Talent brand management and a commitment to corporate culture

November 4, 1:32 PMDenver Jobs ExaminerAndrew Hudson

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Is your organization branded as good place to work?

HR is recognizing that investing in corporate culture is a top brand differentiator in successfully retaining and recruiting top professionals

An organization’s human resources department knows that regularly losing good professionals is often traced to things that are broken with the company culture.  All too often, while companies are spending millions of dollars marketing their products and services to attract new customers, they are failing to invest in their internal culture brand  which is directly tied to the retention and attraction of top talent and an overall satisfied and productive work force.

One HR Director at a top engineering firm told me about his frustration.  “Using outside recruiters, paying interview travel fees and ultimately relocation costs, we typically spend about $85,000 to recruit this one specialized professional in a very tight market.   We do our best to identify our competitive differentiators as it relates to our culture, values, work policies, benefits and the long-term career path that is available to prospective talent.  But if the company’s culture truly doesn’t live up to what we as recruiters promised during the hiring process, we will quickly get a disgruntled, unproductive, troublesome employee that is ripe to being recruited by our competitor and my recruiter is back to the drawing board.  The company has to take internal corporate culture seriously and all too often there’s a major disconnect between how we describe that culture in our recruiting efforts and what truly exists.”

In any successful marketing campaign, compelling and successful branding must go further than clever slogans, advertisements and empty promises; talented professionals are savvy to whether the internal culture brand promise has substance and whether a company is truly a great place to work.  And it goes beyond salary.  Today's recruits are looking for a committment to company culture including diversity, social responsibility, the work policies, the work environment, flex time, interesting assignments, business longevity, achievable career paths and perhaps more than ever before, the ethics track record and proven integrity of the company itself.

For many companies, the HR and internal communications experts are working together to help create a positive internal culture as well as to communicate and market the organization’s positive culture to current and prospective employees.   Regular surveys and focus groups as well as internal 'culture audits' help organizations to better understand if their internal culture brand is resonating with their workforce.  Companies who invest in talent brand management are reaping the rewards both in the retention of talented and loyal employees as well as these same employees being front line advocates to customers and prospective recruits.

According to Kelly Womer, Vice President at Linhart Public Relations and an expert on talent brand management, “Attracting the best talent starts with retaining the best talent.  Your current employees are the strongest, most credible brand ambassadors in recruiting others and demonstrating that the company is truly a great place to work.  That’s why talent brand management needs to happen from the inside-out. Companies should first focus on building an engaged and energized group of employees who understand how they contribute to the firm’s business and financial goals.  Part of this process involves defining your culture and core values, as well as determining what motivates employees to go above and beyond within this environment.  This will go a long way toward helping your brand become a talent magnet.”

A company’s internal culture must truly be developed over time with a strong commitment from the executive leadership.  A commitment to investing in corporate culture will be apparent through the integration of the organization’s beliefs, values, purpose and mission into every aspect of its policies, procedures and overall operations.  Based on an organization’s positive corporate culture, the HR and marketing/communications professionals of the company can then identify and develop compelling talent brand messaging that communicates key motivators to attract and retain top talent.

Andrew Hudson is the founder of Andrew Hudson's Jobs List (andrewhudsonsjobslist.com).  He formerly served as the Vice President of Communications for ARCADIS, a global engineering firm and as the Senior Director of Marketing and Communications for Frontier Airlines where he managed the “Whole Different Animal” advertising campaign as well as Frontier’s internal communications and branding.  He can be reached at ahudson@ahjobslist.com.