The benefit of Employer Branding is gaining a competitive advantage on the employment market. Each further development stage is more demanding on know-how, resources and execution. Trends in Employer Branding in 2017 in the Czech Republic will carry out in that spirit. And what can we look forward to in Employer Branding in 2017 in the Czech Republic? Just like last year — look at my Employer Branding trends prediction in 2016 and rate how well I've polished my crystal ball last year — I haven't done any big survey nor did I take over the following 5 trends from foreign news articles. It's simply an intersection of year-long debates with company owners and HR professionals, of opinions in numerous articles and surveys, and of my own vision.

1. EMPLOYER
BRANDING
TRENDS
in the Czech Republic
Petr Hovorka
BrandBakers
2017

2. The benefit of Employer Branding is
gaining a competitive advantage on
the employment market. Each further
development stage is more
demanding on know-how, resources
and execution. Trends in Employer
Branding in 2017 in the Czech
Republic will carry out in that spirit.
The conflict on the employment
market is raging ever so intensely.
There have always been too few top
people but even the average ones
are hard to find these days. Former
miners are getting retrained as
coders, shop clerks as welders
and pastry cooks as operators in
car factories (how sweet will those
cars be). It's hardly worth talking
about any connection of education to
business, just like that of politicians to
reality. Our Prime Minister wants, just
in these days, to deal with low wages
in Ahold, privately owned Dutch retail
company. At a time when the market
is the sheer lack of job seekers.
The range of weapons used in this
war is wide – from air rifles to heavy
calibers. From better recruitment ads
and career websites all the way to
including employees in company
culture strengthening projects and
referral programs.
Employer Branding Trends in 2017
1.

3. Companies who need to fight with
heavy weapons are starting to
plunge in Employer Branding. Or
they've already started long
ago. Such companies don't want to
leave anything to chance. They want
to control their business with a long-
term vision. They want to underpin
what the company competition
advantage will be more and more
about – about people, their talents,
and the teams into which they'll be
able to assert their talent.
And what can we look forward to
in Employer Branding in 2017 in
the Czech Republic? Just like last
year — look at my Employer
Branding trends prediction in
2016 and rate how well I've polished
my crystal ball last year — I haven't
done any big survey nor did I take
over the following 5 trends from
foreign news articles. It's simply an
intersection of year-long debates with
company owners and HR
professionals, of opinions in
numerous articles and surveys, and
of my own vision. The trends are not
listed in order of importance.
Employer Branding Trends in 2017
2.

4. It all began once upon time with the
founders handing in the reins into the
hands of managers and the
management. The number one motto
in the corporate speech became
"Profit for Shareholders". Take a look
at the message of ExxonMobile
company: "We're committed to being
the world's premier petroleum and
petrochemical company. To that end,
we must continuously achieve
superior financial and operating
results while simultaneously adhering
to high ethical standards." Afterwards,
some companies understood that
targeting their attention towards the
customers would be the key to
success.
This paradigm of orientation towards
clients has been changing abroad for
quite a few years already. Only
motivated and loyal employees are
capable of attracting satisfied and
loyal customers. As Simon Sinek
says: "Customers will never love a
company until the employees love it
first." "Employees first" will
gradually spread more in the
Czech Republic in 2017 as a model
of cooperation between companies
and people.
#1 Employees First
3.

5. The past few years have seen the
majority of companies in the Czech
Republic focusing on approaching
candidates, which is the first function
of the Employer Brand (attract ->
engage -> retain). This year we've
witnessed a rise in recruitment
campaigns that promised wage
increases well above union
requirements. The offer of employee
benefits had also been extended.
However, company offer is not
created only by the hard parameters.
When we build an Employer Brand
and create its offer (EVP), we always
have to include soft factors that make
up the company culture.
Year 2017 will see companies
targeting on working with the
current employees. They will start
to tackle fluctuation seriously. They
will learn to ask in a better way why
their people are leaving. The most
common answer for leaving is "I have
a better financial offer" but it hardly is
the truth. Companies will ponder, and
not only ponder, about their company
culture and the inclusion of its
employees in the creation of
meaningful, uniting, and
synchronizing activities and thoughts
of their companies.
#2 Retain Current Employees
4.

6. In this year and years past, there was
a lot of talk about preferences of
generations Y and Z. Analysis were
selling like crazy and the theme was
filling up specialist media and
conference halls. There were new
EVPs (Employer Value Proposition)
targeting future graduates with pillars
like personal development,
internships abroad, social
responsibility, work-life balance or
friendly culture.
Year 2017 will get us a level further
and we'll learn how to adjust those
EVPs and get them to individual
groups of recipients. We'll be
interested in their motivations,
wishes, needs and fears, perceived
benefits of particular offers.
#3 Targeting Groups
5.

7. In simple terms – This year was a lot
about working on new recruitment
ads and career websites capturing an
attractive offer of the companies as
employers. And often we forgot what
our basics were, such as answers to
candidates who show an interest in
working at our company. Have a look
at how poor the numbers are in the
Czech Republic: 67% of candidates
get within 14 days any message and
55% of candidates get within 30 days
any message from a company. No
“thank you” for sending a resume or a
decent rejection.
Year 2017 will shift the attention
from words to deeds, towards the
"physical" work with candidates
and employees – specifically
towards improving the recruitment
process and the communication that
comes along with it, the first day at
work, the welcome packs and the
following on-boarding. It will be about
affirming an attractive offer,
transforming it into an experience,
that's listed in the new ads and on the
new career websites.
#4 Terrific Experience
6.

8. Let's admit it – the performance of
recruitment communication and of
individual communication means and
channels hardly used to be measured
in the past years. It used to be tested
what's going to work and what's not
(whether we can approach our target
group on Facebook or Twitter,
whether someone will get intrigued by
a single recruitment post, whether
people will take notice of drones with
job offers). However, I think there's
and end to this now, in the extent it
used to be in the past years.
2017 will see more attention and
money being invested in Employer
Branding, and therefore also KPIs,
measuring and reporting. We'll be
setting parameters of successful
recruitment communication contents
(for example for Facebook: P = 3x
comment + 2x share + 1x like) and
steer our strategy and publishing
plans according to the results. We'll
look into Google Analytics reports
more frequently and measure the
efficiency of recruitment
communication content, campaigns
and all activities.
#5 Detailed Measuring
7.

9. In conclusion
I recall the press conference when
Nokia announced they're getting
passed on to Microsoft. Nokia's CEO
finished his speech with these words:
"We didn't do anything wrong, but
somehow, we lost." Nokia used to be
a respected company. They didn't do
anything wrong, but the world
changed quickly nevertheless. The
competition was too strong as well.
What moral can you learn from this
story? You should realize that your
former competitive advantage could
be quickly beaten by trends of the
future. Nothing that you do has to be
wrong, until your competition catches
up to the trends and uses them in
their favor. Afterwards, you can
quickly lose your best employees and
good financial results, or even
bankrupt right away.
I don't know how many companies
will use the new Employer Branding
trends in their favor the next year, but
I don't think there will be too many –
unfortunately for employees,
fortunately for the competitive
advantage of companies.
And what are you going to work on
the next year? Please, let me know.
8.

10. More articles about Employer Branding:
• Employer Branding - Part 1 - Benefits and Measuring
• Employer Branding - Part 2 - The Right Steps in the Beginning
• Recruitment Is Dead
• The game (era) of Recruitment Is Over
• Baking a strong employer brand (case study)
• How to convince your CEO to approve an Employer Branding budget?
• Employer Brand Uncovered
• How does the company culture influence employee motivation?
• Employer Branding Trends in 2016 in the Czech Republic
• 20 parts of recruitment communication
• Recruitment process: WOW experience or a disappointment?
All articles can be found at cz.linkedin.com/in/petrhovorka1
8.

11. The Era of Recruitment Is Over.
The Future Is in Attracting.
Petr Hovorka
Employer Brand Baker &
MP @ BrandBakers
+420 602 271 011
petr.hovorka@brandbakers.cz
cz.linkedin.com/in/petrhovorka1
@Petr_Hovorka1