HR should be proud of employer branding

Tim Smedley | 10 Dec 2008 | 11:05

When did “employer branding” become such a dirty word? OK, two words, but you get my meaning. At the CIPD’s employer branding conference last week, every speaker offered a case study of tangible, results-driven good work they’d been doing in this area. However, almost all admitted that they had to somehow disguise this work before proffering to senior management and the wider workforce in a different form. As if any suggestion from HR would immediately be pooh-poohed and rejected. Isn’t this a bit worrying?

The Ministry of Justice’s (MoJ) director of communications, Clare Harbord, said that you have to use the word “brand” with caution, lest the jargon “puts people off”; Madeleine Abdoh, head of employee brand, BBC, admitted that a significant factor of its success is “all about the packaging”; and Charles Cotton, CIPD adviser, reward and employment conditions, made the point that trade unions “are down on employer branding because they think it deflects from pay”.

All spoke of great wins in recruitment, retention and engagement as a result of the brand work they’ve done. And, significantly, all spoke of the unity between employer brand and external, consumer brand. The experience of the customer is the experience of the potential employee; the experience of a job applicant, whether successful or unsuccessful, is retold to countless others. As Harbord put it, her 100,000 colleagues “go down the pub and talk about the MoJ – so I have 100,000 people in my comms team!”

As far as HR terminology goes, employer branding seems a fairly clear and simple concept. But is it really true that it will only be accepted if it’s somehow re-marketed internally as coming from anything and anyone other than the HR department? If it’s good, and it works, surely HR should shout about it – as long as you have the metrics to back it up, what does it matter how you phrase it?

Happy new year?

Peter Honey | 7 Jan 2009 | 12:50

I am writing this during the time reputed to be the most depressing of the year; back to work, skint after the Christmas/new year celebrations, gloom about the economy and job prospects… and horribly cold outside.

I notice that newspapers are full of advice about being happy despite the general air of misery. According to one report I have read, all you need is to be kind to yourself, to think positively, to help others (and enjoy the vicarious pleasure that brings), to exercise and to finish each day by thinking about three things that went well.

All easier said than done - so much so in fact that such advice might add to your irritation/gloom.

I have always been wary of forcing myself to be artificially positive regardless of the situation. This seems to me to be an invitation to deny reality and pretend that all is well even when it isn’t. To substitute a negative feeling for a positive one seems to me a stretch too far; I’d settle for a way to swap a negative feeling for a relatively neutral one.

I find it useful to think of my feelings falling into three broad categories: those that help, those that hinder and those that are relatively neutral. Negative feelings that hinder my performance (I’m thinking of things like extreme anxiety or worry) are a) not nice feelings to have and b) prevent me from taking actions that I am otherwise perfectly capable of taking.

Most people assume that their feelings ‘just happen’ and they have no choice in the matter. But I challenge that. The key I find is to realise that nothing inevitably MAKES you feel one way or the other. Your feelings are triggered by what you are thinking about what has happened, not by the event itself. The thoughts that bring on unproductive feelings invariably exaggerate the awfulness of the situation and tend to be riddled with ‘shoulds’, ‘oughts’ and ‘musts’. So, for example, instead of thinking life should/ought/must be fair, I make a small adjustment and think to myself: ‘I prefer life to be fair, but no one ever said it ought to be’. I find thinking about what I’d prefer is less upsetting and makes it more likely that I will do something to move towards the preferred state.

So, when negative thoughts creep in, to hell with forcing yourself to think positively - try neutral thinking instead. Dare I wish you a happy new year?