9th May, 2016

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By Arnab Bandyopadhyay

Internal / Employer Branding – Why You Should Be Worried About It

Google gets recognised as the Best Employer to work for. Yet Again.

It has become the No. 1 place to work for the seventh time in 10 years. Closer home, a relatively unknown company, RMSI Pvt. Ltd., is making waves in the recruitment world by being declared the Best Company to work for. An IIT Roorkee graduate last year turned down a lucrative offer to join RMSI at half the package.

In fact, in India, RMSI is ranked better than Google as a preferred employer. Top companies take these rankings very seriously and work very hard to rank at the top.

So what’s the big deal about it anyway?

To attract the best, you need to be the best. It’s no surprise that to attract the best of talents and to retain them, you need to put forth an irresistible value proposition to them. Because, let’s face it – just like you ponder over ‘What’s in it for me?’ when recruiting, the incumbents too are mulling over the same. Goes without saying that the ‘engagement’, if you will, has to be beneficial to both the parties. If you are experiencing difficulties in retaining talent or to hire new ones, you need to turn around your branding as perceived by employees and job-seekers.

Experiencing difficulties in retaining talent or hiring new ones? You need to turn around how your company is perceived by employees and job-seekers.

That’s the why. The How is what Employer Branding and Internal Branding is all about. It’s about making conscious effort to build an image of the company, both internally and externally, in front of your employees (both prospect and existing) exactly the way you want them to perceive you.

So What is Employer / Internal Branding?

Employer Branding is more of an outward initiative of creating a brand of an organisation as an employer. Suffice it to say it’s a strategic marketing exercise. Let’s face it – your organization already has a brand whether it’s intentional or not. Even with your not spending time or money on it, people have a perception about you. And that’s going to decide who’s going to join your company, who’s going to stay, and how productive they’re going to be while they’re with you. Think of it as the personality of any human being – it’s inevitable.

Employer / Internal Branding is all about making conscious effort to build an image of the company, both internally and externally, exactly the way you want employees and job seekers to perceive you.

Would you rather let other factors decide how people perceive your company or would you make a conscious effort to steer this perception in the right direction?

This conscious effort to steer the perception of a company in the right direction is what Internal branding and Employer Branding is all about.

How do we do it?

One of the basic tenets is that your employees should become your best brand ambassadors. A motivated employee is both a better performer and better publicist for the company. Now the question is how do we motivate employees? There are many ways to do it, some of them mentioned here for brevity:

• Build a workspace conducive to working efficiently. Even the choice of colours can affect how your employees feel while working.
• Encourage a free work environment. Employees who are comfortable work better.
• Motivational posters. Not the boring ones. Make them interesting enough for employees to actually notice and get motivated.
• Fun @ Work. Because work can be stressful. Plan some surprise events (pardon the irony), have an unwind zone – basically allow your employees let their hair down every once in a while.
• Complete transparency into the company’s vision, mission and performance. This gives employees more faith in your organization.

Claycan helps SMEs make sense out of their Employer / Internal Branding. Do get in touch with us if you want us to analyse and re-align your branding.