We all want to attract the most professional specialists to our business.
We monitor the labor market, select the best, take the last step – we offer to sign a job offer, and … we get a refusal from the candidate we want. Having at the same time competitive payment terms, interesting tasks, social package. And such situations have been happening more and more recently… We ask ourselves “why”, endlessly analyzing the labor market, and we come to the conclusion that the attractiveness / unattractiveness of the employer brand often has a great influence on people.
In recent years, much has been said and written about the practice of building a positive employer brand. Some developments are even partially applied by companies in our Ukrainian realities.
Does the issue of employer brand become more acute in times of crisis? Yes, of course, we can answer with an unequivocal statement. This confirmation is based on several factors:
First, the projected labor shortage in the coming years. According to a study by the Ukrainian Institute for the Future, a reduction in the workforce is expected in the next 10 years (by an average of 0.7%); compared to 2016, the workforce available to employers will decrease by almost 7%. Meanwhile, with the growth of the economy, the need for business in workers will grow: the number of vacancies will increase from 43.7 thousand to 44.2 thousand.
Secondly, the desire for personal freedom and a new look at the material values of young professionals, which will become more and more on the market every year. Such specialists are less interested in high material income and power. The ability to independently influence the work process and the variety of emotional experience gained in the workplace are the main bonuses in their work! This generation is driven by interest, everything new is immediately tasted. As soon as any business becomes uninteresting to them, they immediately quit their jobs.
Summarizing these factors, it can be argued that the key factor influencing the desire to work in your company will be the values and ideas that are transmitted to the labor market.
Therefore, both company executives and HR specialists in the near future will focus their work on the self-realization of the people working for them. At the same time, the task is not to forget about the long term, because the brand is formed over the years, taking into account the lifestyle and way of thinking of each individual company, business strategy in general and HR strategy in particular.
Study
What practice of building a positive HR brand in Ukrainian companies do we observe today? Wanting to get an answer to this question and communicating every day with domestic employers (be it a promising start-up or a well-known large company), we conducted a survey in the form of a questionnaire among HR specialists and company executives. The results obtained gave us the opportunity to analyze the tools and measures for building an employer brand in Ukrainian companies.
In the process of research, we found out that for the vast majority of Ukrainian companies, the issue of creating an employer brand is quite relevant. 87.7% of respondents are actively working to improve their employer brand. And this is a very good indicator, given the fact that HR is a fairly young profession in our country.
Among the main activities for the formation of a positive employer brand used in Ukrainian companies, the most common today are:
- the use of corporate attributes (business cards, badges, branded clothing, stationery, flags), since this is the easiest and most understandable way to form people’s ownership and belonging to the company, brand, idea; 72.9% of respondents use this form;
- measures to develop corporate culture that form positive emotions (team building, joint trips, organization of festive events) – 70.8%;
- individual motivational programs that form an employee’s sense of a fair assessment of his contribution to work (bonus or bonus for the best result; the title of “best in profession” based on the results of the period; training program, promotion for special achievements) is also a relevant practice in Ukrainian business — 68.8%
If we talk about the currently least common practices that Ukrainian employers noted in their answers, then here the survey participants noted the following:
- cooperation with educational institutions (35.4%);
- formation of rotation procedures within the company (31.3);
- introduction of internship programs for students (27.1%).
The respondents noted these areas as promising, answering the question: “What else would you like to implement in the company to strengthen the employer brand?”
The study shows a trend towards attracting young professionals to Ukrainian companies. This trend will increase in the near future, so the dialogue between students, alumni and companies will take on more active forms of interaction.
External PR-events (44.7%) remain relevant and necessary to increase consumer loyalty and company recognition in the market.
What are the competitive advantages for companies with a strong employer brand? Our research has shown that it is:
- increasing employee loyalty (81.3%);
- good psychological climate in the team (66.7%);
- attracting the best candidates in the labor market (60.4%).
Only 0.5% of respondents noted that they do not see any result from measures to strengthen the employer brand