Employer branding is on everyone’s lips in the HR world, but did you know that it actually stems from marketing? In fact, it’s the visible translation of a company’s HR Marketing! Whether unconsciously or not, companies investing in an Employer Brand strategy develop a more global strategy involving HR management: HR Marketing! [1]
HR marketing, the basics
HR Marketing is the transposition and adaptation of traditional Marketing to Human Resources.
Marketing is defined as “the analysis of consumer needs and all the means of action used by organizations to influence consumer behavior. It creates value perceived by customers and adapts the company’s commercial offering to consumer desires”.[2]
We can thus define HR Marketing as a new posture for HR , using the full range of Marketing functions to satisfy the expectations of its customers: employees and future employees (candidates).
HR Marketing relies on the 4 historical pillars of Marketing to achieve its objective of winning over and retaining employees:
The Product
This is theHR offer (HR service) proposed by the company.
There are, of course, the QWL, compensation and internal mobility elements often heard and emphasized in Employer Brand strategies, but that’s not all! HR services also include training and employability, onboarding and the managerial model, administrative management and day-to-day HR processes or HR meetings (interviews in particular), and so on.
The Price
It’s the price of the HR service, the resources made available, the tools financed… And the resulting ROI…
Distribution policy
It refers to the HR department, managers and senior management. HR Marketing obviously includes all of the company’s decision-making bodies. It puts the HR function at the heart of decisions and actions!
Advertising
It represents the 4th pillar of HR Marketing in the form of HR communication …. And, much more broadly, Employer Brand. The Employer Brand is therefore the expression of HR Marketing communication through the use of marketing techniques: Inbound Marketing and Inbound Recruiting, Social Marketing, etc., based on an EVP (Employee Value Proposition) created by the company’s marketing strategy.
HR marketing and employer branding: a subtle difference but a necessary complementarity
It’s easy to confuse HR Marketing strategy with Employer Brand strategy. In fact, they are distinct, yet inseparable and complementary.
The Employer Brand, on the other hand, translates the employer’s image into strategic and operational communications (both internal and external). HR Marketing represents the organizational process of building a product (HR offer) to attract and retain a customer base (employee and candidate) for business development purposes.
Many people mistakenly associate the Employer Brand strategy with the implementation of HR actions. However, Employer Brand cannot reflect the entire HR offering and the diversity of a company’s internal employer realities.
The Employer Brand is reality that can be seen! HR Marketing is reality that’s built!
Implementing an HR Marketing strategy
HR Marketing and Employer Branding are therefore the result of in-depth, multi-partner work. They obviously involve the HR department, but also management, managers, support departments (Communications, Marketing, Finance, etc.)… And employees!
Here are 2 important steps to successful HR marketing!
An audit for an attractive offer
Before communicating your reality to employees and candidates (i.e. building your Employer Brand strategy), you need to know what that reality is and what promise you can keep….
The 1st step is therefore to carry out an audit of the employee experience and HR offering:
- This is an opportunity to take stock of your existing HR offering. Companies are not always aware of what they offer internally. The auditestablishes the facts: concrete evidence (gender equality, social balance sheet, training plan, GPEC, diversity, QWL, compensation, etc.).
- And identify employee aspirations and satisfaction with the HR offering.
What’s the point of starting out with an HR offering geared towards consolidating total compensation (a major current trend) if your employees’ aspirations are more geared towards flexibility, training or lifestyle, right?
With these elements in hand, you’ll be able to establish a sound basis for optimizing the existing system and proposing an attractive HR offer for your employees… And for your candidates!
Don’t forget, too, that the candidate experience is the sinews of the Talent War… All the audit work carried out on your employees must have its equivalent on the candidate side: identification of expectations and communication channels, appropriateness of the recruitment process etc…
TIP: The Manager’s special place
70% of employees disengage from their company because of poor relations with their manager. Less than 30% of managers are committed to their company. These figures are a wake-up call on the role of the manager in HR Marketing.
Indeed, we place the employee at the heart of the strategy… We mustn’t forget his manager.
His place is all the more important as he will relay the strategy to his team… His support, commitment and motivation are therefore at the heart of the project’s success.
TIP: Reserve a special place for themanagerial audit (both the audit of their management and their feedback as employees)!
This 1st stage of analysis of the existing situation also initiates dialogue between employees and the employer. It also makes employees aware of their management’s involvement (or at least willingness to get involved) in their professional well-being. “We’ve heard you (with the audit) and we’re responding to your expectations with concrete actions that meet the needs you’ve expressed!”
Promoting your HR Marketing policy
In addition to the HR department and senior management, one of the key channels for distributing your strategy is through local managers. They’re the ones who’ll pass on the measures you’ve put in place, they’re the ones who’ll collect employees’ expectations, and they’re the ones who’ll get their teams on board with the HR project!
Their commitment is essential to the success of your strategy. Involving your managers AND your employees in your HR Marketing project will ensure that they adhere to the messages conveyed… And turn them into true Employer Brand Ambassadors!
Basic principles of an Employer Brand
- Define your Employer Brand identity (DNA)
- Clarify your internal and external Employer Brand targets and dedicated communication channels (internal social platform and career site, for example).
- Define your EVP (Employee Value Proposition) or Customer Benefit: easily identifiable, credible and differentiating.
- Create your Employer Brand universe.
- Implement the action plan internally and then externally. Establishing internal buy-in is necessary for the external Employer Brand to work (providing internal evidence to the outside world).
Measuring ROI
Just like a “classic” marketing strategy, HR Marketing needs to be monitored, analyzed with KPIs and then optimized… HR Marketing needs to be cultivated!
With fixed indicators, you can judge performance by
- Talent attraction (number of unsolicited applications, visits to your career site, etc.),
- recruitment (cost of recruitment per position, number of applications per vacancy advertised, etc.).
- and employee loyalty (number of key positions filled internally, number of employees taking part in company events, etc.).
HR Marketing is theinternal equivalent of a company’s approach to its business customers. It focuses on the employee to generatecommitment, loyalty and employer attractiveness in order to meet business requirements. The Employer Brand is the translation of this attractiveness.
Find out more about concrete examples for launching your HR Marketing strategy!
Sources:
[1] reflections inspired by articles by Jean-Baptiste Audrerie, Marketing Director of SPB Organizational Psychology, an HR consulting firm (USA) and founder of futurstalents.com, and by the book Marketing RH by Franck La Pinta and Vincent Berthelot
[2] Definition e-Marketing.fr
