Human Capital | June 01 2008  | pg 16

An employer brand goes far beyond mere window dressing. lain Hopkins looks at how organisations can utilise their brand to recruit and retain the best

Why does brand matter? BMW Group Australia provides a clear example of the power of branding. Recent research from Australian universities on the top brands that IT and engineering graduates want to work for ranked BMW as ninth out of 500 companies. Ironically, BMW has not hired IT or engineering graduates for the past five years -- but such is the power of the BMW brand.

"People just want to say ‘I work for BMW. I want a business card with that logo on it’. We’re not always the highest payer in the market; we’re not always the easiest place to work, even though we have quite progressive policies. But the brand translates into employees wanting to work for the company," says Adrian Dolling, general manager of HR at BMW Group Australia.

While Dolling jokes that when he places a recruitment advertisement all he needs to do is add the BMW logo and he will be inundated with applications. The power of the brand flows through to other crucial areas such as employee engagement and satisfaction. Dolling cites corporate fun runs as being typical of the heart-on-the-sleeve love for the company. "When our employees do a triathlon they don’t just show up in their old gym clothes they’re wearing BMW labelled clothes and they are doing it in teams. They feel it’s more than company - it’s a family, a band of brothers. People idolise the company and all it stands for."

While being perceived as a ‘sexy brand’ certainly has its advantages, there are steps all organisations can take to ensure they are putting their best foot forward when it comes to attracting candidates (and retaining employees) through their employer brand.

Every organisation has one

The first misnomer to clear up when it comes to branding is to assume that just because an organisation hasn’t focused any attention on their employer brand, doesn’t mean they don’t have one. In many ways, the perceptions of an employer brand are formed in the same way as a consumer or product brand. Justin Papps, director of Mettle Group, explains: "If you’ve got a client, you’ve got a brand because as soon as someone has any some sort of interaction with you they are forming an opinion of you, which then shapes their brand experience.

Papps adds that the number one reason for someone choosing one brand over another remains recommendation from friends or family. "They’re the ones controlling your brand, not necessarily your marketing director. The marketing director can help shape it but they’re not going to control it. That applies to the employer brand more than anything else. Think about how many times you’ve been asked where do you work?’ and then ‘what’s it like to work there?’. Word of mouth is very important."