Baran Copuroglu
Employer Branding: The Stronger, The Attractive
Baran Copuroglu
Abstract: Employer branding process that creates the best match possible between the employer and the employee, leads to a business satisfaction and a person-organization fit. Not surprisingly, an efficient employer branding strategy also decreases the labour turnover rate within the company and helps to retain the talent. Naturally, the specified situation is desired by the employer and by the potential employee. In order to achieve such condition, companies should get their employer brands stronger, in order to attract the perfect match talents. In this particular master thesis, why the attraction by the potential employees is increased, given a strong employer brand that is supplied by the employer and what makes the organization attractive that leads to a business satisfaction is explained.
Key words: Employer Branding, Attraction, Retention, Labour Market.
EKHM51
Master thesis (15 credits ECTS)
June 2014
Supervisor: Michaela Trippl
Examiner: Jerker Moodysson
Website
Employer Branding: The Stronger, The Attractive
Table Of Contents
1)Introduction Of The Case………………………………………..………………………..3
- The Research Questions………………………………………………………...5
2) Aim & Justification………………………………………………………….…………….…6
3)Research Design, Methodology & Data…………….…………….……………...... 6
- Justification Of The Method…………….…………….…………….………...8
- Method Limitations……………….…………….…………….…………………..8
4)Expected Benefits…………….…………….…………….…………….…………….……...8
5)Contribution…………….…………….…………….…………….…………….……………...9
6)Previous Research & Theoretical Foundation of Employer Branding……..10
- The Employer Brand Associations…………….…………….…………..14
- The Psychological Contract…………….…………….…………….……….23
- The 5 Values…………….…………….…………….…………….………………..23
7)Analysis…………….…………….…………….…………….…………….…………………..25
- The Case of PwC…………………………………………………………………...28
8)Conclusion…………….…………….…………….…………….…………….……………....31
9)References…………….…………….…………….…………….…………….………………34
- Electronic References………………………………….………………………36
1) Introduction Of The Case
Labour market has always been one of the vital cases for the economy, and for the many parties that are involved in the process. Those interactions are triggering, activating and fostering the economical enterprises for good. But then, ‘’Why not make it better?’’ one could ask. A healthier and determined interactions in the labour market that satisfies both of the parties the best which leads to a business satisfaction. For some minorlabour population, it might not make a difference where they are working or for who, under what organization or for which employer (Even though every potential employee has a perception on the employer´s brand). But for our dependent population, it matters: The labour that have a clear insight what they want to do and which employer’s identity they will carry from then on.Have you ever wondered why everybody has a preference between the companies? What determines it? What triggers us to apply and wish for our number one choice? Is it a coincidence that most of the people would love to work in a company that has a strong employer brand? Such as Google for example. In this master’s thesis, I will be conducting a research with the approach on the relationship between the strength of the employer brand and the attraction that is supplied by the potential employees. What is more, why the companies with a strong employer branding strategy are successful when it comes to retaining the talented employees within their company and have a small labour turnover rate.
Most of the people start their college life with the dream of a great career, if they do not want to end up being an employer. At the beginning, our preferences, attractions, recognition and wishes for the employers might be narrow or be ‘wrong choices’. But the more we learn and the more we know about the labour market, our preferences, recognition and consideration for the employers might change dramatically. But have you ever wondered why do they change over time so dramatically? That is due to the fact that our perception for the employers are changing over time according to their employer branding strategies and how we hear of them from other people or from the employer itself. As it will be discussed in the thesis later, we also develop an employer brand image for the recognized employers and these will get stronger or weaker over time. In my opinion, the reason that in the first times in the university, we do not have a clear insight about the labour market and most of us have not considered an employer yet. We recognize whichever company would try to reach us via marketing themselves. In the senior years, we learn not to recognize all the potential employees and we decrease the list by considering several, and then what happens next is that we get the employer of choice.
Naturally, the companies would want to hire the best employee possible that is available in the labour market, in their industry. Apart from extraordinary occasions, without a strong employer branding strategy, the companies do not expect the talents to beg the companies to recruit them. In order to achieve the will, they need to increase their recognition and consideration in the eyes of the talented potential employees. Here, employer branding takes place to achieve the perfect employee-employer match possible.
What is Employer Branding? UNIVERSUM describes it as:
“Employer branding is the process of promoting a company, or an organization, as the employer-of-choice to a desired target group,one which a company needs and wants to recruit and retain. The process facilitates the company’s ability in attracting, recruiting and retaining ideal employees – referred to as Top Talent in recruitment – and helps secure the achievement of the company’s business plan”(
Every employer has an employer brand, which affects the talents to choose between them. It is common that they might not be aware of the fact that they own one, but all has one. Similarly every potential employee has more or less an idea which employer they feel they want to work for and it makes sense to claim that the stronger the employer brand, the more attractive the employer is for the potential employees. Naturally, the employers would want the hire the best option they can and they have to know that it is up to them to increase their chances, considering the employer branding perspective. By having a stronger employer brand, they become more and more attractive in the labour market and as a result, the quality and the quantity of the applicants are increasing. So, there is a correlation between the employer brand, attraction and the quality and quantity of the applicants. What is more, an equal important factor is to retain the talented employee in the company after hiring for the maximum possible time. By having a stronger employer brand, it is also satisfying the situation of the employee to stay in the company. Then, the case would show that every employer would want this to take place, i.e. they want to make their employer brand stronger. But how so?
The Research Questions
The questions that will be discussed in the research will be varied from why the stronger, the more attractive to why the stronger, the less labour turnover. In order to clearly take a look, I will be investigating the two closely related questions in the labour market with an employer branding (strategy) perspective.
- Why are the employers with stronger employer brands, more attractive for the potential employees?
- Why arethe employers with stronger employer brands, more successful when it comes to retention of the employees within their company?
The reason for choosing such case and mentioned questions was to achieve a deeper understanding in the topic of employer branding and to clarify the points that a regular positive ‘idea’ of the company, might not be a coincidence. We tend to think that of course, a strong brand would be ´consumed´ more and in this situation, a strong employer branded firm would be more attractive. But what I wanted here is to see the reason behind it. Why so? Why do we want to work for the stronger brands? The questions will be answered by introducing the overview of the process and what are the companies supplying physically and psychologically to attract and retain.
2) Aim & Justification:
Since it is a highly labour market related research, I believe was well in-line with the master programme I have been studying. One of my aims is to show how a perfect match between the employer and the employee would lead to a business satisfaction with a more enjoyable, satisfactory and efficient working atmosphere for the both parties.
It is a field that did not benefit much from the literature and not a well-known topic, which makes me even more excited to make it heard and considered more. So this constructs another aim for me to help it to be more popular. The resources were limited and did not have dramatically different perspectives and mostly re-processing of one another. From what I have experienced reading and evaluating the literature, I saw that there is not enough or deeper explanations / investigations on why a stronger employer brand would lead to a higher attraction. I also aim to clarify that, it does not make a company’s employer brand stronger if the best people are working there but if an employer’s brand is strong, then the best employees would like to be employed there. What is more, I also would like to live and work in a well employee-organization fit. Therefore, another aim of the paper would be encouraging the employer’s to make an effort to process a relevant employer branding strategy for a business satisfaction with better outcomes for the both parties.
Obviously apart from the initial aims, I am aiming to answer the questions of “why are the employers with stronger employer brands, more attractive for the potential employees?” and “why are they more successful when it comes to retention of the employees within their company? “
3) Research Design, Methodology & Data:
The research will be a conducted as a qualitative and an exploratory / descriptive research. The topic is an appealing field of research for me and it is resulting with a qualitative research in the end due to specialties of the topic, my interest areas, the research questions and my style of approach
When it comes to the methodology, I will be conducting my research with the help of ‘document analysis as a qualitative research method’. As the research will not host empirical studies of my own, it will construct the suitable base for it, in my opinion. Document analysis could be defined as a set of processes for investigating, analyzing, reviewing and evaluating of the documents. Bowen (2009) suggests that the documents could be in various forms of ‘’advertisements; agendas, attendance registers, and minutes of meetings;
manuals; background papers; books and brochures; diaries and journals; event programs (i.e., printed outlines); letters and memoranda; maps and charts; newspapers (clippings/articles); press releases; program proposals, application forms, and summaries; radio and television program scripts; organizational or institutional reports; survey data; and various public records.’’(P. 27, 28)
My data will mostly come from the academic articles that I will review in order to answer my question and assumptions of how companies with stronger employer brand value / equity is more attractive and why they could retain the qualified employees longer. The data will be both from electronic and printed material. Other means than the literature review of the academic articles will be from the company pages and their publications in their web sites as well as the white papers and other short or long articles that the employer branding firms use in their web sites as well as newsletters/daily buzz, their social media pagesetc.
After the theoretical part shows us ‘how’s and ‘why’s, I will relate the process to the research aim in order to answer‘why the stronger employer brand value/equity, the more attractive the company is’ concept. Even though the definitions of the employer branding process could be self-explanatory, I aim to clarify and add more about the values that are proposed to make it more attractive. As explained, it would not be the case to answer it with a one, clear sentence but it is planned to give the overview and have a deeper understanding in the process to come to a solution. Namely, it is the long term collaborations and combinations of different benefits, perceptions and psychological matters are the factors that increases the attraction and retention.
a) Justification of the method
When it comes to the justification why I choose this method, one could tell that besides it is the most relevant and effective method, I would like to list the advantages that Bowen (2009) stated too. I have said that it was an effective method. It is due to the fact that considering the short time interval for the research, document analysis is more of a time saver and one selects the data instead of collecting it. What is more, the documents and articles are public and could be reached and used needless of the author’s consent. In addition to being easily obtained, it is a very cost-effective method as well. Bowen (2009) introduces another advantage of the document analysis method that the process of the research does not affect the documents or articles, meaning that while conducting the research, data or findings cannot change to prove us wrong.
b) Method Limitations:
One of the concerns that is related to the method is that the documents / articles are written to investigate another issue than the research we would like to conduct or the questions we would like to answer. Therefore, there might be insufficient data in the documents for our research. Yin (1994) also suggests that there could be problems to retrieve or access the documents as they might have been blocked. Yin also suggests that the incomplete collection of the documents could lead to bias in the selections. I also believe reviewing as much documents as one can is vital in order to make a deep source criticism and avoid biases. But all in all, in order to clarify, Bowen states that they are just flaws rather than huge disadvantages and that it is such an advantageous method that it outweighs the limitations.
4) Expected Benefits
The expected benefits of my research would encourage the companies to make efforts to increase their employer brand values in order to get more applications in quality and quantity. (By own research or getting consultancy from employer branding consultancy companies) This could lead to more business efficiency for the both parties and result with better outcomes since both the employer and the employee will be satisfied with what they are doing and what is happening. It seems to be quite applicable to all sectors, firms and organizations, which makes it even more appealing (Every employer, has a brand!). A happier, more satisfied and a more efficient environment in many sectors with better outcomes could be something that the economies would also want. Another expectation is to make the employer branding concept benefit from thebranding and marketing literature more, as it has not enjoyed from it vastly and also with different perspectives.
5) Contribution:
The contribution that I expect to make will be looking at the process of employer branding from a different perspective: The stronger, the attractive. While the literature on the topic, states the fact, I will be trying to contribute by explaining it, relying on the literature. Meanwhile, stressing on the point that a strong employer branding strategy leads to attraction and that attraction does not mean itself that a company has a strong employer brand. What I suggest and propose here is that, the strong employer branding strategy (therefore a strong employer brand) creates the attraction and attention from the talents. But it would not mean that an attractive company for the potential employees has a strong employer branding strategy (or a strong employer brand) due to the fact that attraction does not create a strong employer brand. Namely, attraction is caused by the employer brand, but a strong employer brand is not caused by the attraction.
Counting on the previous research, will try to illustrate why a strong strategy makes them attractive and not the other way around. As the method is a document analysis as a qualitative research method, grabbing what the previous research signaled and trying to explain my point over them would be my strategy for the contribution of the thesis. What is more, it will contribute to the understanding of the fact that it is not a coincidence that we, or potential employees are attracted to the same top employers, as known as the ones with a strong employer brand.
A suggestion for further research and how the academia could benefit more from the thesis would be to investigate if and how having a perfect employee – employer match would affect the firm growth. The business satisfaction between the talent and the employer which decreases the labour turnover rate and grants efficiency would mean a much better performance in medium – long term. This could be relied on the human capital – firm growth theory in order to come with an answer. What is more, imagining an economy where all the pieces are in the right place and working in the field that they are the best in, working in the company that they want the most would be something the macro economies would like to have, as stated.