The employment branding industry has, for most of it’s existence, been able to maintain control of the employment brand. Well crafted ads, shiny, happy employee testimonials, top places to work lists, slick employment videos, etc paint the picture of the perfect employer. Enter Web 2.0. The proliferation of user/candidate generated content (Youtube, Myspace, Facebook, etc) has built a web community that not only wants, but expects to see reviews of companies/products/services from people like themselves.
I recently came across a site called JobVent.com, which allows people to review employers and their work experiences. It has a large volume of companies and reviews. Some reviews are good, some are bad, some are very, very bad and downright damaging to the employer brand. This isn’t a totally new concept, it been done for years. What is new, is the attitutudes and activities of people. Years ago, only disgruntled employees posted to online forums. Now with the millenial generation and the Web 2.0 revolution, everyone is sharing their opinions and seeking out the opinions of others.
So the questions become - are you going to encourage your employees to do this or not? If you find negative information, how are you going to address it? Are you going to switch your focus from just presenting a great employer brand to actually creating it, by actually addressing the issues that affect the experiences of your employees? To do this, you need to get ahead of your situation. Don’t wait to hear about it on JobVent.com. Survey your employees, address issues, listen to what is being said about your company online.
In this new world, you can no longer “own” your employer brand, it belongs to the people who live it - your employees.
July 12, 2007 at 1:20 pm
I especially like the fact that you’re suggesting employers get out in front of how their employer brands are being communicated online.
Take for instance, Comcast.
Comcast is in an intense battle for technicians with Verizon. Extremely valuable market share will be rewarded to the company which best staffs and retains these technicians.
Verizon seems to be winning. Interestingly enough, their employment brand is far better represented on the search engines and youtube.
Coincidence? Who knows?
Go to youtube and run a search for comcast. Check out the first video.
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=comcast&search=
July 12, 2007 at 4:57 pm
Hi Matt,
It’s always hard to say who is winning in these situations. The company that “wins” isn’t necessarily the one that gets their name out there the most. An employer brand is much harder to build than a product or consumer brand, because there is so much involved and people’s experiences are so different and so personal. For instance, you and I have both worked at Yahoo! Hotjobs. I’ll bet that we have completely opposite feelings about working there. And we’re both right ;-).
But if you look through the top ranked companies on JobVent.com it is possible to see some themes. Happy employees have been linked to increased shareholder value… it just seems that is an area of improvement that is often getting overlooked as other measures - cost cutting, layoffs, etc yield more immediate results.
However, it is going to get easier and easier for candidates to look under the veil, so it is going to become more important that companies actually address their internal issues.
July 30, 2007 at 2:13 pm
Where there is smoke there is usually fire. You make a good point about surveying your employees and then addressing their concerns. There are occasions when a negative reputation is warranted. When this happens it is never too late to address the problem and start making things right. While you might not be able to eliminate bad PR earned in the past you can start to earn good PR and in effect turn things around. People pay attention.
July 30, 2007 at 2:32 pm
Thanks for the comment Bob! I agree. All employers have issues. One of the interesting things about the comments on jobvent.com is that the most negative comments are from people who feel as though the company does not even care. A good company does care, even if it cannot change or can only make minimal progress on fixing the issues. Part of caring is just listening, acknowledging the problems, and making some effort to fix issues. Denying issues just leads to more problems, more resentment, and more attrition.
August 4, 2007 at 9:38 am
[...] The Underbelly of Your Employer Brand The employment branding industry has, for most of it’s existence, been able to maintain control of the employment brand. Well crafted ads, shiny, happy employee testimonials, top places to work lists, slick employment videos, etc paint the picture of the perfect employer. Enter Web 2.0. The proliferation of user/candidate generated content (Youtube, Myspace, Facebook, […] [...]
September 18, 2007 at 2:31 pm
[...] The Underbelly of Your Employer Brand The employment branding industry has, for most of it’s existence, been able to maintain control of the employment brand. Well crafted ads, shiny, happy employee testimonials, top places to work lists, slick employment videos, etc paint the picture of the perfect employer. Enter Web 2.0. The proliferation of user/candidate generated content (Youtube, Myspace, Facebook, […] [...]