Less than a quarter of small companies have an employer branding strategy designed to attract and retain new staff, the International Workplace Survey has revealed.
According to the research revealed by financial recruiter Robert Half, only 23% of firms with fewer than 50 members of staff had a formal branding strategy compared with 69% of businesses employing more than 200 people.
When asked what was the most important reason for adopting an employer brand strategy, a quarter of all UK employers (24%) said it would lead to a high retention of existing employees and 18% claimed that it would attract and recruit new staff. A further 17% stated that it would tie employee commitment to organisational goals and 19% claimed it would help to maintain a positive reputation in the industry.
“In today‘s marketplace where skilled candidates are such a precious commodity, employers need to look carefully at the image of their organisation and what they would like to represent both internally to existing members of staff and externally to potential new employees,” said David Jones, UK managing director at Robert Half.
“Candidates can now afford to be selective in who they choose to work for and increasingly will look closely at an organisation‘s culture, company image and values that are aligned with their own before deciding whether to join,” he added.
Responsibility for developing and driving a company‘s employer branding should comes from the top, the survey claimed. Globally, almost a third (29%) believed that the chief executive or chief financial officer must buy into the employer brand first for an organisation to become an ’employer of choice‘ while 24% said responsibility lay with the HR department and 20% said it should be a multi-departmental approach.
“Key to developing an effective employer branding strategy is to identify what is unique to your organization,” claimed Jones. “Holding staff workshops will help you to identify what is meaningful for your existing members of staff, what motivates them about the company, what messages work and importantly what keeps them loyal.”
The UK as a whole fares well in terms of employer branding, however, with 44% of the HR and finance managers questioned claiming their company has a formal employer brand strategy in place. This compares to a worldwide average of just 32%.
Globally, 20% of companies claim they intend to implement such a strategy in the next two years while 35% admit they have no intention of doing so. The survey was conducted with over 5000 HR and finance managers in 17 countries across Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Japan and the United States.
