Synopsis Topic: A Study of Employer Branding As Strategic Intervention for Attracting Talents Introduction: Employer Branding is one of the

most significant developments in the present day context. Depending on the availability of talent, the finding of talent with the best fit has always been a challenge to the organization. Most of the potential employees would opt to get into organisations which have the characteristics of achievement, success, leadership, people development initiatives, offering decent, a happy go type work culture while capable of instilling a deep sense of pride and commitment. It is observed that several organisations compete aggressively to attract and retain the best talent. Hence they are increasingly recognizing that directly or indirectly the employer has to brand themselves for attracting talents. The significant observation of the present day situation is that by simply placing an employment advertisement in local paper does not attract quality applicants; rather the quality candidate is more likely to choose their featured organization to work for. Hence corporates try to incorporate more forces of attraction for the best talent, and to do this the need to work on building a powerful employer brand that screams opportunity and prestige is highly called for. As mentioned in the web article in www.unlimited.co.nz External talent wants to see evidence of a consistent approach to employer experience; they want to know what lies within your organizational DNA. At the same time, they dont want to see it written in stone. They repeatedly tell us that they would like to influence the organization, its culture, and its behaviors. Its further evidence of this need to align the me brand with that of the organization. Fresh talent wants to see an organization that is going on a journey. They also want the opportunity to hop on board and help steer that journey.

Kaye Thorne (2004) is of the opinion that employer branding can also help in the war for talent, in recruitment, retention and in becoming an employer of choice. Although employer branding has been around since the early 1990s, it finally seems that its time has come as more and more organisations begin to recognize its importance. The biggest challenge in adopting a process of employer branding is ownership, because it is often not clear who should sponsor it the responsibility can fall down the middle between marketing, corporate communications, and HR. To succeed, it needs an integrated process linking all departments, with endorsement from the highest level within the organization. As an inspirational goal it also needs a pragmatic approach to achieve it. As mentioned in the Business Line (2006) that there have been instances of Indian companies branding themselves to prospective and current employees. Some of course, have done it inadvertently. Infosys did it with its `middle-class turning into millionaires', Wipro, known as a `take-off point for entrepreneurs' and TCS as a `training ground for freshers'. Employer Branding (other wise represented as EB) is defined in Wikipedia, by Minchington (2005), as the image of the organization as a great place to work in the minds of current employees and key stakeholders in the external market (active and passive candidates, clients, customers and other key stakeholders). This is further enumerated in Wikipedia, that strong employer brands have employer value propositions (EVPs) which are communicated in company actions and behaviours and evoke both emotive (e.g. I feel good about working here) and tangible benefits (this organization cares about my career development) for current and prospective employees. These organisations segment and communicate EVPs which reflect the image that the organisations wants to portray to its target audience. A companys employer brand is reflected in the actions and behaviours of leaders and is affected by company policies, procedures, and practices.

Punita Jasrotia has mentioned in IT People that employer branding is essentially a combination of the reputation of the organisation, the career offer and the corporate culture existing in the company. Hence the importance is employer branding is widely felt in the present day context. Importance: The expectation of the potential candidates today is that employer branding has become more of need, as most professionals are looking at relatively friendly organisations where they can have meaningful employment. As employer branding is closely associated with work culture, hence through right branding it may promote and reinforce the corporate positioning amongst its employees. In one survey it is revealed that more companies are now focusing on employer branding to attract employees and keep them engaged. There is a direct correlation between an effective employer brand and achieving business success. It helps in retaining current employees, increasing employee satisfaction, attracting job candidates, and motivating employees in their work, which leads to excellent business gains. The purpose is to use the internal brand as the seedbed for aligning their people programmes to deliver significantly improved business results. This is evident from some of the recent initiatives taken by organisations to make the workplace more employer-friendly and implement development concepts like spiritual quotient and value-building. Some companies have gone even further and appointed internal branding consultants, targeted to have a better relationship with their employees. For example, Texas Instruments, whose brand mantra is conscious and consistent, which gets reflected in all their activities, be it company journals, awards or regular meetings. HCL Comnet, whose brand value signifies exuberance, has developed a Force of One campaign that signifies innovative attitude and the ability to individually make a difference. Or Cognizant, whose employer brand is Celebrating

Work, which gets reflected in its participative, empowering and transparent work environment. Corporates have realized the need for paying attention to what matters to employees, and then delivering on that promise. Hence the alluring option to become the employer of choice to deliver a wide range of career opportunities, and the ability to develop top professional talent delivering work and to retain them voluntarily have become the priority for the organisations. Further by introspecting the employment advertisement of corporates it is observed that in the past the employment advertisements were just showing the job description of the vacancy, however the focus in the recent years have shifted to create a powerful image for the organization as a dream place to work. Hence when the job of the employees across corporates is more or less the same, hence the differentiating factor of one company from another is largely its employer brand image. Hence corporates intend to work on the perception mapping and of the potential talents and to seek for innovative strategies to develop their employer brands. The challenge lies in making those brand dynamics as employer deliverables. Objective: This proposed study has the following objectives: To understand the strategies adopted by corporates to build To identify the dynamics those contribute to employer branding. To study the strategies to make those brand dynamics as

their employer branding.

employer deliverables.

To attempt to provide a model of employer branding with the

expectation mapping of the potential talents.

Methodologies: The following methodologies will be adopted for this study: Type and Design of the Study: Although attempts will be taken to explore the activities taken up by the corporates to work on their employer brand image, however this study will be a descriptive research and hence will be tested with certain hypotheses. Hypotheses: The nature of hypotheses stated here are existential hypotheses. These are: 1. The employer brand matching with the expectation of the potential talent attracts the potential talent.

2. The employer brand improves employee retention.

Sample Selection: The sample is restricted to service sectors and corporates into IT and ITES, Telecom, Banking, Financial Marketing, Airlines, Insurance, Retail Data Collection: Data will be collected from both primary and secondary sources. The secondary source includes internet, brochures, pamphlets, published and unpublished reports etc, where as the primary sources include, interactions, structured and unstructured interviews, administration of questionnaire, directive brain storming etc. For the purpose of questionnaire, the instrument to be used in this study will be designed separately by the use of non-comparative itemized rating scale such as Likerts scale. The instrument will be tested for its construct validity and the reliability and validity of the instrument will be satisfactorily verified. Then the instrument will be employed for the study. Analysis: There will be quantitative and qualitative analysis to find out the implications as set in the objectives. Rationale of the Study: The study addresses the following justifications: 1. Employer branding is the acute need of the organizations at the present day concept. 2. As the leading organizations strive to employ and retain talent workforce, hence the study will provide detailed insights into some of the strategies. 3. The study is aimed for those corporates who participate in campus recruitment activities as they work on the employer branding exercise as compared to the other corporates.

4. This is aimed for a Ph.D. study because an attempt will be made to develop a model for employer branding, which will help corporates across. Proposed Implications: The implications aimed in this study will attain to detailed perspective of employer branding. This will help in understanding the most important dynamics, the corporates should focus, while attempting to establish their employer branding. This will also provide information which will help to minimize the gap between the expectations of the potential talents and the perceptions of the corporates towards employer branding Sequence of the study: The study will comprise of the following five Chapters. Chapter-1 will contain a brief introduction emphasizing on the literature overview, need or importance of the study, objective of the study, methodology of the study, limitations of the study and sequence of the study. Chapter-2 will deal with the conceptual or theoretical framework of the study. Chapter-3 will present a scenario of the employer branding activities of various corporates in India. Chapter-4 will deal with the empirical analysis, to reveal the major findings of this study, hypotheses testing and preparation of a model for employer branding. Chapter-5 will provide the summary, conclusion and suggestion there of. Conclusion: This research will help the community in several facets. This will help the corporates as well as the academicians. The prime support it will provide by helping corporates to further develop an employer brand that can help to create a nurturing culture which will enable individuals to give of their best, which in turn supports the organisation in delivering its brand promise. It will also focus into those efforts of employer-branding which will be counterproductive. This will also attempt to justify the initiatives to fit in

closely with the company's overall brand strategy. This will further highlight the innovative methods of personnel market research to control and target the employer attractiveness of corporates. Preference matching can be used

to determine the specifications potential applicants have for attractive employers and to define the selection and decision-making process of applicants as realistically as possible. The information gained from this research process, may be further turned into precise recommendations for the successful employer branding of corporates. References:

1. Business Line (2006): Business Daily from THE HINDU group of

2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employer_branding 3. http://unlimited.co.nz/unlimited.nsf/bestplaces/DBF586B4DAA30C4DCC
2571B900102D34

4. Thorne,

Kaye

(2004):

Employer

Branding,

Personnel

Today

Management Resources, Reed Publishing, Surrey.