THE STRATEGY-DRIVEN BRAND

The branding and recruiting process of an organization should be driven by and supportive of its business strategy. Therefore, developing an employer brand that attracts the right individuals should be an important consideration in an organization’s business strategy. The business strategy will be a failure if it does not lead to the attraction of talent that can execute it. A key test of any business strategy should be whether it leads to and is supportive of an employer brand that will attract and retain the talent that is needed.

Instead of talent attraction being considered after the fact, it must be part of the strategy development discussion. Strategy creators should ask, can we recruit and retain the right talent given this business strategy? Obviously if it calls for bad working conditions, low wages, or performance and skill levels that cannot be achieved, it should not become the business strategy. If it calls for the organization to operate in ways that negatively impact the environment or society, it may not be able to attract the “right” talent, particularly if the right talent is young and well educated.

Organizations need to consider what the best employment relationship is in which the work can be done. It may be a full-time job, or it may be an independent contractor or gig relationship. Whatever it is, the employer brand needs to reflect that relationship to attract the right talent and give potential employees an accurate picture of what is expected of them and what working for the organization will be like.

All too often organizations make the mistake of assuming that to attract the right applicants they should do everything that they can to present to the labor market and job applicants a positive image of what it is like to work for them. This is an understandable but foolish strategy. There is a great deal of research that shows that organizations that recruit talent with an inaccurate employer brand tend to have dissatisfied employees and extremely high turnover rates; as a result, they end up incurring extra costs due to their high turnover rates, and they do not attract individuals who will perform successfully in the environment that exists in the organization because they block the self-selection process of individuals from operating effectively. As a result, individuals take jobs that do not fit their preferences and skills and organizations fail to attract those individuals that do fit. This leads to a strong recommendation: develop a realistic employer brand.

What does “realistic” mean? It means clearly pointing out what the pluses and minuses are of working for the organization and being sure that individuals are aware of what their work life will be like if they join. It is better to have people sign up for the “real deal” than to have them sign up for a false one. Having them sign up for a false deal will be much more costly in the long term and will create a situation that is more dysfunctional than losing potential job candidates because they do not like the deal that is offered. If there are not enough satisfactory applicants when the real deal is used, then an organization needs to look at why it cannot offer an attractive real deal, and that may mean it needs to rethink its strategy and how it operates.