HR & BUSINESS I

Creating a

compelling
employee value
proposition
I

BY AKHILESH MANDAL & DR. SANDEEP K. KRISHNAN

mployer Brand' is a concept that has

gained popularity in recent times.
Organizations across the globe have
started taking the term seriously and
the trend is ardent in India too. Just as a
corporate or product brand symbolizes
certain qualities, perceptions, image and
experience to its customers, an employer
brand represents the same to the employees,

The employer brand lends an identity

to the company, which represents its
core values and indicates how it carries
on its business and what value it
delivers to its customers, partners,
employees and other stakeholders.
current or prospective. Employee Value
Proposition (EVP), the core of an employer
brand, defines what you most want people
both inside and outside your organization, to
associate with you as an employer. It

38

August 2013

encompasses the bouquet of distinctive brand

benefits that you offer.
The employer branding journey may start
from identifying the type of people that you
as an employer want in your organization to
be successful. As Richard Mosley, a pioneer
and authority in Employer Branding, puts it,
to 'get the right people on the bus'. For some
companies, it can get very specific, e.g., Apple
wants
people
who
are
'natural
communicators with a passion for technology'
or P&G looks for people who 'thrive on
challenges'. Many global organizations such
as P&G, McDonald's, Coca Cola, Accenture,
Johnson and Johnson, Yum, Virgin, and Indian
organizations such as RPG, Aditya Birla
Group, Tata, Infosys, Genpact, Airtel have
invested heavily in employer branding
initiatives. Every organization intrinsically has
an employer brand whether it realizes it or
not. It is there for people and customers at
large and as well as for employees. You do
not own it but you can influence it. Therefore
, the essence is how clearly you define the
EVP on which you would build your employer
brand.
Having
defined
your
brand,

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I HR & BUSINESS
communicating the same and
managing it on an ongoing basis is
way beyond just advertising through
clever creative expression. This
process actually centers around
delivering people experiences in tune
with the brand promise, through
leadership behaviour and people

focus is to enhance employee

experience, reduce image reality gaps
and project differently as an
employer to both internal and
external stakeholders. Secondly,
organizations across the globe,
maintain consistency in their
employer brand experience and it is

anywhere between 12 to 36 months".

Sugata Sircar, CEO, Gujarat Gas
mentions, "Research shows that
people want to be in fulfilling jobs,
which offer a set of values, monetary
and non-monetary. If you believe
this, you would believe in the need
for employer branding." Another
interesting insight on employee value
proposition comes from Samit Aich,
Executive Director at Greenpeace,
"This is a little complex and we
have had numerous discussions,
including at the Board level.
Our total work proposition
is the sum of median
market salaries,
flexi work,

processes; and
in some cases perhaps even
business processes, at every
touch point between the
organization and its people, both
external and internal to the
organization. So it is far more serious
than 'window dressing' to move up
the ranking of a 'best employer to
work for'.
As Mervyn Raphael, Managing
Director of People Business
mentions, "Employer branding as a
concept is evolving in India. I see
two prominent trends. First, there is
a paradigm shift from the situation
when branding was meant only for
external communication, now the

reflecting in India too. An employer

branding initiative might take
anywhere between five to six months
to yield short-term results, and
different touch points from 'Hire to
Retire' will have an impact from

thriving and vibrant internal culture,

and huge international exposure,
deep functional exposure at an early
stage,
exciting
sabbatical
opportunities, international stints,
and the most important feeling that

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August 2013

39

HR & BUSINESS I

CASE STUDY

AKHILESH MANDAL
Akhilesh Mandal, a senior partner
with a global consulting firm and
an accomplished consultant, has
been partnering with several
global and Indian organizations in
the areas of employer branding
and leadership development.
With three decades of experience,
he brings a rare combination of
business and human capital
understanding in his approach to
craft solutions to enhance
organizational performance.

DR. SANDEEP K. KRISHNAN

Dr. Krishnan has worked with
organizations of repute like IBM,
Infosys, RPG Group, and Ernst
and Young. He has been a Head
of HR and has worked in various
HR transformation projects
including employer branding
projects. He is a certified Global
Professional in Human Resources
(GPHR) and has a certification in
executive coaching from
University of Cambridge. He is a
fellow of IIMA.

40

August 2013

The Indian organization of this fast growing Quick Service Restaurant

MNC was facing severe attrition. There was a need to plan its HR
strategy, which would help them to treble the growth over the next
four years. A large proportion of employees were in the age group
of 18 to 22 years. Attracting people in this age group was not a
challenge, however, retaining and engaging the trained employees
was getting increasingly difficult, especially with tough competition
from the BPO and retail sector.
The objective was to look at the unique needs of the target segment
and dig below the surface for the main reasons for attrition and the
drivers for engagement and retention Another goal was to find and
create a distinctive employee experience for the target population.
This involved:
G
Ethnographic study to identify aspirations of the young workforce
Deep leadership commitment
G
Focus on developing life skills and professional skills for GenYers
G
Identifying and developing signature practices with global impact
G
Significant increase in retention
G
Dropping attrition to a one-third

CASE STUDY
This organization, with more than two dozen TV channels in India,
was re-branding its customer brand including its logo and identity. All
of the channels followed a different culture with very little in common
with the parent brand. The values of the organization were not clearly
articulated too. The organization wanted to unify its various TV channels
with a common culture and create a differentiated employee
experience.
The approach was to look at the 'glue' and the common purpose
that binds the organization together. Given the current re-branding of
the corporate brand, close alignment of the EVP with values and
brand positioning was recommended with new corporate brand
commitment. It also looked at how the leadership team could
demonstrate forward momentum in translating the current weaknesses
into values-driven strengths.
G
Studied transcripts of the interviews with stakeholders conducted
by a global branding agency as part of the re-branding exercise.
This was followed by a series of discussions with leaders and
FGDs with employees in the organization.
G
Thematic analysis of inputs from primary and secondary research
to arrive at values and behavioural indicators describing the 'values
in action'.
G
Leadership focus to forward momentum in translating current
weaknesses into values-driven strengths.
G
Validation of values and EVP through leadership discussions,
employee FGDs and 'proof points'.

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I HR & BUSINESS
they have the opportunity to bring about systemic
change at the highest levels in the country."
Each employer branding initiative is unique. There
are various business reasons to define or re-align the
employer brand proposition to attract and retain the
desired talent and continue to deliver high performance
business results. Some of the typical reasons are:
a) Growth in business requires employers to clarify
their value proposition. For example, Manappuram
Finance limited has grown rapidly in the past decade.
As Dr. V. M. Manoharan, Director mentions, "There has
been a concerted effort to build a strong trusted brand
with its customers. Along with that we wanted
employees to be a key partner and have made
considerable efforts in communicating and introducing
practices that are employee friendly. The
transformation of employee perceptions and their
productive engagement are to be in the desired
direction."
b) Change management requires employers to redefine
the value proposition to a diverse set of business or
regions or talent profiles; this is often true for but not
necessarily limited to, companies growing inorganically
through the M&A route.
c) Re-invigorate the changing competition / context
require employers to articulate the value proposition
better.
d) Realignment of the core value proposition in a
complex context where multiple entities work separately
but need a common outlook for employees. As Dr.
Arvind N. Agrawal, President HR and Corporate
Development at RPG Group articulates, "Employer
branding ensures people have consistent experiences
across businesses and geography, which is vital for
talent management in large businesses".
A typical employer branding engagement starts with
business need assessment followed by research in terms
of evaluating the current brand proposition. This looks
at the perception regarding the employer in multiple
areas related to business, culture, career, HR practices,
opportunities, benefits, etc. A good research unravels
the subtle challenges of engagement and employee
value proposition. Inputs are taken from internal and
external stakeholders - new employees, long- time
employees, middle management, vendors, campuses,
head hunters, media. This helps to get a full 360 degree
view of the organization. The key element then is to
distill the key differentiators for the organization both
current and future that the organization needs to build.
Downstream activities are to be aligned to the key
employee value propositions.

Benefits of employer branding

Organizational identity: Employees strongly identify
with the unique proposition provided through both
tangible and intangible benefits. This leads to a healthier
psychological contract and helps in the creation of a
single identity during phases of changes/growth
G
Better articulation: Consistent articulation and
G

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August 2013

41

HR & BUSINESS I
communication of employee value
proposition both internally and
externally helps greatly
G
Gap identification: It helps to
brings clarity in areas of
improvement for the organization
G
Aligned efforts: Efforts are put
in key areas of improvement/
segments that requires action
G
Attraction and retention: Helps
in better attraction and retention of
talent by identifying top drivers
G
Overall cost of engagement:
Overall cost of engaging employees
reduces as efforts are more aligned
and clearly articulated, as the
organization delivers what it
promises
As Prof. P. Vijayakumar,
Chairperson of Center for Social and
Organizational Leadership, TISS
mentions, " An effective EVP not
only helps in attracting the right
talent, but it can also be a strategic
tool for aligning personal goals of
employees with the organizational
goals. This alignment enhances
'employee embeddedness' and
contributes significantly to retaining
the employees. Communication too
must be consistent both internally
and externally, and managers must
ensure that indicators that represent
EVP are operationalized periodically
to make EVP relevant and effective."

Ways to improve EVP

Having got the core value
proposition right, the internal and
external messaging and change
management is the key. This will be
an effort from 'Hire to Retire'. For
example, one of the organizations
wanted 'Youthful outlook' as a key
employee value proposition. This
meant that the organization was able
to attract young talent, had a
supportive work environment for
them, their aspirations regarding
careers were met, and they would
stay and grow. This was a stretch
for the organization as it had a
legacy of more than 30 years and
the average age was well over 35.
The organization focused on
bringing in more talent from
management and engineering
campuses and employees were
given higher responsibilities from

42

August 2013

The book The Employer Brand

Bringing the best of brand
management to people at work is a
seminal work in the area. Written by
Simon Barrow and Richard Mosley,
the book brings in various concepts
of
employer
branding
and
substantiates with case studies of
well-known global employer brands.
Readers can get a good idea of how
the concept has evolved. Starting from
the business case for employer brand
management, this book will give a
360 Degree view of implementing an
employer branding exercise.
the start of their career. The
induction program was revamped
to make it appealing to the target
audience -outbound programs,
week end partying, movie based
learning, that made it more
contemporary. Senior leaders were
given mentoring responsibilities so
that the new talent easily navigated
the organization. More efforts were
put to change the work environment
and its facilities. The workplace was
made more colorful and new,
number of cabins was reduced and
there were more collaboration and
meeting rooms, a play zone that
allowed employees to have
recreation events, play pool or
foosball, and conduct Friday gettogether was built. An internal
employee portal and careers section
of the company website was
revamped to send the right
messages. During communication
with management, the new joinees
were assured of fast track career
opportunities if they showed
promising performance and
potential. Interestingly, this helped
retain more than 90 per cent of the
young talent and created a new
culture in the organization. In the
quick service restaurant case, one
of the critical aspects that appealed
to the youth was the opportunity to
invest in life skills. Since they came
from the lower strata of society, they
believed that a career with the

restaurant would be an investment

in building their competencies to
make them job-ready for life.

To conclude
It is critical that in an employer
branding exercise, all 'brand
signatures,' i.e., the processes which
reinforce the proposition in a
distinctive manner, all 'brand
busters', i.e., the processes which
undermine the proposition, and the
'hygiene factors' must be identified
and acted upon. Employer branding
as a concept and new age practice
has evolved over the years and has
become the umbrella and focus for
development of core employee
contract and engagement. EVP has
become the guiding light for aligning
values, culture, engagement,
communication, and HR processes
and practices. The key is to
understand that employer branding
is an effort to understand the reality
of current value proposition,
amplifying the strengths and
working towards achieving the
stretch areas. Richard Mosley,
stresses the point that the internal
and external branding should be in
sync to meet and exceed the
expectation of employees. A wellresearched and developed employee
value proposition and effective
activation and implementation of
the same can truly build an
HC
employer of choice.

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