Branding and Human Resources

What is Human Resource cycle?

Human resources (HR) as a function encompasses the entire cycle of making the potential employees become aware to “pulled” to the organization, enthuse them to join the organization, get engaged, become productive, retained, and in case of eventual separation, make it happen in an amicable manner. Here the involved entities are the organization, individuals who are the employees, and thirdly the HR function as facilitator. We shall appreciate the importance of branding for these involved players.

What is Branding?

What branding is answered by the “standing out” image, name, tag, picture, logo, word, symbol or any such or combination of any such that associates the company, product, service, the entity “associated with”. Brand is more than the product. A product or service, as is the case, is transactional and purely of utility value. Oil is an oil used for cooking purposes. When it communicates health, wellness, fitness, and active nature, it is the brand that is communicating. Deodorant is a liquid or spray used for the stated purpose. When it becomes a brand, it communicates the potential interview success formula, higher sales achievement, being attractive in a crowd, and a happening person. When a college is giving you a degree, it is of just functional and utility value. When it promises all-round development, immersive experience, better placement ability in the corporate world, it is the brand that is speaking.

Moving up from Product to Brand

Product fulfils the requirements from a utilitarian perspective. It has limited value, often physical and fulfilling nature. When it becomes Brand, it offers more than the original. It provides psychological, perceptual, and assuring dimensions. Strong positive features are communicated along with the product/service communication so that product/service and the desirable qualities get “mapped”. As all people would like to get associated with the happening and desirable, branding prompts people to get pulled, and become repeat customers. The branding effort results in increased pull, better “conversions”, and better retention of the customers. Hence, better shall be the lifetime value of the customers is the appreciable expectation.

Macro and Micro imperatives of HR branding

Beyond transactions - At a macro level the organization needs to brand itself as per the valued traits as believed by the potential employees and current employees. What holds the current employees with you and what pulls the nextgen employees to you, both are important features that should decide the branding agenda. Organization and employee relations can be purely transactional. The organization gets the clearly defined, measurable work done by employees, can measure their individual contributions and finally pay them based on their productivity etc. You as employee gave “Z” units of work and outcome, and its equivalent (commensurate money) shall be given to you, shall be the equation. Purely cut and dry, some may feel, but it is actually so transactional. Here, the assumption is employees value the money paid to them, and there is no more psychological or other value that gets nod from them for employment.

More than money received - At the macro level above assumption often is empty and falls below the logic. Getting Y salary with an ATTA company or getting the same salary with TATA company won’t be the same. The public perception of the employer plays as a huge variable. Apart from industry leadership by the company, internal leadership, employee friendliness, flexible policies, other facilitating issues, all these tilts the balance in favour of the company that branded itself so. However, this branding should be based on the fundamentals, truth, and ethical approach. Telling the untruth shall result in losing the brand of the company badly.

Brand equity - Brand equity gets built over a long term but can get damaged in no time. How the company engaged with employees during susceptible and vulnerable times speaks volumes. Employee development efforts initiated by the company help in having a positive brand. The churn witnessed and the employee attrition (for whatsoever reasons) communicate that the organization has “something wrong”. This puts the brand on a weak footing. This won’t attract good resources in the market to consider the organization as a worth considered.

Branding the function - Branding of HR function within the company is also important. HR should have the basic quality of empathy for employees, and business imperatives understanding to serve as the HR business partner. Else, HR as a function shall lose credibility inside the organization. Strategic HR shall never happen in such cases, and the HR shall remain as the “Transactional HR”.

Personal branding - At further micro level the potential employees and the current employees have the brand for themselves. How the organization is helping the employees in furthering and building their personal brand is again of interest. This also shows the organization in a more positive light. As micros add to macro, if employees have good personal branding, this adds to the corporate brand of the organization. Such efforts from an organization’s perspective also shows that the organization is not insecure.

On an open-minded closing note

Organizations must focus on fundamentals and positive aspects to become a better brand. Drawing from the game theory, let the first move be positive and again second, irrespective of the response received for the first move. Let the positive cycle build-up. May authenticity, genuine efforts, positivity, and team working prevail. Let the organization be a fair player, interested in employee productivity, engagement, well-being, and development in the holistic sense. The brand becomes more visible, the employees and the other stakeholders who come in touch with the organization become the natural brand ambassadors for the organization. The rest shall be great history.