At the end of the 20th century, the idea arose that marketers should not only put their antennae outward but also inward. Satisfied employees make satisfied customers, is the basic tenet of the 'service-profit chain' idea that emerged in the 1990s. As a result, marketing principles entered the world of HR and terms like 'internal marketing' and 'employer branding' emerged. Employees were increasingly seen as an organisation's internal customers.
The focus of internal marketing is on attracting the right talent and thereby fulfilling the business strategy. Thereby, attracting talent is substantially different from retaining talent. In the recruitment phase, there is considerable information asymmetry: the organisation knows more about itself than the applicant can know and the applicant, in turn, knows more about itself than the organisation can know. Once the person is employed by the organisation, that relationship gains symmetry and other facets come into play. So, as is the case for customers, recruiting is different from retaining.
Most studies show that money is not a decisive factor when it comes to an organisation's attractiveness as an employer. As an organisation, you are mainly attractive if you can do cool things, work with nice people and develop yourself well. Of course, the terms of employment should be in order, as should the organisation's core and working values. Money is relative. At least as important is paying attention to employees in the broadest sense of the word and being an organisation that is good for its environment.
It is not surprising that internal marketing and employer branding are so much on the map right now. Indeed, the so-called 'war for talent' is gaining momentum, not only when the economy is booming. The South Asian Journal of Management offers several explanations for this increasingly fierce 'war for talent': 1) the transition from an industrial age to an information age, 2) the increased demand for exceptional talent and 3) the growing tendency of people to switch jobs. In this fuelling 'war for talent', it is therefore a solid strategy for organisations to position the employer brand in such a way that talents want to belong to it. The status of 'best employer' therefore becomes increasingly interesting. Ideally, people proudly tell a party who they work for. It gets even better when the audience at that party then keeps asking questions about that interesting employer. If the latter also succeeds then the employer brand passes the so-called 'cocktail party test' and your employees have become true ambassadors of your organisation.
The 'cocktail party test' provides a nice practical example to assess an employer's attractiveness, but is obviously not a measurement tool on the basis of which to actively manage. The need for those measurement tools, also called Talent Analytics (TA), is growing stronger. TA was vigorously put on the agenda some 10 years ago by the Harvard Business Review, highlighting various uses of TA. At a simple level, this involves basic analytics: the standard HR data at the organisational level or analysed at the departmental level. An employee satisfaction survey (MTO) falls under this basic analytics, as do inflow and outflow figures. It becomes slightly more 'advanced' when organisations take up Human Capital Investment Analysis or actively engage in forecasting. But if you really want to excel at TA, you need to go down the path that supports employer branding and collect data that maps the 'talent journey', so that you can actively manage the question 'how do I ensure that talents choose my organisation, stay with my organisation and adapt to an ever-changing environment?' Such analytics provide a continuous monitor that measures the attractiveness of the organisation while showing which touchpoints are crucial in the talent journey. This data gives you insight into how to win and retain talent.
For many years, Google has had an internal research team that collects and analyses all kinds of facts & figures, on the basis of which measures can be deployed to increase Google's attractiveness as an employer. The underlying aim of this practice is, of course, to increase value-added and thus revenue while reducing recruitment and onboarding costs. There are sources that outline the underlying purpose of TA as even slightly bigger than just financial. For instance, researchers in the Journal of Marketing Intelligence & Planning state: 'Attracting the best and the brightest is vital for a company's survival and development'. Yet it is striking how few companies fully commit to TA. It is stunning how many companies know all about the customer journey of their customers but how little they know about the talent journey of their employees. Consulting firm Gartner - yes, the one from the Gartner Hype Cycle - has charted that only one-fifth of HR managers feel that HR data is being used to its full potential. So there is a huge battle to be won there!
This article was previously published on dailydatabytes.co.uk
Alnıaçık, E., & Alnıaçık, Ü. (2012). Identifying dimensions of attractiveness in employer branding: effects of age, gender, and current employment status. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 58, 1336-1343.
Berthon, P., Ewing, M., & Hah, L. L. (2005). Captivating company: dimensions of attractiveness in employer branding. International journal of advertising, 24(2), 151-172.
Davenport, T. H., Harris, J., & Shapiro, J. (2010). Competing on talent analytics. Harvard business review, 88(10), 52-58.
Gartner (2019). Talent Analytics - Make better workforce planning and business decisions with talent analytics.
Heskett, J., Jones, T., Loveman, G., Sasser, W. & Schlesinger, L. (1994). Putting the service-profit chain to work. Harvard Business Review, 72(2), 164-174
Maxwell, R., & Knox, S. (2009). Motivating employees to" live the brand": a comparative case study of employer brand attractiveness within the firm. Journal of marketing management, 25(9-10), 893-907.
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