In the war for talent, every company wants to present the best possible image of itself. Sometimes at the expense of the truth, but often at the cost of the consistency of its various policies. At the risk of paying for it in the medium, if not the short, term.
The employer brand is promoted as a marketing concept, a tool to sell one’s image better. People talk about brand communication, brand image, even brand value. So when you have to be chosen in a competitive context, the “employer brand” has to sell. And you look for the best possible label, especially in the age of social media, which spread, amplify – and sometimes distort – at very high speed.
Self-marketing of another kind, at organisational level.
Self-marketing
Marketing has always been the object of suspicion. Devised by the top students of the best business schools, in-house as in agencies, its output is sometimes seen as out of touch with the reality of products – a gap fully felt by sales and production teams.
Of course, employer brand communication is generally run by the human resources department. It is a recruitment lever, so it is entrusted to recruiters.
Who are not always the best salespeople. And who therefore rely on brand specialists… back to the “marketers”, directly or indirectly, depending on the company and its internal balances.
“Espoused theories” and “theories-in-use”
But contrary to some criticisms, the perceived gap is not always a matter of idealism synonymous with a disconnect between “head office” and “the field”, a lack of professional rigour, or even dishonesty.
Corporate life is always shaped by the coexistence of two worlds, at personal as at collective level. What Chris Argyris calls “espoused theories” and “theories-in-use”: everyone easily sees themselves, in all sincerity, as matching a desired image that is nonetheless out of step with reality.
And effectively reducing this gap always requires a benevolent third-party view, external or internal (even if one can always suspect a colleague from another department of having opposing objectives). Because complete detachment is, a priori, impossible (unless one cultivates perfect schizophrenia).
For the teams in charge of designing and promoting the employer brand, the pitfall is the same. Even in good faith, for lack of perspective or of exposure to others’ views, it is tempting to highlight the most flattering, most attractive aspects.
Yet the negative consequences of adopting an “idealised” employer brand can be dangerous, even devastating:
- for future recruits, the main targets of the marketing effort: once in the company, they will face a reality that does not match what they “bought”. They will leave – and we know the cost of a failed recruitment, as of a “dissatisfied customer”. Or they will stay but grow bitter – at the cost of their capacity for commitment and contribution, and possibly of a deteriorating social climate;
- for existing staff, who may experience the external campaign as something “detached from reality” that also spends resources that are scarce by nature, at the expense of those they are waiting for – at the cost of everyone’s cohesion and commitment. Or who, measuring the gap between the ideal presented and their own reality, will make it a matter of social demands;
- for internal project leaders, whose content will be neglected or even contradicted by their colleagues;
- and finally for customers, who will not find in their interactions with the company’s representatives the promises made.
Because in the age of digital and social media, “targets” are no longer segmented, but permeable. So all arguments must be consistent, so that they can be shared, if need be, with everyone.
Bringing experts and users together
The “employer brand” – if this fashionable term is here to stay – cannot therefore be an object in itself, but one of the many expressions of a consistent, true and shared professional identity. A brand, perhaps. But even more, a common reality. And therefore carried by everyone, from senior management to the most operational teams. Not a technical object, but a lever for mobilisation.
And to be shared by as many people as possible, in this case as in so many others, this identity must be revealed and formalised through a dialectical process bringing experts and users together:
- experts in marketing, communication and all the ongoing projects the company wants to showcase, including of course in human resources;
- the “users” of these future human resources – not the expert departments but above all their colleagues, as well as their managers, even their partners and customers.
What will they want, and what can they carry and promote together? Each in their own field, each in their own context:
- the experts, in professional networks, career tracks, the steering of cross-functional projects…;
- the users, day to day, in operations. And also on social media, in organised or spontaneous promotional contexts; or sometimes defensively, when the company is attacked.
A resilience factor too
Because faced with a false “image” that a hostile actor might try to impose – and which could harm the company if it took hold in most people’s minds – what better answer than the reality embodied and promoted by the staff themselves?
Entrusting the employer brand solely to image or recruitment specialists does not just deprive the company of effective means of action. It also weakens the company itself, by depriving it of a key resilience factor in the face of “accidents” born of the inevitable hazards of production, or of an ever-uncertain environment.
So, between an “ideal” employer brand and fertile ground of shared strengths, which do you prefer?
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