, it is an emotional relationship between an employer and
employee (Barrow and Mosley, 2011).
Contemporary research has shown that effective internal branding is an important
tool for the success of external brand (Susan Hunt). Further, Christopher Van
Mossevelde (2010) highlighted that growth and profitability of an organization,
dealing with the economic downturns, scarcity of skilled labor, changing perception
of new generation and gaining popularity as the best employer all these factors are
responsible for the emergence of employer branding.
A research conducted Dr Shirley Jenner and Stephen Taylor, of the Chartered Institute
of Personnel and Development (CIPD), has highlighted the factors stressing on the
need of employer branding:
• Brand Power: From past twenty years the concept of ‘Brand’ has gained
due importance both in organizational and social aspects. It has put a huge
positive impact on reputation management, PR, recruitment and consultancy
industry. Further it has become a centralized concept due to the unexpected
growth and development in Corporate Social Responsibility towards all the
stakeholders of the organization.
• HR Search for Credibility and Strategic Influence: HR professionals are
continuously seeking for credibility and using brand as a powerful tool to
increase and enhance the credibility in its operations further putting stress on
strategy development in HR operations.
• Labour Market Conditions: The third reason for the rise of employer
branding is due to labour market conditions. For quite some years labour
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An Overview of Employer Branding With Reference to Indian Organizations
Tengle (2011) have listed out the following benefits of employer branding:
SHRM (2014) stressed on the following aspects to develop employer branding strategy:
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An Overview of Employer Branding With Reference to Indian Organizations
According to the report of Randstad Employer Brand Research, Google India, the
search engine giant has won the title of the most attractive employer in the year
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An Overview of Employer Branding With Reference to Indian Organizations
2017 followed by Mercedes–Benz India. Sector wise Amazon India, ITC ltd and
Philips India has been awarded as the most attractive employers in E-Commerce,
FMCG and Consumer and Healthcare respectively. Among the Indian workforce
salary and employee benefits continue to be at the top priority, followed by good
work-life balance and job security. However, for the IT professionals, good work-life
balance emerged as the top driver while choosing an employer. Further it was also
revealed in the report that the Indian employees preferred to work in the IT sector
(65%), BFSI (63%) and Retail and FMCG (62%). Furthermore, employees prioritize
job content (56%) in contrast to employer brand (44%) while selecting a job. The
top media to verify the reputation of a particular brand was verified by company
websites and LinkedIn Additionally, most of the employees across all the profiles
preferred large multinationals to work with however, employees in IT preferred
working for the start-up ecosystem over SME.
Google India got the Randstad Award 2015 for the ‘Most Attractive Employer’
in India, followed by Sony India which stood second in the competition. While
Tata Steel for Manufacturing, P&G for FMCG and Honda India for Automobile
verticals has been awarded with special recognition award. Salary and employee
benefits (54%), job security (49%), work-life balancing (39%), pleasant working
atmosphere (39%), and financial health of the company (38%) have been emerged
as the most influential factors in employer branding across the industries. While
Indian employees preferred to work with IT and Communication (72%) followed
by FMCG and retail (68%) and Automobiles (67%).
A survey conducted by Randstad (2014) salary remained the most important
factor in India followed by job security, employer’s financial strength. While men
in India prefer companies which offer competitive salaries, job security and are
financially healthy, women seeked for a good work atmosphere, accessibility and
flexible working hours. The survey also identified globally, honesty, security,
intelligence and reliability are key characteristics that potential employees look for
in an employer. Another survey which was carried out by Business Today (2014)
identified Google, Accenture and TCS as top three employer brands. The participants
rank the top three companies on six specific attributes like financial compensation,
career growth prospects, work-life balance, performance appraisal, stability and
other HR practices.
Randstad (2016) in its world wide report highlighted that survey of 25 countries
across the world covering almost 75% of the global economy including over more
than 2,00,000 prospective and present employees aged between 18-65 years has
identified the following top ten attributes of employer branding:
Top ten factors which has emerged as the most attractive attributes for both
prospective and present employees and employers across the globe are same to the
great extent though rankings may vary. However the employers list too include almost
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An Overview of Employer Branding With Reference to Indian Organizations
all those attributes equally liked by the prospective and present employees with
certain exceptions. Work life balance although have been given due importance by the
prospective and the current employees but it has been ranked last by the employers.
Hindustan Unilever (HUL) one of the biggest FMCG company serving 2 out of
3 Indians for last eighty years has to revamp their employer branding every year,
due to disruptive environment, people getting attracted towards other sectors. HUL
has to sustain its brand to retain and attract the best talent. In Nielsen Employer
of Choice survey (2010), HUL ranked second across sectors however prior to this
from 2003-2010 the condition was not very good as it was not considered as the
attractive employer by the campus students hence it lost a huge amount of talent,
which further resulted in poor employee attraction and retention. All these factors
additionally put a negative impact on overall performance of organization. After being
in to this situation HUL started to rethink over their employer branding strategies.
HUL became really ambitious to become the top most attractive organization
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An Overview of Employer Branding With Reference to Indian Organizations
across sectors and functions. HUL put it best to attract the competent people in
all functions across sectors, and the consistent revamping of employer branding
strategies along with its effective alignment with needs of talent did wonders. HUL
stressed only two factors brand and people and treated them as assets. HUL asked
its line leaders to allocate maximum time and resources and resources to institute
the HUL employer brand to attract the best talent as it emerged as crucial aspect in
sustaining and developing the business. The important initiatives taken up by these
line managers were organizing Management Training programs, Unilever Future
Leaders’ Program which were focused mainly on building employer branding. HUL
leaders put trainees straightaway into leadership roles directly at the end of training,
developed a buddy or mentor program. Further, they initiated a system of reverse
feedback for trainee employees and arranged for global stints to understand the foreign
culture and markets and rural stints to make them aware of the social responsibility.
E-learning domestic developmental plans were also designed international and
domestic e-learning developmental plans along with thorough trainee interaction with
HUL board members. Another very good initiative taken by HUL was conducting a
special Executive General Management for the graduates of IIT at Indian Institute of
Management, Bangalore, to entrench a forbearing of business fundamentals before
joining as a full time employee. Further, the employer branding strategy developed
a pipeline of best talent to take on big roles which in addition helped in taking up
huge goals to get the competitive edge in the market. Constructive steps were also
taken by HUL to groom the top talent for future responsibilities and duties. All these
initiatives helped HUL becoming the first company in India to develop the young
talent in their initial years by applying a very regularized, systematic and orderly
manner. The management training programme, Unilever Future Leaders’ Programme
were actually initiated for the overall development of young talent. After this HUL
grabbed the Dream Employer award, Employer of Choice award for four consistent
years as per the Nielsen Employer Brand Survey (Peoplematters, 2016)
Infosys
Infosys one of the pioneer in IT sector in India which has been awarded as the
most attractive employer by several research agencies too follow a very robust
employer branding strategies. Infosys has build its brand by branding internally
and externally. Employer branding in Infosys is a two way approach which consists
of Internal branding and External Branding (Makwana & Dave, 2014). All the HR
practices including recruitment, training and development, leadership, performance
appraisal and compensation are the part of internal branding whereas road shows,
campus connect, career fairs and websites and CSR activities are related to external
branding (Makwana & Dave, 2014). Following a very strict criteria of recruiting
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An Overview of Employer Branding With Reference to Indian Organizations
the employees Infosys put a lot of emphasis on the ‘Learning Skills’ of prospective
employees. Training and development of employees is very consistent further the
new recruits are supposed to be trained at Global Education Centre (GEC, Mysore)
a world class training centre of Infosys which maps the competency of employees
in respect to various criteria related to individual performance and organizational
priorities further feedback from the clients is also taken as inputs for the upgradation
of these training programs (Chitramani & Deepa, 2013). Chitramani and Deepa
(2013) revealed that in order to attract the employees, Infosys has established
ILI (Infosys Leadership Institute) where the potential talent is groomed and
developed. Infosys is the first organization to start ESOPs (Employee Stock Option
Programs) further the compensation system is structured in such a manner where
it matches with employee performance, business growth and increased operations.
The organization too have a variable pay structure with an effective performance
management system. Work Life balance issue is very much dealt with in Infosys as
it has instituted a satellite system to enable the employees specifically the new and
would be mothers to reduce the commutation time additionally one year break is
also given to employees for the issues like childcare, elderly care or higher studies.
Infosys also stresses a lot on the career development of employees by providing lot
of opportunities and organizing various career growth programs. A lot of autonomy
and freedom in operations and decision making is given to its employees for their
development. Infosys put noticeable efforts in social development also commonly
known as Corporate Social Responsibility which highlights its image among the
prospective and present employees. Various initiatives have taken by Infosys for
the rural development, women empowerment and other underprivileged people and
communities in the society. It has also focused on rural development by constructing
hospital wards, conducting regular health check-ups in camps, distributing medicines,
donating books etc. further, Infosys too have trained the students of various schools
and colleges to assist in community development programs.
May it be recruitment, training and development, performance appraisal,
compensation system, career management or corporate social responsibility, employer
branding is embedded heavily in all these aspects of Infosys. All the factors make a
positive image of Infosys in the mind of current and prospective employees which
helps in attracting and retaining the best talent.
Whirlpool
Whirlpool is a 102 year old company, a leading marketer and manufacturer of home
appliances in India. Sarthak Raychaudhuri, Vice President-HR, Asia South (2013)
explained that Whirlpool has a very strong reason to invest in employer branding.
The vision of Whirlpool is to ‘create happy homes’ by excelling in three aspects
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An Overview of Employer Branding With Reference to Indian Organizations
namely product innovation, class quality of the product and cost leadership in the
market. All these aspects can be achieved through ‘happy employees’ further, by
being an ‘employer of choice’. Employer branding is the most strategic mechanism
to become employer of choice. The most important initiative taken by Whirlpool to
get a competitive edge in employer branding was to opt for CC-Opex Methodology
i.e., Customer Centered Operational Excellence. CC-Opex Methodology is based
on six sigma approach. This methodology consists of three important phases. The
very first phase is associated with extensive research for nine months where the
organization tries to find out current talent preferences, what the organization stands
for, how an organization differ from others, what are the strategic objectives and
what an organization wants to be known for. After knowing and aligning all these
aspects the organization moves into the second phase which lasts for three months.
In this phase, lot of efforts are put in to formulate the employer branding strategies.
Whatever has been discussed in phase one is validated by external experts and
internal leadership team. Additionally, revalidation is done by internal employees
through survey method after that the employer branding slogan is developed and
identity of the organization is created. The third and the final phase which is an
ongoing process includes the deployment of the employer branding strategies where
promise is made and delivered to the prospective and current employees further
communication of the promise to the employees is done on regular basis. Sharma
and Das (2016) HR department of Whirlpool stresses on engaging, retaining and
building the competencies of the work force. The Whirlpool Service Academy
has rigorously trained more than 1200 engineers in order to structure their career
path and up gradation of the technical skills. I-grow has also been instituted by the
Whirlpool for the engagement and motivation of sales force of the organization. All
these initiatives have increased the job engagement up to 85 percent. Further, the
organization extensively conduct surveys to know the preference of the prospective
candidates about what they look in a company before joining it.
CONCLUSION
Of late employer branding has gained due importance and has emerged as an strategic
organizational activity to attract, sustain and retain the best talent in the organization.
Nowadays every sector fighting for the competent talent and finding, fitting the right
talent in the organization is a huge challenge for the HR managers. Everything in
the corporate world is so commercialized that even an organization identity is not
untouched with this change, they have to increase their visibility and has to create
its brand in the eyes of prospective and current talent. Hence, a great emphasis on
employer branding is must. Employee commitment and job engagement too has been
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An Overview of Employer Branding With Reference to Indian Organizations
focused a lot by the researchers, academicians and organizations as these factors are
really vital for the talent retention and contemporary studies has shown a positive
linkage of employer branding with these aspects as Levinson (2007) stated that
employees who are happy in their work are more likely to stay in that organization,
and found that work engagement is significantly related to organizational commitment
furthermore, Dawn and Biswas (2010) stressed that a successful employer branding
strategy can have a far reaching impact in increasing the number and quality of
applicants. Figurska and Matuska(2013) opined that companies with good employer
brand are able to gain financial benefits from socio-psychological determinants of
employees’ engagement and work performance. They build a trust to employer and
the sense of pride in belonging to the organization.
Employer branding is an evolving HRM concept in respect to the various product
and talent market situations that an organization come across. In order to foresee,
identify, and satisfy the future and current employees it is essential to treat them
as internal. Nowadays, organizations are no more unaware of the fact that talented
employees are conscious of their rights and prerogatives to join, engage, commit,
stay, or move on. A very well designed recruitment approach is required to attract
and retain the right talent who stays longer and feel committed with the organization.
Finally, the foremost reason for employer branding is to sustain the most loyal
committed well engaged employees who in return are responsible for the long term
growth of an organization (Randstad, 2017).
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