As we see massive growth in popularity of technology, people analytics and ROI in management there is no longer space for treating employer brand other way than data-based and performance driven area. So if you still think about employer branding as a PR function, focused on preparing nice leaflets for students fairs, better switch to the strategic approach. If not, you will reach nothing but few smiles from your project team members. What we reach for in employer branding is higher revenue growth and higher profit margin. Delivering on that will get you smile from your board team 😀
Easy to say, harder to get. How to do that? Looking backward to 100 projects for 500Fortune companies I can say the the most important success factor in delivering great employer branding outcomes is not knowledge nor experience but our own beliefs on the topic.
That is why preparing for success you should start form transforming your beliefs from -> IT IS HARD to measure, track and extract ROI of employer branding to -> #IT IS POSSIBLE!
#IT IS POSSIBLE to influence profit margin through employer branding
If we compare companies on different HR dimension it is obvious employer branding play important role impacting revenue growth and profit margin. See the table below:
#IT IS POSSIBLE to make revenue out of the particular employer branding processes
Going deeper, we can easily find the dimensions you can use to show the revenue of strong employer brand as it can:
• lower the expected salary by 10% (CEB) ,
• boost engagement and productivity up to 44% (Gallup)
• lower the turnover by 26% (LinkedIn, 2016)
• make employees more reluctant to competitor’s offer by 44% (Tower Watson)
• make people better respond to the clients’ needs by 65% (Gallup)
Try to extract these numbers in your organization and your board will love you. Guaranteed 😀
#IT IS POSSIBLE to track employer branding precisely
Thanks to the massive amount of data being collected nowadays from the candidate-employee lifecycle we can track almost every step of candidate and employee answering questions such as:
Do people know us? Do we reach our target well enough? Do we build emotional connection with candidates and tailor our offer to their needs? Is our process of application friendly and effective? Which channel is sourcing the best performers? Are people safe and emotional stable in our company? Do we craft our position to make them flow? Are they loyal? Do they contribute to the brand? Do they refer us to their friends?
As the answer to “Can we measure something such intangible like employer brand?”question is obvious the challenge starts when we go deeper with above questions. To track employer branding precisely we must know how to measure the employer brand as complex entity and how to connect the data we collect to the right outcomes.
How deep can it go in data collection? Well, together with EBnavi team we systematically review more than 250 processes and 530 measures of each company. Is it lot? I don’t know. It is enough to automatically asses not only the overall strength of particular brand but also identify the weak and strong points on the road to lowering the salary expectation, minimalizing turnover and improving engagement.
But one can always go deeper. Let me know if you the one, I’ve been diving into the HR. EB, OD measurement for 15 years and I am still hungry for new discoveries in the area.
GOOD LUCK in 2019 mind shaping! Fingers crossed for YOUR great results! 😀
Author: Barbara Zych, PhD, CEO Employer Branding Institute