1.
TALENT MATTERS
Charlotte Housden
Bernard Hodes Group
Strategic Human Resources Conference
7th February 2007
Geneva

2.
TALENT MATTERS
Using Employer Brand
to attract talent
Or… have I stumbled into
a Marketing presentation?

3.
TALENT MATTERS
So, as we’re talking about brands…..
 Do you know which are top 10 Best Global Brands in
the world (Interbrand 2006)?
 Or which are the 10 most Respected companies in
the world (PWC 2004)?
 Or which are the top 10 MBA Employers in the world
(Universum 2006)?

4.
TALENT MATTERS
Best Global Brands World’s most respected Co’s
1 – Coca Cola 1 – GE
2 – Microsoft 2 – Microsoft
3 – IBM 3 – Toyota
4 – GE 4 – IBM
5 – Intel 5 – Coca-Cola
6 – Nokia 6 – Dell
7 – Toyota 7 – Wall-Mart
8 – Disney 8 – Citigroup
9 – McDonalds 9 – Procter & Gamble
10 – Mercedes 10 – Hewlett-Packard

5.
TALENT MATTERS
Top 10 MBA Employers in the world

6.
TALENT MATTERS
The talent squeeze

7.
TALENT MATTERS
Working age populations
Working age taken as 15-64 years

8.
TALENT MATTERS
Working age populations

9.
TALENT MATTERS
Aging populations
Decreasing birth-rates
Reduced talent pool
Increased life expectancy
There will be “a significant exodus of talent and experience in
the next two decades and a dearth of new employees to step
into roles that require specialized skills”
Accenture (2005)

10.
TALENT MATTERS
Global employee engagement levels
Towers Perrin global workforce study (2005)

11.
TALENT MATTERS
Declining employee tenure in the USA
25  1/3 in jobs less than 2 years
 2/3 in jobs less than 5 years
20
 1/2 employed on Interim/Contract basis
Years of
Service
15  3.5 years average
Depression
10 Survivors
Pension
5 Seekers
Victims “Free Agent
2000
Nation”
0
1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s
US Department of Labor, Employee Tenure Surveys, (1995-2000)

12.
TALENT MATTERS
Baby Boomers:
1946–1961
Generation X:
1961–1981
Generation Y:
1981–1997/2000

13.
TALENT MATTERS
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

14.
TALENT MATTERS
Bigger Meaning:
The Australian Leadership Foundation
When looking for a job Gen Y‟ers want (in this order):
 Training
 Management Style
 Work flexibility
 Staff activities
 Non financial rewards
 Salary

15.
TALENT MATTERS
Aging populations
Decreasing birth-rates
Reduced talent pool
Increased life expectancy
Declining tenure
Self-actualisation
A less interested talent
pool
Drop in engagement

16.
TALENT MATTERS
Together… an attraction and retention issue
 CIPD 2006 recruitment, retention and turnover survey:
 82% of organisations reported difficulties in recruiting
 69% reporting difficulties in retaining
 RightCoutts 2006, in Management Issues 2006
 41% of Senior HR professionals thought retention of key
staff was their most critical HR issue
 Accenture on-line survey 2006
 67% of senior directors in N. America, Europe and Asia
think the inability to attract and retain the best talent is
one of their top 3 threats to success

17.
TALENT MATTERS
Some HR Levers Employer Brand
“what do people think
Performance of us?”
Management
“where is our talent in Individual
and Team
the organisation?” Competence
Performance
Leadership
Review Talent Management
Values and “how do we manage
Culture our talent?”
Core Work
HR
Processes
Recruitment Processes
Processes Organisation,
Team and Job
“how we do attract Design
Reward & Recognition
talented people to
“what keeps our talent
us?”
with us?”
Communication
“how do we talk to our
talented people?”

18.
TALENT MATTERS
Employer Brand: a short
summary for the uninitiated…..

19.
TALENT MATTERS
What is it?
 “The package of functional, economic, and psychological
benefits provided by employment, and identified with the
employing company”, Ambler & Barrow 1996
 A long term strategy that establishes an organisation‟s
identity as an employer
 Which differentiates them from competitors in the
employment market

20.
TALENT MATTERS
Where do you start?
 The development of an employee value proposition (EVP)
 Capturing in one statement, the sum of “everything that
people experience and receive while they are part of the
company”
 It must be aligned to the overall brand and reputation

21.
TALENT MATTERS
Who is it for?
 Potential employees – to persuade more and better
applicants to apply and accept offers
 Current employees – to reduce turnover, increase employee
motivation, a sense of belonging and align behaviour to the
organisation‟s needs
 Consistency of messages across both groups is vital as the
organisation has to deliver what it promises
 Projecting an unrealistic image may improve recruitment but
can increase attrition

22.
TALENT MATTERS
Brand Strength
Brand strength
Attraction of the right
Employer Brand Employee
candidates
experience Employee engagement and
The unique and
differentiating promise
a business makes to
+ Actual delivery of the
promise throughout the
retention
Differentiation from
its employees and employee lifecycle competitors
potential candidates Customer engagement and
retention
 Attraction of high quality employees is a competitive necessity
 Engagement of high quality employees is a bottom line issue

23.
TALENT MATTERS
Employer brand – a three step process
1.Brand insight 2. Brand development 3. Implementation
• Competitor analysis
• Brand positioning vs • Alignment of the consumer brand/ • Recruitment guidelines and
competition employer brand roll out for recruitment
• Understanding vision for • Concept development advertising
the business and • Concept testing • Design of internal launch
employees • Refinement and development process
• Understanding best of • Production of comms
the current employee materials, internally and
experience and externally
improvements
Employee Value
Proposition
Employee vision Brand book Communication
strategy
Personality
Communication tools
Key messages
Strengths/areas to improve

24.
TALENT MATTERS
Employer brand benefits
 Significant decreases in cost per hire
 Reduced cost of recruitment - efficiencies maximised
throughout the recruitment process
 Reduction in recruitment marketing costs over time
 Greater numbers of higher quality applicants
 Higher performing employees
 Increased retention rates
 Stronger reputation in the marketplace
 Increased ability to attract specialist talent in a difficult market

25.
TALENT MATTERS
Employer brand benefits at our clients
 Diageo - Began with an attrition rate of 18%, costing £4
million. In 14 months they reduced attrition rates to 7%,
recouping the costs of the initial research 30 times over.
 GSK - applied the proposition and guiding principles to
their recruitment process, increasing the number of offers
accepted from 83% to 96%
 Philips - are now receiving 10 times as many quality
applications from graduates and MBAs

26.
TALENT MATTERS
Philips Case study

27.
TALENT MATTERS
Philips: The background
 2002 global recruitment redesign programme found
quality of service could be improved and needed to focus
on proactive talent recruitment
 Identified inconsistent positioning of messages to
prospective employees – not addressing them as “One
Philips”
 They weren‟t reaching targets they‟d set to attract/ retain
the best talent
 They also wanted to find out how potential employees
regarded the company as an employer

28.
TALENT MATTERS
Philips: their vision
 “To be certain that we are able to
attract, recruit and retain the sort of talent that
will give our business competitive edge.”
 “To be sure that our employer experience will
enable and motivate our talent to work in a
way that is „one Philips.‟ Providing maximum
satisfaction for both the organisation and the
individual.”

29.
TALENT MATTERS
The research
 29 internal focus groups
 18 external focus groups
 3500 internal survey respondents
 1000 external survey respondents
 Both Sales/Mktg and R&D people, different
ages, length of service
 Netherlands, Germany, France, UK, Poland,
USA, India, China

30.
TALENT MATTERS
Some of the outputs
 Employees didn‟t not know the full range of products/services
 Everything Philips makes impacts every aspect of consumers‟
lives, something to be proud of and make more of
 Philips could be too formal – there needed to be more
personality in the way the brand was communicated
They wanted Philips to be
 One company – all working together, united in one purpose
 Proud and confident about what it does, passionate
 People and products could have equal and united prominence
 Offer great reasons for coming to work everyday
 An “icon of innovation”
 Global and diverse

31.
TALENT MATTERS

32.
TALENT MATTERS
“Touch lives every day” – The Trial

33.
TALENT MATTERS
“Touch Lives every day”
 “ Is not only a description of how Philips should approach
prospective and existing employees, but also a call for
managers to ensure the company delivers on its promises “
 Jo Pieters, Global Vice President Recruitment, Philips, The
Netherlands

34.
TALENT MATTERS
Philips Touchpoint Wheel
Exit Campus
interviews recruitment
Retention Awareness
Career
Internship
development
Post- Pre-
Performance
Application Application Career site
review
Experience Experience
Commitment Consideration
Management Company
behavior brand
Employer Brand
Informing /
Invitation
Involving
letter
people
Engagement Application Experience Preference
Introduction Interview
Rejection
letter Assessment
Contract
handling

35.
TALENT MATTERS
Ensuring Global Consistency – The Toolkit

36.
TALENT MATTERS
Ensuring Global Consistency – Deployment

37.
TALENT MATTERS
Guide for Hiring Managers

38.
TALENT MATTERS
Building brands from the inside out
“ Winning the war for talent means primarily focusing on
the retention of your current talent and [then], building a
strong position in your key labour markets…
…a brand that is only visible in external communications is
less valuable than a brand that is truly lived inside.
Each and every employee should act as an ambassador
of your brand and that requires a strong recognized
internal and external employee value proposition ”
Jo Pieters, Global Vice President Recruitment,
Philips, The Netherlands

39.
TALENT MATTERS
Philips Labor Market Ranking – China
Employer brand launch Dec 2003
Engineering & Science Discipline 2003 2004 2005
Familiar with Philips 17 11 9
Considered employer 15 9 6
Ideal employer 14 8 4
Business Discipline 2003 2004 2005
Familiar with Philips 26 17 11
Considered employer 23 11 8
Ideal employer 20 9 5

40.
TALENT MATTERS
Philips Labor Market Ranking – Europe
Employer brand launch Dec 2003
Engineering & Science Discipline 2003 2004 2005
Familiar with Philips 24 14 9
Considered employer 6 5 3
Ideal employer 21 17 17
Business Discipline 2003 2004 2005
Familiar with Philips 25 21 12
Considered employer 16 11 8
Ideal employer 65 62 54

41.
TALENT MATTERS
Lessons learned
 Don‟t underestimate the size of such an initiative
 Even if you have clearly defined the scope, focus and
approach, you have to make tough choices along the
way about what to keep in or leave out
 Getting the whole organization behind the Employer
Brand is critical to making it a success
 You must get commitment and involvement of people
beyond HR, particularly in marketing, and get it early
on!

42.
TALENT MATTERS
So what does this mean for you…
…and your Employer Brand?

43.
TALENT MATTERS
Some final questions for you
 Do you know what your organisation represents?
 Have you tested out your values, your culture?
 Have you looked at your brand values?
 What does this say about your organisation?
 Who is the real competition in the employment market (not just
the ones you know or think it should be?)
 Is your brand attractive to new recruits?
 Does it help you present a strong employer brand in the
marketplace?
 Who manages your Employer Brand – HR or Marketing?
 What are you going to do with this information when you get
home?