THE IMPORTANCE – AND THE FRAGILITY – OF AN EMPLOYMENT BRAND IN FINANCIAL SERVICES
T: 1300 852 788
What is an employment brand?
Minchington defines an employment brand as “the image of your organisation as a great place to work in the minds of current employees and key stakeholders in the external market…”[i] In financial services, then, your employment brand is what attracts and retains funds managers, investment specialists and the wide array of professionals in your firm as compared with another. In a sector with high mobility and so much intellectual property and business value tied up in individuals, your employment brand is a critical factor in building competitive advantage.
How is an employment brand built?
There are many commentators and specialists in the field of employment branding – and a great deal of advice is offered about messaging in websites and in organisational literature, and in the recruitment process.
We think a key driver of an employment brand is in what employees say to others about their real experience in the firm. This includes what those who have left say as well. This is the most powerful source of communication about the “real” brand of an organisation.
A Corporate Leadership Council paper on the employment value proposition observes that “employees are the most trusted communication channel of potential new hires…”, and then that “the three keys to increase the number of employees advocating for the organisation are “trust, flexibility and organisational values”.[ii]
This is worth thinking about in a sector where so much significance is attached to performance rewards, and short and long term incentives. These things may be needed to create what might be termed base level competitiveness - but they won’t build a great employment brand.
Social and business networking has made the business community “smaller”. People talk with each other much more readily across organisational boundaries. With social media, firms have less control over this message than they ever did before. In Australia, there is a substantial network of former staff who have left large iconic firmsand still talk with each other after many years in other firms.The employment brand of corporates is significantly influenced by what people in these networks say to each other.
What leaders do is important
Through their work on employee engagement, Hewitt Associates found that leadership contributes to “best employer” status in the marketplace. “(It requires) a commitment …not about saying the right things, but exhibiting behaviours and making decisions that clearly signal people are their greatest asset.” They established that during times of significant change, leadership is often elevated to the number one or two driver of engagement. [iii]
Also important are the values demonstrated in what the firm does…
The Hewitt research goes on to identify that people are looking for the organisation to align with their individual values. They observe that “the top three brand characteristics as Best Employers are “caring, recognition and career advancement”. The best employers deliver on their promises to employees. Two critical promises are:to betreated like a valued member of the organisation, and, to have expectations met in relation to development.
The Corporate Executive Board research reaches substantially the same conclusions. It identifies as the overarching drivers of commitment, once individuals are employed in a firm:“development opportunities, future career opportunities and respect.” [iv]
It is this last point about respect which we believe is critical. Employment is very much a psychological “contract” which goes well further than a title, a job description and pay.People contribute and stay around for as long as they are truly valued at a personal level – and this applies even amongst highly skilled professionals. An employer brand is about the emotional connection people have with a company, more than any printed formal statements about what the company stands for or about contract terms.
Restructuring
Restructuring decisions, especially those which see people let go, hit hard at this contract. Research by the US based Academy of Management in 2008 found that restructures were followed by a 31 percent increase in post-downsizing voluntary turnover rates. The research sample consisted of employee-friendly companies that were invited to be included in the Fortune magazine “the 100 best companies to work for in America”. This is of particular significance in a sector like financial services, where retention of core skills and experience in times of change is critical in retaining ratings and investment mandates.
So how do you retain a strong employment brand when restructuring – i.e. in the face of breaches to the actual and implied promises made to staff?
Here are four things to think about:
- Acknowledge to yourselves that you are in fact breaking implied contracts of significance to individuals.
We isolate ourselves from this reality by saying “this is life” and “people have to live with change”. Some firms adopt a transactional, “let’s get on with it” demeanour. Restructuring is managed firmly without compassion.
The most important reality is thateach person having to leave is absorbing huge issues internally: issues of self-definition, financial worries, status and the daily affirmation of relationships at work now being taken away. This truth applies at all levels in a professional hierarchy.
Recognising all of this is the most important step in retaining a“human” employment brand. Recognition leads to compassion, care and mitigation of the damage otherwise attached to the employment brand of the firm.
- Make a thoughtful and scrupulously fair process the first and most enduring priority. In each step of the restructuring project, this priority needs to be the first to be addressed and then exemplified in the behaviours and procedures.
- Plan a communication process, firstly around directly affected people and then around how those indirectly affected will be engaged.
With those directly affected, think about the needs and interests of each individual. Manage each step in the process with compassion and dignity. Work out a tailored approach for each individual.
Ensure that those who must leave are fully supported in rebuilding their careers. Test career transition suppliers: meet the consultants involved to ensure that the support services do deliver a coaching based service where senior people leaving your firm are matched with appropriately senior consultants in open ended, tailored programs.
Within the wider community of your organisation, the rules in effectively communicating significant change are
-communicate face to face and often
-be honest
-listen to and engage everyone at an individual level: equip leaders to do this.
- Look after the “survivors” as well.
Support their disruption and concerns as well. Explain the support being given to those who have left, engage them also in staying in touch and offering their support to those who must leave. Enrol them in designing the future work of their area.
An employment brand exists in the minds of prospective, current and past employees. The activity which creates a strong employment brand embraces the full spectrum of initial interviews, appointment, induction, ongoing practices within a firm (especially in the behaviours of leaders), and what happens in the most testing of times: a restructuring.
Achieving a strong employment brand at times like these rests on taking care of those whose “contract” has been broken.
T: 1300 852 788[i]Brett Minchington2010 Employer Brand Leadership – a Global Perspective, Collective Learning Australia
[ii]Summary of Conclusions, page ix in “Attracting and Retaining Critical Talent Segments:, Corporate Leadership Council Research, 2006
[iii]“What Makes a Company a Best Employer” as published on the Hewitt Associates website.
[iv]The above-referenced Corporate Executive Board paper, page 43.