Effects of Employer Branding – Free Dissertations

priority for both for the organization and customers. Organizations across the world experiencing same kind of business challenges and hence it is becoming critical for the organization to have talented employee and to retain them for the long term sustainability and competitiveness. To get talent attracted by the organization is getting difficult due to globalization, more generational change and shortage of skilled and competitive people.

Organizations now are in a demand to be more competitive due to high saturation and non differentiation in the product, services or ideas. Additionally, organizations are facing issues including; employee morale falling, low productivity, increase turnover, more absenteeism, poor attitude that results in internal and external dissatisfaction, lack of focus on objectives related to business.

This research would help organization in understanding the perception of the employee so that to align it with the current employee and potential talent out in the market and hence help organization to attract the right talent and hence sharing the expectation for both organization and employee “a win win situation”

Qualitative research aim is gain an understanding of how or why things are as they are. This discussion shall cover how the individual think and visualize the scenario of the topic and what is their understanding. In qualitative research the discussion between the researcher and the respondent would largely be determined by the respondent’s own thoughts and feelings (QSR, 2010).

CHAPTER 1 1.1 INTRODUCTION:

Business environment is getting a rapid change, a demand for good product, services or ideas are becoming the key priority for both for the organization and customers. Organizations across the world experiencing same kind of business challenges and hence it is becoming critical for the organization to have talented employee and to retain them for the long term sustainability and competitiveness. To get talent attracted by the organization is getting difficult due to globalization, more generational change and shortage of skilled and competitive people.

Additionally, organizations are constantly being forced to compete on a universal scale of human resources and are putting efforts to explore how to position themselves and establish themselves as a desirable organization for the future employees.

Despite the uncertain economy the war for talent continues to intensify. Thus the need to attract and retain top performers remains key to business success. By distinguishing oneself from the competition, by promoting strengths and confirming values ensures that a company stays ahead of the pack and becomes an employer of choice during both recession and boom times. Therefore, many organizations are focusing considerable attention and resources on developing a strong employer brand.

1.2 BACKGROUND OF RESEARCH

An employer brand is a collection of ideas and beliefs that influence the way current and potential employees view an organization and the employment experience that organization is offering. It communicates the company’s culture and values and helps to ensure employees are passionate about, and fit in with, the organizational culture to help move the company forward.

The battle of business success is decisive on the basis of good people an organization has vs. its competitors. The organizations are rapidly realizing that good products, services or ideas are not the guarantee for the success unless these are executed by the good people. It is said by Barcham (2010). The inclusive of People and the extension of marketing Ps further validate the need of good people since the bring the change, superiority in the organization and create distinctive advantages over competitor and hence create the image of strong corporation. It is the image of the organization that facilitates the business process and attracts talent towards it. Therefore, the corporate brand supports and enhances the employer brand. For an employer brand to be successful, it needs to incorporate more than just an enhancement of recruitment communications or improved internal communications. It should focus on the entire employment experience, organizational personality, goals and values and reflect a true understanding of what motivates current employees and the candidate market. There is a fanatical consciousness in today’s market that brilliant persons have extra job option than ever previous to, and that brilliant people are challenging more job development, better pay improvement, enthusiasm and novel challenges, and will hold their employer to account on pledges and promises.

In this way employer branding is not an emotional relationship rather rational idea. Therefore, successful employer branding reflects an organization’s ambitions but is definitely supported on the capability to convey on the pledge.

1.3 Rational of research:

Organizations now are demand to be more competitive due to high saturation and non differentiation in the product, services or ideas. Additionally, organizations are facing issues including; employee morale falling, low productivity, increase turnover, more absenteeism, poor attitude that results in internal and external dissatisfaction, lack of focus on objectives related to business.

1.4 Research aim and objectives

1.4.1 Research Aim:

The in general, the aim of this employer branding research is to have understanding on the individuality of employer branding in a national framework amongst HR experts and employees. Upon completion of this work, the organization will find strategic direction for its own

1.4.2 Research Questions:

How potential employees feel about company and its key competitors
How our organization performs on the most important factors for our target market
How views differ by different types of staff, division, regions around the world
What changes we need to make to our EVP overall and by each relevant audience.

1.5 Research Scope:

Having a talent within the organization is fundamental for the successful achievement of organizational objective. This achievement of both qualitative and quantitative objectives is become a challenge if an organization is missing with the right people for the right job. This research would help organization to have clearly defined strategy is the most important factor in achieving employer branding objectives.

This research would provide management the insight that would help organization to align its standards to the external world of employee. This research would be a precursor in engaging the CEO and senior management in the benefits of employer Branding also ranks highly.

1.6 Limitations of research

Some issues regarding the research are being considered. The answers to the quantitative research are an important factor for success and reliability of this research. People from different experience, practice, backgrounds and position are being considered to be part of the research. Moreover, the answers of the sample could be biased due to attachment of respondent with any specific institution because some of the hospitals have their own formulary of drug to be prescribed and advocate. The researcher has acted just an observer avoiding any possibility of influencing or bias respondentsâ€Ÿ answers due to his previous knowledge and experience working within the same industry. Even when the researcher is experienced to the topic in analysis, he did not try to influence respondents to obtained specific results or a specific behaviour from any of them. Finally, the number of questions and their accuracy is presented to reduce any risk of unreliability in this study. The numbers of question were designed to obtain all the information required within the minimum amount of time. All these barriers or issues are considered during the survey´s design process mitigating the collection of unreliable data that could lead to wrong or biased results for this research.

CHAPTER 2 Literature Review:

2.1 Introduction to Literature

Because of the nature of my research objective and the pace of change in the pharmaceutical industry, there is not much information broadly available in textbooks. Therefore my research is mainly based on websites and library databases to obtain online academic journal articles, magazines related to topic

2.1 Literature Review

The term employer brand was first used in the early 1990s to denote an organization’s reputation as an employer (Wikipedia 2010) over the period of time; it has become widely adopted by the universal management community (Martin 2009). Employer branding is all about the perception of employees, stakeholders and external market about an organization and hence it deals in attracting, engaging and retaining organization image (Minchington, 2005). An organization’s employer brand is made up of numerous components and is based on human relationships and human emotions. The employer branding is a box including Internal communication, Reward & recognition, Learning & development, Measurement systems, Performance appraisal, Team management, Recruitment and on-boarding, Working environment, External marketing, Values, Senior leadership (Scribd, 2010). In the current work markets, where organizations fight for magnetizing the finest of the ability, employer brand, occasionally, turns into more pertinent when matched up to different decisive features as the profile of the job as well as the payment package (Naukrihub, 2010). Communication and Culture are the two strong elements of employment branding since honest dialogue is important in attracting, engaging and retaining the top talent and making strong employer brand (Scribd, 2010).

Company of choice, an employer of choice and the investment of choice are the three straightforward goals that combined stand for the universal truth of strategic differentiation and merely method that an organization can transmit sustainable accomplishment over the long period (Management issues, 2010).

In the present job markets, where companies compete for attracting the best of the talent, employer brand sometimes becomes more relevant when compared to various critical factors like job profile and the compensation package (NH, 2007). It is said that an unsatisfied customer tells ten people about his experience while an unsatisfied employee tells a hundred. Employer branding reveals the work culture of a company and it has become more critical in today’s times, as most professionals are looking at a steady career and establishing a long-term relationship with the company. Research shows that employees of industrial brands sense a much greater logic of satisfaction, affection and belief towards their employer. They are also appreciably more likely to advocate their organization to others and maintain it treats employees well. A good employer brand makes it easy to attract good talent and curb attrition. The strength of an organization’s brand has a significant impact on the performance of its employees. Working with one of the largest or most innovative companies in a specific industry acts as a motivator too (NH, 2007).

Gray (2008) explains employer branding as “Employer branding is an emerging discipline with its roots in classical marketing and brand management principles. It aims to position an image of a company as “a great place to work”. The concept is firstly, develop an emotional connection with the finest talent, and then propose potential applicant real benefits that are based on facts. The promise and accomplishment of an employer brand facilitates the magnetism, inspiration and preservation of suitable talent for the business to carry on conveying on the corporate brand pledge.” Additionally, it is the image of an organization as an excellent place to perform amongst the employee and the stakeholders (Minchington, 2005)

Employer branding is therefore concerned with the attraction, engagement and retention initiatives targeted at enhancing a company’s employer brand. Sullivan (2004) describes employer branding as “a targeted, long-term strategy to manage the awareness and perceptions of employees, potential employees, and related stakeholders with regards to a particular firm.” Ambler and Barrow (1996) describe employer brand in provisions of the benefits it passes on to employees. In different phrasing, the employer brand symbolizes the collection of financial, practical and psychosomatic benefits that an employee might get as a consequence of amalgamation to an organization. Similar to product brands that transmit the image to customers or consumers, an employer brand transmits an organizational image to potential and current employees. In this view, the employer brand holds a “value proposition” about what employee may get as an outcome of doing job with a picky employer (Backhaus and Tikoo, 2004).

Employer branding is forecasted on the hypothesis that individual assets carries value to an organization (Backhaus and Tikoo, 2004). It is maintained by the resource-based outlook anticipated by Barney (1991).

To construct the employer brand, a firm must work from the indoor out, with a reliable matter, influence, and validity all through the employment association. Sartain and Schumann (2009), expand branding for talent, to brand for talent is to market a firm as a situate to work to generate demand as a attraction for talent in attracting, retaining, and engaging the right individual to perform the right job at the right time with the right results.

As published in Wall Street Journal (March 23, 2009) “Companies have long divided consumers into segments. They should do the same with potential and current workers”. The academics reference research that proposes that there are five ways to think about consumer segregation: possible profitability, product characteristic favorites, reference groups, bargain power, and choice barriers.

Schumann and Sartain in “Brand for Talent” state that segmentation is at the core of any effective marketing program. The talent brand can move beyond generic messaging to express what will truly make the difference to a worker. For some, the brand may instigate a choice and for others reinforce a choice. But segmentation doesn’t mean creating a separate talent brand for each segment. It simply means adapting the talent brand message for each segment based on insight into audience needs and preferences. Chapter four outlines a methodology of segmenting talent by assessing demand for the worker against brand pressure.

CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY

3.1 Research Methodology

Exploratory method of research would be use to carry out the conceive project because exploratory research provide an opportunity to utilized both qualitative and quantitative methods including a document review, structured telephone survey, and focus groups to gather data. The use of multiple methodologies would permit researcher in triangulation of the data to improve the validity of the findings, and enabled greater inferences from the results.

3.2 Source of Data

Twenty interviews shall be conducted with employees of organizations within the compatible industry. Of the Twenty employee’s interviews, five shall be done in the middle-management positions and three shall be from entry-level position. An additional six interviews shall be conducted with employees who worked in hospitality or other related industry and both these employees shall be considered to be front-line or entry-level employees.

3.3 Data Collection

Data collection methods in this research fall under 2 groups; quantitative that would cover the structured surveys from companies and customers and qualitative research from focus individual from pharmaceutical companies and prescribing doctors. Qualitative and quantitative market research methods each provide different insights into the topic. Research results would be more useful when the two methods would be combined, although they are often conducted separately.

3.4 Method of Analysing Data:

The discovery-oriented nature of this research demanded a phenomenological approach to data gathering. The purpose of this study is to explore employees’ perceptions about the company’s brand and how that relates to the roles and responsibilities. Therefore, a qualitative approach would be adopted due to its ability to obtain a first-hand description of a specified domain of experience. In this sense, understanding would be derived from information gained directly from the employee, rather than from the direction of theories, laws and concepts.

3.4.1 Qualitative Research

Quantitative Information. Typified by…

Qualitative Information. Typified by…

Larger samples

Smaller samples

Statistically valid

Directional findings

Analyses numbers – how many think what?

Analyses thoughts and concepts

Closed questioning techniques (less opportunity to ask „why?â€Ÿ)

Open questioning techniques

Who thinks what? (Measuring)

Explanation of their thoughts and concepts

Analyzed in aggregate

Allows to provide anecdotal type information with permission of the respondent, we can highlight case study examples for „interestingâ€Ÿ companies to demonstrate certain points

The choice of in-depth meetings shall be the most effective method of data collection to address the research questions due to the ability to obtain large amounts of data quickly, the ability to follow up and seek clarification and the need to rely only on a single primary method for gathering data. In addition, researchers in this area of study shall widely use face to face in-depth meetings. As the objective of this study is to uncover and describe the participants’ perspectives, use of in-depth interviews as the sole way of gathering data is supposed as a suitable and enough tactics.

Thus, to make sure the answers are explored of the research questions along with the consistency amongst the each face to face interview, a semi-structured interview modus operandi shall be develop. Based on the review of the literature, a mix of umbrella and probing questions shall be developed to assist in the date collection. The interviews shall be audio taped and written out for effortlessness of complete and methodical analysis.

3.5 Ethical Issues

Ethical issue in this research is consider, researcher during the whole research would keep the personal data under protection law and ensure that the data is not share amongst the respondent and to the industry. The data gather would be exclusively utilized to improve employer branding purpose only. The interviewee would be informing the objection of the research. A copy of response in written would be sent to the respondent to that both the researcher and the interviewee have the same understanding and if any ambiguity must the omitted.

Researcher role during the whole research would an as an observer and researcher would not influence the respondent at any point so that the knowledge gain during the meeting is presented without any biasness.

3.6 Research Schedule & Resources Requirement

Activities

Jan.

Feb.

Mar.

Apr.

Timeline (week)

3

4

1

2

3

4

1

2

3

4

1

2 Presentation on proposed topic

Finalize the topic/research question

Proposal submission

Literature review

Draft questionnaire

Conduction of quantitative survey

Face to face &Telephonic interview

Data Collection

Data Analysis

Propose Recommendation

Implement Discussion into dissertation

Finalize and submit dissertation

PERSONAL REFLECTION:

In modern age, every business struggles to achieve competitive lead in order to have processes and position them ahead in the market place. This competitive advantage can be achieved by different means which include understanding perception of both external and internal customers depending on the nature of business in order to achieve sustainable competitive advantage.

In order to be competitive in the market place specially in this saturated market where produce, services or ideas are seemingly identical, people (employee) plays critical role in all four components of managements and be accountable for the desire results.

In its key element now to have the understanding about the perceptions of both current employees and the potential employees so that organization improve accordingly and become the choice organization to work for the majority of the employees and hence gain the competitive advantages by attracting, retaining the employees.

In this portion of the assignment, which is based on personal reflection mainly highlights on what I have learnt from the employer branding on the basis of literature review and its exploration through market research.

The importance of employer branding and understanding the components are unarguable and is one of the key for the success of organizations. The organizations that have a thorough understanding about the perception of its employees fulfill the need better than others.

After completing the assignment it came out that, employee perception is complex to understand and examined. What ever people believe and think are base on their need and expectation for their satisfaction. Or it can to said that employees behaviors are based on believes and perceptions.

Abstract Conceptualization:

After gaining the theoretical concept, I have concluded that understanding the perception of the employee is critical for the success and progress of any organization. Employees perception involves around the psychological processes that employee go through in recognizing needs, finding ways to meet the needs.

Employees are the face of organizations and hence they are direct in touch of the competition and external and internal customers so face numerous internal and external sources of influence that continuously shape up their perception with the situation and changing market dynamics. It is important for organization to continuously explore the need of its employee and bring amendments within the organization. The physical and social factors are critical to be tracked for the good employer branding

CONCLUSION:

A good number of literatures are available on employer branding, yet it deserves some attention. Employer branding is the place where Human resource and marketing join head on. In my opinion, it’s everyone’s job within the organization to be involve with branding and social media, perhaps there may be a small group dedicated to it. In order to market your employer brand to the outside world, it helps to spread awareness and enthusiasm from within. However it is important to understand that to be known by employee is something different but to create a desire in the employees to become the part of employer is employer branding. Employer branding should not be considered in the context of recruitment. It is about the brand as developed and expressed through the employment life cycle.

Marketing + HR = Employer Branding

Employer branding needs conscious efforts and having the strategy which is clearly defined is the most vital feature in attaining employer branding objectives. Employer branding in my opinion carries following important ingredients to comply with:

Determine how employer branding is viewed inside your company

Define employer brand objectives and project scope

The relationship between HR, marketing, and communications

Discovering your employer brand

CEO and senior management engagement

Communications planning

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