Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Published by:
In conversation with
Case Studies on
Employer Branding
EDITOR’S NOTE
Let’s start by asking you a question.
Where would you say this number rates among total expenses? In
most companies it’s absolutely a Top 5 expense -- and more
commonly, as the world economy becomes driven by people and
information companies -- people is the no.1 expense. I f we are going
to spend this much money on people, it makes sense to brand this
money. No marketer would waste such a brilliant opportunity to
brand this spending on people to improve the company’s image.
And yet companies go through this amount and fail to realise the
unused potential of people spending on creating a powerful
Employer Brand. .
Published by Accor Services, Camera House, Majiwade Village Road, Thane (West), Mumbai 400 601. www.accorindia.com.
Supported by NASSCOM. www.nasscom.org.
Knowledge Partner: Hewitt Associates. www.hewitt.com. (For Private Circulation Only) 2
VIEW FROM THE TOP
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) Limited is currently Asia's largest IT services firm with revenues of US $2.97 Billion
for the Financial Year 2005-2006. As of March 2006 it has the largest number of employees amongst the Indian IT
companies (over 62,000). TCS was conferred with the best IT employer award by Hewitt Associates in 2004 and the
best place to work award by Dataquest in 2004 and 2005. We caught up with Mr. S Padmanabhan, Executive Vice
President (Head Global HR) in Mumbai to understand how TCS goes about building its Employer Brand.
Do you think that Employer recruitment advertisements, client presentations, and we were the
Branding is a fad or something that first organisation to embark upon an IT quiz concept for schools
is very necessary?
across the nation for students of 8 to 12 standard. We chose Quiz as
Employer Branding has been in
medium to enhance the IT awareness and provide a window to the
existence for a long time. It is not a
world of IT. The event has also helped us in brand building and
phenomenon peculiar to the IT
besides extending “IT for Schools”. .
Industry and in today’s context, it can be an important differentiator
to project the uniqueness of the organization.
What does the TCS Employer Brand stand for?
What is the main area of focus of the TCS Employer Brand?
Our first milestone is to be among the Top 10 IT companies globally
by 2010. All our energies are invested in this direction.
3
MEASURING HR
Main findings
4
POINT OF VIEW
Brand
External Internal
An External Brand gives information on the attributes of the An Employer Brand (or Internal Brand) gives current and potential
goods or services to current and potential buyers. It answers employees information about the employment experience and
questions like: what is expected of them. It answers questions like:
6
CASE STUDIES
Deccannet Case Study B rand positioning statement
Strong Brand, Small Company The next step was to create an Internal Brand positioning statement
Deccannet is a small company of around 200 employees that was to guide the $2 billion annual people investment.
acquired by Flextronics Software Systems. The CEO of
Southwest created an internal tagline for the emotional part:
Deccannet passionately spread the message “whatever we are
“Freedom begins with me,” to capture the personal commitment
doing is going to change the world”. This was a feeling echoed by
they want each employee to make to themselves, customers, and
everyone else in the team and company.
the company.
Here are 2 examples of initiatives to fulfill this goal:
3. Reinforce the Internal Brand
§ Deccannet did not want to compete with Infosys or Wipro.
To reinforce the Internal Brand, Southwest Airlines packaged their
Instead of opting for exclusive colleges like the IITs, they
$2 billion annual people investment into eight freedoms : Freedom
identified several colleges in and around Bangalore, hiring
to pursue good health, Freedom to create financial security,
students from rural backgrounds, who would probably be hired
Freedom to continually learn and grow, Freedom to contribute and
by a 'Tier 1' or 'Tier 2' company. Through good culture, training,
be recognized, Freedom to travel, Freedom to work and play hard,
and a 'family' kind of work environment, the company
Freedom to be yourself and have fun and Freedom to stay
philosophy helped employees generate value by learning and
connected.
applying that learning to the company.
Matched with clever and subtle branded employee communication
§ The Deccannet Foundation was also started by the CEO. The through different employee policies, recruitment material, training
purpose of this was to encourage employees to adopt a and development programmes, Southwest has managed to convey
village, set up schools, and with concerted efforts, time and a consistent brand promise to employees that matches its External
money bring about a change. Brand promise of freedom to customers.
When the company was acquired by FSS, the latter realized that Accor Case Study
instead of being overjoyed about joining a big brand, the Employer Branding Communication
With 168,000 people in 140 countries, Accor is the European leader
employees' loyalty lay with the small yet strong brand that was
and one of the world's largest groups in travel, tourism and
Deccannet. Such is the power of a strong Employer Brand.
corporate services, with two major international activities: Hotels
(Sofitel, Novotel, Mercure, Ibis, Motel 6) and Services to Corporate
Clients and Public
Institutions managed by
South West Airlines Case Study
Accor Services.
Consistent Brand for Employees and Customers
What began as a small Texas airline has Accor has launched a new
grown to become one of the largest communication campaign
airlines in America. Southwest Airlines to attract talent in hotel and
Inc. has been profitable every year services: “YOUR SMILE,
since 1973. It has 31,000 fun-loving YOUR FUTURE”.This
employees and describes itself as the campaign attends to
only company in America that considers “sense of humor”, a critical Accor’s needs in terms of recruitment all over the world (More than
hiring criterion. Here is how Southwest Airlines went about 22,000 recruitments in 2005).
personalizing the Southwest experience for employees, just as it
Accor’s Employer Branding has always featured smiling employees
does for customers.
focusing on three prominent themes:
1. Create the right E xternal B rand positioning statement § Leading Group
§ Professional ladder with many career opportunities
The Marketing Department that guides $ 100 million in marketing
§ Mobility and Trainings, a reality
budget provided Southwest HR with the External Brand positioning
statement around freedom. The External Brand positioning I n line with the previous HR catch lines (“The future smiles on you”;
statement has a rational part and an emotional part “At Accor, one smile leads to another”) this campaign features
Accor employees smiling. It places the candidate as an actor of his
Here is how the rational part defines freedom: “Southwest Airlines own evolution and shows the reality of the professional ladder within
makes it possible for more people to experience things firsthand: to Accor. The campaign also highlights the diversity of Accor in terms
see and do more things more often than ever before”. This is of countries, brands, positions and cultures through portraits and
because of their fundamental commitment to always provide low professional success stories.
fares to the places people want and need to go.
7
NASSCOM HR INITIATIVES
business goals of the organizations they are a part of. § Overcoming challenges related to manpower shortages
§ Maintaining India's competitive edge in the “people's space”
Broadly speaking, the aim of the Summit will be to outline strategies § Successful performance management strategies for large
that will help India create an HR eco-system, characterized by better organizations and SMEs
quality IT professionals, global-class HR leaders and lower churn.
The Summit, through its myriad sessions and discussion forums,
will also spotlight the strategies that will help forge industry-
Special Workshop on Leadership Development and Talent
academia linkages and better tune India's learning environment
with the needs of the IT-ITES industries. Architecture @ NASSCOM HR Summit 2006 by Prof. Scott A. Snell,
Professor Human Resource Studies; Director, Executive Education at
The Summit will also get into detailed discussions on the challenges
Cornell University / ILR School.
facing HR and issues such as the evolving role of recruitment
companies, skill set development through Certifications, models
for building industry-academia partnerships and mentoring for Tier
II and III educational institutions on how they can create a world-
class knowledge pool.
8
GOOGLE TALK
Google is consistently rated as one of the most preferred employers on premier campuses in both engineering
and non-engineering fields. HR Connect caught up with Mr. Manoj Varghese, Director for Human Resources at
Google India. Coincidentally, Manoj is also the first senior manager hired by Google in India.
What does your Employer Brand Brand. Organizations that build effective Employer Brands will be
mean to employees and potential able to identify the key sources of talent and the key competencies
hires? required in talent that they seek.
Google's mission is to deliver the It is important not only to build a great Employer Brand for attracting
best search experience by making people, but for retaining the best talent as well. The sum of
the world's information accessible experiences that an employee has, or a candidate has defines the
and useful. We are all about Employer Brand rather than any slogan or advertisement.
customer experience,
engineering excellence, innovation and freedom to work on projects
that impact millions and millions of people. All that we do is to View points
connect people and information. Hence we invest in creating
compelling products that meet these needs. Our employer brand What initiatives would you recommend to startups and small
hence, means customer experience, access to information, companies in creating an Employer brand?
innovation, engineering/customer service excellence and freedom Be consistent in your message to the market and the internal
to our employees and potential hires. experiences that you provide your employees with. Building
credibility with the experiences that you promise through the
How does your organization approach Employer Branding? What Employer Brand becomes important since a large number of
kind of brand building initiatives does your organization plan to companies are focusing on the few talent available. Identify
sustain your Employer Brand?
the sources that provide the maximum ROI and concentrate
Our employment brand is an extension of our corporate brand.
on that rather than spreading oneself too thin. Leveraging
Google's ultimate goal is to be the Gateway to the Internet for people
employee referrals as a source by ensuring the employees
all over the world no matter where they are located, what language
experience the brand and recommend the best people .
they speak or how they access the Internet (beyond a personal
computer and a browser to hand-held devices as well).
Should one create an original Employer Brand or pick and
We work very closely with academic institutions, encourage interns,
choose the best characteristics from practice E mployer
sponsor and conduct coding contests, conduct technical talks,
B rands?
sponsor research in specific areas and support activities that
Benchmarking helps but the key to having a strong, credible
encourage creativity, innovation and encourage engineering
Employer Brand is to look internally and build your Employer
excellence. Examples of some of the brand building activities will be
Brand based on what experiences you are providing your
§ India Code Jam that we conducted in 2005 and 2006, which is a employees. A brand created only to attract is not sustainable
technical coding contest. if you are not able to retain people and loose credibility as an
§ Essay Writing Competitions, as for our Ad Words process in employer.
Hyderabad we look for superior English writing skills
Employer Branding is not as important as Talent Branding.
What is the role of HR in sustaining an Employer Brand in your Employer Branding encompasses Talent Branding and any
organization? dissonance will result in dilution of Employer Brand and
Employer Brand cannot be different from what the employee higher employee attrition rates.
experiences are inside Google. The culture, the unique work
environment that we have, has been put in place by Larry Page and
Sergey Brin right from the day they started the company and is
practiced and evangelized by our executives. HR's role is to align Pow
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with the increase in attrition and the war for talent heating up? Or
is it just a fad that will die quickly?
In the crowded market place, where demand-supply gap for
employable talent is growing everyday, Employer Branding is going
to assume greater importance in the years to come in India. The best
“ The sum of experiences that an employee has,
or a candidate has defines the Employer Brand
candidate has a number of choices available to them and the
employer needs to differentiate themselves with a great Employer
rather than any slogan or advertisement.
”
9
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