Thursday 2 July 2015

Most Indian companies have fuzzy implications from the term "employer branding" WHERE DO YOU REALLY BEGIN ?

EMPLOYER BRANDING:
CAPTURING THE SPIRIT OF AN ORGANIZATION




Employer brand is about capturing the spirit of an organization in a way that engages talent across its worklife cycle (be it 36 months or 36 years) within the organization. It articulates an organization’s ‘value proposition’—the entirety of its ethos, processes, values and employee relationships, providing a new focal point for the organization.

Over the last one year, there have been several high impact changes happening due to the global economic slowdown. This is also impacted the talent market. Several organizations have done job cuts and layoffs during this period. The rules of the game are changing completely. It is no longer enough for us to continue to do more of the same, but to look at things with a completely different perspective.

Simply put, how you communicate your company's brand is just as important as what you say. At the heart of the Employer Branding philosophy is the strategy of applying the same marketing and branding practices to your recruitment and retention practices as you do your consumer-targeted marketing and branding efforts. Like customers who will leave when a promise is unfulfilled, your workforce will also leave if you fail to live up to your Employer Brand promise.

Strong support of your brand promise will make believers out of  your staff associates and build a sense of loyalty and well-being in them. This support is exhibited through the EMPLOYMENT EXPERIENCE - an environment that's a community of common interests, where communication and feedback are encouraged, creativity is rewarded and mentoring a way of life. Once you've established your Brand and the programs and methods to maintain it, you'll be on the path to becoming an EMPLOYER-OF-CHOICE. So every CEO should call his HR chief and ask “…Is our organization doing the right things to become an employer of choice?

PRE-REQUISITES FOR SUCCESSFUL EMPLOYER BRANDING

1. CORE BRAND DEFINITION –
it starts with a clear statement of the brand essence for a company which reflects the corporate vision and values. At the same time, a careful evaluation of what matters most to employees, their perception of what the core brand stands for, the values associated with it, and their expectations will help create an employer brand description that is relevant and inspirational.

2 IDENTIFY YOUR TRUE CORPORATE CHARACTER.
Creating an Employer Brand requires rigorously examining all facets of the work experience your organization delivers and making sure you create an experience that leads to an employer of choice reputation. To address all the various facets and factors that impact your employer brand, you need to involve people who represent these varied perspectives

3. SENIOR MANAGEMENT INVOLVEMENT –
Employer Branding simply won’t work without the genuine, visible support of the CEO. They should "live the brand" as well, and become credible role models for the same values.

WHAT CAN EMPLOYER BRANDING DO FOR AN ORGANIZATION?

·           When properly planned and executed, an employer branding initiative can generate lively dialogue between an employer and its employees, build a rationale for a `mutual working arrangement', and establish compelling reasons to commit to the arrangement.
·           A successful employer branding initiative articulates a reason why a potential employee should consider a particular employer.
·           Employer branding isolates the competitive advantages that one employer has over others in its marketplace in times of employment consideration.
·           Employer branding also creates meaningful and lasting reasons for employees to remain loyal to their employer.

·       HOW TO IMPLEMENT AN EMPLOYER BRANDING STRATEGY :

·           Develop a series of measurable and attainable business objectives for your employer branding campaign
·           Enlist the services of a recruitment advertising agency to focus on employer branding strategies and execution
·           Launch an information gathering process that will identify and prioritize the needs and expectations of the target groups you wish to reach.
·           Create an employer brand strategy built on a foundation of vital information and data.
·           Execute the employer branding strategy, following the creative and media guidelines
·       Monitor the progress of your employer branding strategy through a well-defined response management program. 

With Best Compliments

Dr Wilfred Monteiro

www.synergymanager.net


Wednesday 1 July 2015

"WALK THE TALK" ... IS THE BIGGEST AND WORST COMPLAINT OF THE WORKFORCE ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU HAVE TO RETAIN PRIME TALENT & TOP PERFORMERS



ENDURING  MEASURES 

FOR  EMPLOYEE  RETENTION



Losing key employees prematurely can be one of the greatest liabilities for an organization. It can be highly disruptive and expensive. Survey after survey proves that most employees are unhappy with their career development opportunities. 

The top three factors influencing an employee's thoughts of leaving an organization is:
·        "I don't have opportunities to grow or advance here." (25%)
·        "I don't like what I do, or it doesn't make the most of my talents." (15%)
·        "I don't like working for" my manager. (10%)
How do you address this strategic issue to improve business competiveness where every new innovation is copied within weeks by the competition bring you back to square one. 
Here is a list of fundamental but often forgotten or overlooked measures to bring the sharp edge to your people management systems.


LET EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION  BE A VALUE NOT A TECHNIQUE
Treat each employee with respect and as an individual, recognize the team member's contribution in front of members of management. This can reduce the tendency for employees to feel that their supervisors take all the credits. Know how to recognize your staff, not all employees want to be singled out at a gathering of hundreds of peers. The approach to recognizing team members can vary greatly by generational group. You might humiliate unintentionally a baby boomer by having them stand up in front of their colleagues while discussing their recent achievements conversely a Young Gen will appreciate the opportunity. A simple "thank you" or "nice job" or a pat in a back given in regular basis or frequency can significantly boost employee morale. Often times a team member will greatly appreciate the time you spent to find him at his desk and deliver the message personally.


CREAT A MODEL WORKPLACE
While compensation, benefits are important, the primary reasons workers leave a company are unorganized work environment, toxic workplaces, bad bosses and difficult co-workers. Every employees want is a clean, organized work environment in which they have the necessary equipment to perform well. When people and resources are not organized, physical barriers are stand in the way of being able to work efficiently, obviously it causes stress. Try to arrange things so that people have easy access to the people and resources they need. This normally works best by organizing workspaces around the people operating the process, or the types of work that they do. The idea is to make it as easy as possible for people to do their jobs. Some employee need a personal space but none is available, try blocking off areas with furniture, screens or blinds.


If noise is an issue, plants can help to soften it. Make sure that you explain to your workers why you are doing this emphasize the benefits of making the change. The quality of supervision and mentorship, by a "bad bosses" has been said so often that, people leaves people, not their jobs. Supervisors play the largest role in a team member's development and organization successes. All employees want to have Boss who's respectful, courteous, and friendly. Workers are more likely to remain with a company if they have a good and positive work environment.

LET YOU PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT HAVE A SHARP EDGE
The better person can see a question from all sides without bias  The so-called "inner circle club or good ole boys" can create unpleasant organization culture and can promote bitterness among team members, which can results devastating effect on some valued team members. The results of employee favoritism are destructive in natures because the following idea are unavoidable (Why should I perform if It will get me nowhere? Why do this if others will not? Why put in the effort if I will not be recognized? Why trust the boss if they are not fair?)


As a result, employees' morale, productivity, and relationship with the manager will diminished thus creating a disengaged employees which eventually create disengage customers. So equally treat all employees and avoid favoritism at all costs. Individuals want a perception that each employee is treated equivalently. Device or create a policy, a behavioral guidelines, or methods for requesting time off, and on any other work related decisions you can think about.

CREATE PRIDE IN WORK
Empowered personnel have a sense of responsibility and a sense of ownership, and their ideas are often recognized. So a workplaces that promote employee empowerment, power over what and how things are done, and the knowledge that they are important to the organization have enormous productivity results and less complaints. When employees think that they need their organization as much as the organization needs them, that need became best appreciated more than a paycheck and all benefit package that made them to stayed and remained at the company longer.

PLACING THE RIGHT TALENT FOR THE RIGHT JOB
Placing the Right Talent in the Right Job dramatically increases Employees retention and enhances the organization success by reducing costs in many business aspects. Discover the way in which you can improve your employees, place them in environment that they can be truly useful. A new car behind glass is just a mass of metal plastic and glass, but a car being driven is truly what a car should be. The same goes for people once developed, one should use what they have learnt so that they can make the world around them a better place for themselves and others. And with this you shall not forget to provide them training, show them advancement opportunities and help them turn a job into a career.


EMPLOYEE RELATIONS: THE KEY IS COMMUNICATION
The Human Resource department needs to be very responsive to employee questions and concerns. In many companies, the HR department is perceived as the policy making arm of management. In fact, in forward thinking HR departments, responsiveness to employee needs is one of the cornerstones. You can easily do this by actively listening to your Employee's. Give them honest feedback, both positive and negative. Clearly communicate expectations, goals, and new rules to be followed.

Let them know what is expected of them. Get them involved and keep them informed - give them any information that tells them how their work fits into the overall company effort. Let's face it. Employees really want is to have a face-to-face communication time with both their supervisors and managers. This communication helps them feel recognized and important. For the managers; You may have a lot of things to do and attend to and surely your time maybe full. But, a manager's main job is to support your peers towards the success of organization. With this act managers' leads and magnifies organization success.

EMPLOYEE RECOGNITION WITH SMALL STROKES.
Sharing small successes with your Employees' is a great way of making the workplace fun, not only by a small Friday evening tea party  is good enough, but you have to do what works best for you, If your immune system has taken a hit then maybe you can celebrate successes with a cup of coffee or hot tea with a loaf bread, it warms you up and still sets the tone of the celebration or maybe celebrating positive momentum for some time by just whistling a happy tune or tapping out as affirmation of an enhanced gratitude. The bottom line is that employee recognition works. And with these tips employee's satisfaction increases and surely enough the satisfied employees produce more and remain in their jobs longer. The truth is that recognizing employees for the job well done is one of the least expensive and easiest ways to improve the morale and employee retention in one organization plus a return on investment for a manager's time with a very minimal expense in the part of the company.


PAY PEANUTS AND GET MONKEYS
Higher salaries" Money still the number one consideration, in which employees' seek change. It is normal for us to feel that we've been paid appropriately and fairly for the work we do. So be sure to research what other companies and organizations are offering in terms of salary and benefits. It is also important to research what is the standards compensation package and benefits for the particular position, particularly health and dental insurance, retirement, and paid vacation days and time off. You must make sure that the compensation package your company has is competitive enough, so that team members will not go out and look for employers who are willing to offer more competitive compensation packages.


MEASURE WORK SCHEDULES IN RESULTS NOT IN MINUTES
Be flexible whether that means specifically giving your workers the option to work flexible hours, do some customize schedule rotations or a self-scheduling thru coordinating with some other staffs in-charge are good ways to promote positive employee morale or you could allow your staff to leave work early for a personal matter when appropriate. Workplace flexibility is hard to manage, because you need to meet operational demands. But it has to manage so the flexibility policy should be well defined and be implemented accordingly so its' good intent will not be lost.


Work-life balance application to a person's effective work-life and personal life wasn't as important in the past as it is today because, in the past, people often are able to attend easily to every major role in their life. Family is very important to all of us, when work begins to put a significant strain on one's family no amount of money will keep an employee around. So a small gestures of allowing an employee to take an extended leave once a month to watch with his daughter's or son's schools activity will likely be repaid with loyalty and extended employment with an organization.

Nothing new about these measures nothing great or too expensive.. it all begins with the belief that managing people is a sure approach to business competitive ... it begins in the boardroom and trickles down the organization. HR professionals are battling to the challenges of a transforming workforce reality the need to be aware of certain trends which impacts efforts to attract and retain talented employees. 


Best of luck
Dr Wilfred Monteiro