Branding in HR?

Branding in HR | Employer Branding 

Branding in HR? Before we start on answering the question, let’s see what branding is first. Branding is about positioning your brand of product in the mind sets of the customer by making it stand out among the commodities or the competitors.  As Philip Kotler and Armstrong define it, “A brand is a "name, term, sign symbol (or a combination of these) that identifies the maker or seller of the product“  Which simply means a name, term or a sign unique to your product is something that makes it stand out than the many who are common in shape. But what branding has to do with HR?

In the context of product branding, its audience is its customers. That means branding a product is about reaching its customers. What makes the employer branding differentiate from it, is the audience of the employer branding is not the customers you saw earlier but the candidates equipped with different skills. That means employer branding is about reaching the right candidates to recruit (Talent Acquisition).

Today the market is not what we saw decades ago. Those days, it was about developing the market strategies for the marketing managers, achieving sales targets for sales managers and new product development for product managers. But now, the shape has changed.

The market is so advanced and the organizations are in search of highly skilled candidates to recruit instead of recruiting people to carry out plans. Because that’s what they need to lead and survive in the market. For example, Apple is renowned for innovation. Hence its strategic function becomes R&D. It is highly positioned in the customers’ mind as a brand of innovation. To address and maintain its innovation, Apple has to have the most skillful expert in innovation. Therefore the HR has to play a vital role in recruiting the best skillful expert in innovation (Talent Acquisition). Practicality proves itself. Jonathan Ive, The present Chief Design Officer holds more than 5000 patents, equipped with honorary doctor rates, degrees and many more academics along with the experience and awards. Credits to Employer Branding. Had he not been picked, that might have created a possibility for him to apply for another phone maker like Samsung and get the competitor advantage.

This might perhaps sound that Employer Branding is all about recruiting the right candidate. But it is not the whole story. Let’s take the same example of Apple’s Chief Design Officer. What might have the reason been behind why he chose Apple among others like Samsung, Huawei, Nova, One Plus, Nokia or any other? It’s about the brand perception or image you have on it. You tend to think through its branding and employer branding perception that Apple has the most healthful, secure, beneficial and reputable company to work with. And more importantly that will be the reasons he might retain there in the future too.

References

K. Biswas, M. (2012). Employer Branding: A human resource strategy. [online] 

Ralf Wilden, Siegfried Gudergan & Ian Lings (2010) Employer branding: strategic implications for staff recruitment, Journal of Marketing Management, 26:1-2, 56-73, 

Mokina, S. 2014. Place and Role of Employer Brand in The Structure of Corporate Brand. March. Economics & Sociology. [Online]. [19 April 2019]. Available from: https://www.economics-sociology.eu/files/16_30_Mokina.pdf

Pawar, P. and S. Charak, D. (2015). Employee Value Proposition leading to employer brand. International Journal of Management Research & Review, [online] Volume 5(Issue 12), pp.1195-1203

Kotler, P. and Armstrong, G. (2011). Principles of Marketing. 14th ed. New Jersey USA: Pearson, p.231.

Apple. (2019). Apple Leadership - Jonathan Ive. [online] Available at: https://www.apple.com/leadership/jonathan-ive/ [Accessed 21 Mar. 2019].

Apple's employee recruiting video. (2019). [image] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9SK052cF3c [Accessed 21 Mar. 2019].

Beamery. 2017. The 5 Most Unique Employer Branding Campaigns. [ONLINE] Available at: https://beamery.com/blog/employer-branding-campaigns. [Accessed 27 April 2019].