What makes your employer stand head and shoulders above the rest? What policies and practices that benefit employees are cutting edge and unique? How are these messages dispersed to employees and potential employees?

If you readily know, and are happy with, the answers to these three questions, it's obvious that "branding" your organization is a top priority for your employer. A take-off from product branding, employer branding is a powerful tool for all aspects of employment, especially recruitment and retention.

A good example: "The Few, The Proud, The ________." If you can complete this sentence, you understand the power behind branding. The U.S. Marine Corps has established itself as a place to acquire personal growth, explains Veronica Spencer-Austin, senior vice president at JWT Specialized Communications.

"Because of its strong employer brand image, the Marines achieved its hiring quotas, and the Corps marketing costs are less than half the category-leading spender, the Army," Spencer-Austin explains. "Retention is superior compared to the other armed forces."

"Great employer brands are about great relationships," says Will Ruch, CEO and managing partner of Versant, a Milwaukee, Wis.-based marketing communications firm. "The most successful branding efforts are based on a partnership between a company's marketing and human resources professionals. Human resources brings an understanding of the workforce and internal corporate initiatives," he says, "while marketing contributes expertise in developing and communicating corporate messages. Together, they can develop and send a recruiting message that is reflective of their company and that reaches the right people."

At Chevron Phillips, the chemical and plastics giant based in Houston, Texas, marketing and human resources are working together to do what, Warren Dunn, southern region creative director for Bernard Hodes advertising firm, calls total branding. "A great employer brands starts from the inside out," Dunn says. "Part of the success of branding is a consistent platform of communication inside and out, and the fact that employees are the company's own evangelists."

When Dunn and Hodes' Creative Director Debbie Cooper started working with Chevron Phillips a little over a year ago, the joint venture between Chevron Corporation and Phillips Petroleum had just begun, which meant the creation of a new corporate culture.

"The new entity didn't have a well defined brand, look or feel," Dunn says. Working closely with Chevron Phillips' HR communications manager, Dunn and his creative team started their research from ground one. "We visited employees at the company, spent time there, and conducted off-the-cuff employee focus groups to get a sense of what it's like to work for Chevron Phillips. We were hearing a lot of similarities from employees about the 'freedoms' they had at work to grow and perform and develop their skills."

What evolved from the research is a total branding campaign with a strong message to internal employees and prospective employees, dubbed "The Chemistry of Excellence."

"A consistent trait that everyone in the company talked about was their ability to work smart, move ahead, be rewarded and have fun in the process," Dunn explains. Playing upon the chemistry periodic tables, words such as "challengum", "execellum", "drivum", were created to describe the elements of the Chevron Phillips culture. These "elements" are used on all kinds of printed material, such as internal posters that are part of the company's retention efforts, recruiting brochures, the Web site and ads in professional and trade publications.

But, Dunn cautions: "A brand is so much more than a logo; it's print and web-based material, it's how individuals are treated during the hiring process, and what employees in the existing workplace are like."

Business Case for Living the Brand

According to The Conference Board's Charles Schwab-sponsored study, Engaging Your Employees Through Your Brand, about 40 percent of the respondents said they used branding to be more attractive to existing and prospective employees. Does that really matter in a slowed economy?

By all indications, the answer is yes, for two reasons: 1) the economy will eventually pick up, meaning strong brand recognition will be ever so important when recruiting top talent, and 2) branding adds corporate value.

The Reputation Institute found that a one percent increase in positive perception can drive up market value by three percent. A 2000 Brand Value Study by Interbrand, indicates that branding accounts for more than 40 percent of corporate value in the eyes of investors.

Covering All the Bases

Building a brand has a lot to do with positive thinking. It also has a lot to do with fixing workplace processes, procedures and interactions that just don't mesh with how an organization wants to be perceived. According to David Lee, president of HumanNature@Work in Bar Mills, Maine, there are a lot of angles to cover when branding your workplace, such as:

• Make sure that what you are telling people is relevant to them. Get "wired" into the voice of your customers, says Lee. To do this, you need find out what employees and prospective employees value. Be sure to quiz the "cream of the crop".
• Tailor your message to different professions, positions and their needs. Lee notes that within an organization and among labor pools, there are different demographics to speak to.
• Make sure you are actually delivering what your customers want and the company promises. "Nothing kills a would-be employer brand than promising a great place and the delivering a nightmare," Lee says.
• Teach managers that everything matters. Every interaction with customers, every interaction with employees, every operational situation, affects the brand. Lee tells this story: "One client I worked with had a 40 percent turnover rate. At this company, job applicants have waited one and a half hours for the manager to show up for the interview, and so have new hires on the first day of work. Another client—voted number one employer in its state—is very respectful of people in the hiring process, keeping them apprised of where they are in the process. When individuals are hired, the company sends flowers to their desk with a welcome letter from the president. They also receive a special 'survival manual' titled, 'What You Really Want To Know, But Didn't Have the Guts To Ask.' Obviously, employees at the second company have a very different beginning experience than new employees of the other company."
• Tell stories because all great brands involve compelling stories. "Think Southwest Airlines or everybody's favorite Nordstrom story," says Lee. "I recommend that managers and front-line folks capture stories that express the essence of your organization, and document these. These stories should not only be part of recruiting booth conversations, but also orientation and company town hall meetings. These need to become part of your organization's lore and she be on everybody's tongue as they meet people."

Moving On and Up

Though employer branding is relatively a new trend that has captured employers' focus in the past five years, Ruch believes the next level is already here—CEO branding. With trust in leadership at a dismissal low due to such events as the Enron and WorldCom scandals, Ruch says there will be a much greater need for CEOs to come forward, and speak directly to employees about business performance.

One of the most important elements of branding is access, says Versant's Ruch. "Employees have to have access to leadership; there needs to be lines of communication to the very top."

Michelle Neely Martinez is a Leesburg, Va.-based writer and editor specializing in recruitment, human resources and workplace management issues. She can be reached via e-mail at [email protected].