Creating an Employer Brand - Critical Success Factors

In reference to Employer branding, the Business Leaders are facing tough people questions and in turn looking up to HR for an answer. Some of the common questions are -

• Do you have an employee value proposition to attract, retain and engage the very best?
• Have you effectively aligned your EVP to your Customer Value Proposition?
• Have you created a high performance culture that aligns people to execute your strategy?
  
• How aligned is your total reward strategy to business outcomes?

It is important that each of these questions is looked into separately for an answer however creating Brand of respect is important and possibly a very common concern for most Organizations. Some of the ways to do so are as follows:

• Find your USPs as an organization and as an employer; find your differentiators vis-à-vis competition
  
• Build your organization and people practices on core values
  
• Align your entire leadership to your culture and values
• Build the EVP around your particular context – no cookie-cutter approach!
• Attract the “right” talent, not necessarily the “best”
• Don’t rest on your laurels; continually benchmark and improve

Some of the Pitfalls to avoid are:

• An employer brand is not a mere advertisement or slogan
• Do not merely replicate someone else’s employer brand strategy
• Do not create an EVP merely to just attract, but also to retain

Cotributed By:
Ranjan Sarkar
Senior Vice President - HR & Corporate Communication
(Acclaris Business Solutions Pvt. Ltd.)

Guiding Principles for Organizations

We often hear about the various terminologies which creates the guiding principles of any Organizations. It is important to understand the flow and its impact.

• Vision & Mission
• Core Values
• Values – Personal & Cultural
• Value System – Personal, Communal & Corporate
• Corporate Value System – Core Values, Protected Values & Created Values
• Ethical Code
• Code of Ethics – Corporate or Business Ethics
• Corporate Tenets
• Code of Conduct – Employee Ethics
• HR Code of Conduct
• Code of Practice

Coming to the Corporate Value System, Fred Wenstop and Arild Myrmel have proposed a structure for corporate value systems that consists of three value categories. These are however considered complimentary and juxtaposed on the same level if illustrated graphically.

• Core Values:
• The 1st value category is Core Values, which prescribe the attitude and character of the Organization
• Protected Values:
• The 2nd value category is Protected Values, which are protected through rules, standards and certifications (usually related to Health, Environment, Safety)
• Created Values:
• The 3rd value is Created Values, which are the values that stakeholders expect in return for their contributions to the firm. These values are subject to trade-off by decision makers or bargaining process ( Usually explained in details under Stakeholder theory)

Coming to Ethical Code we have three distinct categories which can be explained as -

• Code of Ethics – Corporate or Business Ethics:
• A code of ethics often focuses on social issues. It may set out general principles about an organization's beliefs on matters such as mission, quality, privacy or the environment. It may delineate proper procedures to determine whether a violation of the code of ethics has occurred and, if so, what remedies should be imposed. The effectiveness of such codes of ethics depends on the extent to which management supports them with sanctions and rewards
• Code of Conduct – Employee Ethics:
• A code of conduct is a document designed to influence the behaviour of employees. They set out the procedures to be used in specific ethical situations, such as conflicts of interest or the acceptance of gifts, and delineate the procedures to determine whether a violation of the code of ethics occurred and, if so, what remedies should be imposed. The effectiveness of such codes of ethics depends on the extent to which management supports them with sanctions and rewards
• Code of Practice – Professional Ethics:
  
  • A code of practice is adopted by a profession or by a governmental or non-governmental organization to regulate that profession. A code of practice may be styled as a code of professional responsibility, which will discuss difficult issues, difficult decisions that will often need to be made, and provide a clear account of what behaviour is considered "ethical" or "correct" or "right" in the circumstances. In a membership context, failure to comply with a code of practice can result in expulsion from the professional organization

Contributed By:
Ranjan Sarkar
Senior Vice President - HR & Corporate Communication
(Acclaris Business Solutions Pvt. Ltd. )