Perception of Employer Brand - Research Proposal Example

APPLIED RESEARCH METHODS TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface & Terms of Reference 4 Introduction and Background Research 5 Aims 5 Objectives 6 Scope of Research 6 Research Limitations 7 Literature Review 7 Research Methodology and data analysis techniques 9 Data Collection method and tools 8 Resources for research 9 Research Schedule 11 Ethical issues 12 Conclusion 13 Reference 14 Perception of Employer Brand Introduction and Background Research Within last few of years, where employer branding has been accomplishment a lot of attention. The previous days the few people know about the firm, but now it’s changed the employer branding is hardly famous either formally or informally. Nowadays, all the companies realized the employer branding is efficient to attract and retain the best staff in the company. Universum group of company will be focused on the term employer in branding which defined as “Strategies designed by employers to attract the best talent from the market” and more specifically the top most talent from the market. According to the company, employer branding is become the most powerful management tool in the recent years to attract the talent and find the best employee in this field. The group machinery with more than 1200 companies shows that every year, the most of them become improved to try to promote the brands by taking different various strategies. In Britain’s different top Employer’s of 2010 awards, where the companies have been judged by the HR policies as well as their efforts to be the best performance in the world whereas, this report is based on the significance of employer branding in selection as well as recruitment process. Thus, this report will show not only the significance of employer branding in the recruitment process, but also why employer branding is so important and how employers go about branding their name in this technologically savvy day and age. Aims Most companies have been burning up lot resources when the employer branding which indicates that there will be a certain amount of value being supplementary to the companies from side to side it. According to the meeting at Conference Board (2001), the most of the organisations have seen substantial worth which is being added through owner branding which made lot of researches show where there is an employer brand name which should be help in different sustainable aggressive assistance all the way through worker preservation and hiring from the top end of the market. But now the in the face of the increasing run through in boss branding and more and more companies familiarity the advantages through this branding, but there is not much literature review on the subject. By all in all the overall aim of the study is to investigate the overall nature of employer branding in this day and age. Furthermore, another aim of the study is to investigate how Universum uses employer branding in the search of the best potential employees for their company. Thus, this will allow this report to show exactly how important that employer branding has become in an era where information can be found instantaneously at the touch of a button, which means information will be at a person’s fingertips within seconds allowing the potential employee to know everything about a company before ever hiring on. Objectives The report looks to achieve the following objectives, To investigate the impact of recession on the owner branding in distinct organisations. To investigate the values and importance of employer branding in which to attract and retaining talent by recounting a quantity of of the widespread issue faced by the new world. To show importance of employer branding which helps them to be a good and to take advantage of the technology. To show the Owner Value suggestion in manager branding process To show the role of human resources (HR) in the structure of employer branding and how important the role of HR is in determining the overall strategy of a particular field in which new employees are needed In simple words, this report will be stressed on the owner branding which makes an impact on the picture of the firm as an employer. That would be seems to be in terms of addressees perception, current and future employee observation and the value twisted from beginning to end of the employer branding process. Scope of Research The concept of employer branding comes from the assumption that human resources are the most important for success of any organisation. Investing in human capital is on the top of list for every company as only skilled employees can bring the right ideas and work to achieve the company’s goals and objectives and hence gaining competitive advantage (Barney, 1991). Barney (1991) also mentioned the importance of Resource Based View (RBV) i.e. use of resources that are rare, valuable, non substitutable and difficult to imitate. While most managers and employers think of plant, equipment, and patents contributing to the list but human resources has been a vital factor contributing to that list (Priem and Butler, 2001). To justify this, Boxall (1998) suggested that technology and highly equipped facilities can only work when a company has the right skilled employees to work on it. Research Limitations These sections determine the limitations for the investigation which is related to the topic or contributors or the sources. The research participants would be select from distinct companies and working in a different situations and skills whether their perception of employer brand in the eyes of employees and employers. It’s very important to have a difference in took part and collecting diverse varieties of responses from employees from various sources. This is essential in understanding the awareness of the subject matter as well as responses in the direction of it. Literature Review Employers have been trying hard to establish an image of the employer of choice that will help them to attract and retain the skilled employees. This is based on the assumption that establishing a distinctive brand helps in acquiring distinctive human capital. Stamler (2001) described the importance of sustainable workforce and employer brand can help in achieving it. According to Stamler (2001), a unique workforce and distinct human capital is important to sustain and be with the employer for as long as possible. Employer branding helps organisations in retaining their workforce through internal marketing (Ambler and Barrow, 1996) Ewing et al. (2002) where the research shows that even though there will be large amount of employers in almost all the world industries/sectors, it is difficult to find the right employee with right skill set. Employees help organisations in attaining competitive advantage over others in the same market place and industry “For many organisations, people are the vital sources .Their strategic significance extends beyond the resource context, however because strategy development often involves change and the same people may resist change to such an extent that it becomes impossible to implement the planned strategy .Human resource analysis is therefore essential during the development of corporate strategy and cannot simply be left as a task to be undertaken after the strategy has been agreed.” Richard (2006:238) “One possible starting point for the analysis is an audit of the human resource of the organisation-the people, their skills, backgrounds and relationships with each other. An assessment of the culture of an organisation’s people relationships. Strategic change is analysed and its forces are explained .Finally, power and politics may guide and direct the organisations in its strategy development and therefore need careful assessment. The relationship between these subjects is circular- that is, no single area is dominant and all are interrelated” Richard Lynch(2006,238) “Human resource is based on the analysis emphasis the people element in corporate strategy. People are not machines, they respond to the leadership, enthusiasm, and shared decision making .Emergent strategy is more in tune with these issues because it encourages consensus and flexible and amendable to this stance.” Richard Lynch(2006,242) These pieces of literature used in this report will help support how and why employer branding is so important in the technologically savvy era of the 21st Century. With branding of a company, employers are trying to recruit the top people in their field. The intended result for employer branding is not only the recruitment of the top people in the field, but is also the attainment of the company to be the top in its industry, not only locally but globally. The research will allow us to investigate and see exactly how a company would go about branding their company for the recruitment of the top people in their industry. Furthermore, the research will show us the results of employer branding overall. Therefore, the review of the literature used in researching this topic will show what types of branding that an employer will use in trying to gain the best of the best employee-wise. With the research used in this report, the study will be able to show organisations what is needed to compete in the recruitment field of those potential candidates that will be most coveted to be the future employees of an organisation or employer in any certain field that they are working in, such as marketing, advertising, human resources, etc. Companies, therefore, need to use different strategies when branding their organisation for the recruitment of top employees. The literature represented in this literature review will help support the research showing why employer branding strategies can differ and how the strategies can be employed to bring about the best employees to an organisation. Furthermore, this literature will also help us in research what industries need in the matter of employer branding. This literature will allow the study to show in this report how the culture of any organisation can influence what type of strategy is going to be used when branding a company for the potential candidates coming into the workforce looking for a career. Using literature to help in this report will allow the study to show why market branding is important. Furthermore, it will show how a company or organisation goes about branding themselves for potential employees. Also, the literature will allow the study to show in this report that it is vitally important to be aware of the technology that can be used in employer branding. Knowing the technology of today will increase the availability of the number of candidates that a company or organisation can go after as a potential employee. Thus, this will allow a company or organisation to increase its name throughout the global economy. Being one of the best companies or organisations in the world is what any employer wants to achieve and using the researched literature for this study will allow this report to show how important being a top company or organisation will allow potential employees to join them. This can be achieved all through the use of employer branding which this report will show through the study being perfomed. Research Methodology and data analysis techniques This subject required an inductive approach on the on the importance of employer branding and its impact on the recruitment and the retention of workers for an organisation. This inductive approach means to collect data and develop a theory which is based the different data analysis of collected data. Inductive approach: Inductive theory is mainly focus on the experiences and observations on the collected data and information, discussions and surveys. This methodology is very useful to use inductive and deductive approach is a strong idea to be study about this and report should be published. It also included the understanding about the matter where the employees at various levels and trying to ask about the importance of employer brand to them. It’s important to collect the in sequence from a number of dissimilar workforces after that we have to analyse the data. This is the main type of research in the data collection, which is qualitative or quantitative. Empirical research strategy: The Employer branding as the subject has changed over the years wherever, the recent recession and company customs, where the companies are trying to become more and more staff friendly to create a centre of attention on the best talent and hold on to them. Hence, there will be not a lot of researches available and at the same time, where it is very crucial that looking at the altering demographics and comfort of employees and employers in the current financial surroundings. This report is also included the papers which are trying to understand the problems behind all employees whom choose a particular organisation where they trying to maintain a good work life balance which maintain to choosing the performance to work life balance. Empirical research is the further description on two research philosophies i.e. Positivist Philosophy and Phenomenological Philosophy. In which of the two, the phenomenology which is focuses on facts and comprehend everything being the part of it and not as a peripheral thing. Phenomenology philosophy, obtain into deliberation a variety of circumstances and each situation is considered independently. This is the main sympathetic of changing the image of employer branding wherever the employee awareness too. The phenomenologies travel around publicity on qualitative in progression which will be gathered through worker and manager feedbacks. The methodology used in this study will be a combination of the inductive approach and the empirical research strategy. This will allow the study to gain the information needed from the different stakeholders interviewed. Furthermore, this study will use questionnaires to gain the valuable data needed to understand how employees and managers view the employer branding process from start to finish. Thus, this allows the study to show the major importance of employer branding and manager branding when it comes to recruitment of top candidates to be employed with an organisation or company. Data Collection method and tools The two different stakeholders for this research technique for this particular subject are corporate managers and different employees working on the distinct sections of the organisations. The below quoted questions are the generalised version of two generalised audience employers or employees who have to capture their indulgent of employer brand. The questions below can be used in questionnaires and interviews which depend upon the circumstances and comfort of the interviewee where the response is not partial and biased. Resources for research After analysing the recent news and happenings few organisations have been short listed. The short listed process has been carried out from the Top Employers 2010. This was to understand the importance and impact of both the employers. The research questions are designed different for the employees and employers. But they both aim to answer or achieve the same set of objectives mentioned above, Employer questionnaire: 1. What is employer branding? This is a question where the employer understanding of the employer branding which can tell us the origin reason at the back where only few companies believe in employer branding and why the setting up a strategy for employer branding. 2. What are the advantages of employer branding? Most employers are not the good buyers of advantages of employer branding whereas like attracting skilled and talented workers and the increasing the commitment levels of workers, at the same time to reduce the employee income and lessening in payroll outlay. So this is to design and identify the awareness of the employers in owner branding. 3. Does your troupe have a proper team for implementing employer branding? This means the importance of the formal teams for the employer branding in each companies, however it is important for an organisation to have this group to do this function. Hence we can understand about the employer response towards the branding function. 4. If yes, what is the organisation strategy for employer branding? This means the different areas of distinct strategies for employer branding. Employer branding is generally expressed all the way through Employer value intention which should be basically more concern about the provided reasons to employees where they have to work with the company and hence they have been undergone to competitive advantage. 5. Where do you feel the company stands in opposition to the competitors in terms of employer branding This has to check whether this company know their position in the competition in between the companies in same industry. This can assist firms in boost the employer trade name. From the list of companies we can find their true standing based on employer brand by interview the different companies and employees from the same company. Employee questionnaire: 1. Where are you working at present? 2. How long you have been working here? These first two questions mention the current organisation and total years with that organisation. In that I got different opinions from the recent employees as well as the well furbished employees who spent over than 10years in the same company as well. 3. What attracts you about your job? This is a tricky question which understands about the mentality of the worker in that organisation where they respond positively about their job. This will make analyse on the importance of employer branding. Some reactions give a sign of employees like the employer brand or the industry or the treatment to the employees. This can be used by organisations to enhance their understanding of employees and how to improve the satisfaction levels of employees using employee branding and other methods. 4. Does employer brand motivate you to join the organisation? Which is the question is intended to make out the motivators for workers. This one question alone can make understand the importance and necessity of employer brand when joining an establishment. 5. What the problem to you don’t like the job? The query aims to recognize the subject features by workers in the occupation in dissimilarity with the positives of the job declared above. The enquiry is in disparity through the above question where we want to see the significance of factors which attract employees even after the factors in this question. 6. What according to you forms an employer brand? It’s very important to know about the employee insight about employer brand and what factors will influence to employer brand according to the employees. The questions highlight the employee expectations whereas the companies may use this data and by addressing this, they can be a magnet for talent and retain them. 7. Do you think that your employer has a distinctive brand other than other companies? The question mainly focuses on the understanding of the employer’s brand which, is also depends up on whether employer brand matters or not in terms of job selection. 8. Which is your dream company and why? This will be serious question which targets to know about the employee attraction and their dreams about the company. The interest on particular employers is based on their performance and their past history whereas popularity of one employer can help to form a list which will do to help them in different questions asked to employers .i.e. (refer Q. 5 from employer questionnaire). These questionnaires are designed for the employers and employee answers could be harmonized in opposition to each other which will give the popularity of employer branding and employers who are hypothetical as employers to employment for. These data will be given the evidence that many companies mainly use employer branding which is as a strategy to attract workers and importance of these brands in the eyes of employers and workers. Research Schedule Tasks Time Required Proposal setting 16 September 2010 – 30 September 2010 Initial investigation 1 October 2010 – 15 October 2010 Interview and research with employees 16 October 2010 – 31 October 2010 Analysis of data collected 1 November 2010 – 30 November 2010 Consolidation of data 30 November 2010 – 1 December 2010 Presentation preparation 2 December 2010 – 1 January 2011 Ethical issues Human resource is the main area of each company which will recruit and select the man power to their company where they need highly skilled persons and they have to recruit them and train them to be a good and they need some cost for organisation to retain them. Stress: The work load for each company become more worst in nowadays which leads to increase the work pressure where they complain about the work load to the employers and give negative feedback means they have to work even about the night time to finish their official work. So the employees now give preference on their satisfaction and easy going culture in their working environment to release their stress which made them to be motivated and perform their best output.. Flexibility: Nowadays, the employees need to be flexible in their working hours and their work load. They need more flexibility in job timings, holidays and they have to work from their home itself and they have to work till working 24x7 operations. Work life Balance: As the work demand increases and the stress is mounting, employees have continuously failed to achieve a proper work life balance. This has been one of the most common problems when employees quit their jobs to look for a work place for an improved work life balance. All of these issues exist to contribute to the employee recruitment and retention. So all the organisations needs to survive in this situation through employer brand which should be worker friendly which made the east over to recruit and retain the talents. These questionnaires would not be keep in mind that where there is not any hurt the sentiments of both employee and employer. These surveys which are used to legally noticed without any illegal steps to collect data from the confidential sources. The surveys should be conducted legally without taking any illegal steps to gather information from confidential sources. The research contains different data, which is very confidential, in the view of an organisation, which is the integral part of the company. The answers against all the questions should be kept confidential and protected in a right manner. Wherever loosing the data result in the credibility of the employer and some legal issues can happen; so, the interviewer should be careful about these matters. Once we submitted any report in the universities which is to be confidential and they have to be take care of data collected and kept confidential if they have to be required, however the companies are not interested to publish their details or referred by other employers or students in future. Conclusion The report is to comprehend the effectiveness and importance of employer branding mainly in different categories of recruitment and retention of skilled employees. The matters behind this report focus about the studies done on the employer branding and human resources are the key factors for the success of an each organisation. These researches mainly describes the methodology where the research techniques and come within reach of that will be use for this fastidious subject and the type of data which needs to be collected and studied with the help of questionnaires, surveys and interviews where as the ethical issues and limitations identify the constraints to the research and the subject. Reference Ambler, T. and Barrow, S. (1996), “The employer brand”, Journal of Brand Management, Vol. 4, pp. 185-206. Barney, J.B. (1991), “Firm resources and sustained competitive advantage”, Journal of Management, Vol. 17, pp. 99-120. Boxall, P. (1998), “Achieving competitive advantage through human resource strategy: towards a theory of industry dynamics”, Human Resource Management Review, Vol. 8 No. 3, pp. 265-88. (The) Conference Board (2001), Engaging Employees through Your Brand, The Conference Board, New York, NY. Ewing, M.T. and Caruana, A. (1999), “An internal marketing approach to public sector management: the marketing and human resources interface”, The International Journal of Public Sector Management, Vol. 12, pp. 17-27. Priem, R.L. and Butler, J.E. (2001), “Is the resource based view a useful perspective for strategic management research”, The Academy of Management Review, Vol. 26, pp. 22-40. Stamler, B. (2001), “Companies are developing brand messages as a way to inspire loyalty among employees”, New York Times, July, Vol. 5, p. 5. http://www.universumglobal.com/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sponsored/business/britainstopemployers/7506318/Top-employers-need-top-employer-branding-Britains-Top-Employers.html Read More