The future is employer branding

Business leaders are pondering how to meet the new generation of job-seeking talent. Oddwork’s CEO Charles Sinclair explains why employer branding is the answer.

I step into Wonderland, one of Oddwork’s workrooms, slightly excited about the report in my hand. It is Thursday 23 March 2017. The spring sun shines through the window onto one of the illustrations painted on the walls, a motif from Lewis Carroll’s classic Alice in Wonderland. Alice looks up at the treetops and asks the grinning Cheshire Cat: “Have I gone mad?” The cat lets Alice know that she has. “But I’ll tell you a secret,” he says. “All the best people are.” A year ago, most Oddworkers could probably relate to Alice’s situation.

After thousands of interviews with job-seeking talent, we at Oddwork had started to see a pattern: the younger generation of talent seemed to differ diametrically from the older generation. Out in the companies, employers talked about starting salaries and career ladders. The talent, on the other hand, rarely talked about that; instead they mainly strived for personal development and social community at work.

Oddwork’s management team then decided that we would no longer focus on matching talent with career opportunities through recruitment alone. In parallel, we would develop into an employer branding company and help employers both retain current employees and, not least, attract the new ones they are looking for. When the news was presented to all Oddworkers, several probably thought, like Alice: “Have we gone mad?”

The new generation: the life careerists
The report in my hand, the West Sweden Chamber of Commerce’s newly published survey “Livskarriäristerna: on the millennial generation in the workplace”, proved we had not been mad. The report establishes that 20 to 34-year-olds, the “millennial generation”, have completely different expectations of their employer than their older counterparts. The survey received so much attention that TV4 invited the author Stina Olén to its morning news show. As a link between Swedish business and today’s young talent, Oddwork was invited to give our view on what companies must do to attract the new generation. Our Head of Talent Poyan Karimi explained well that our answer today is simple: employer branding.

Watch the clip “Life career instead of job career”, broadcast on TV4 Nyhetsmorgon on Friday 24 March 2017 (5:13 min, in Swedish), below:

“Employer branding? What on earth is that?”
We at Oddwork see “employer brand” as the English equivalent of the Swedish “arbetsgivarvarumärke”. Employer branding is about how a company is perceived as a workplace and employer by current, former and future employees.

Like a consumer brand, a company’s employer brand contains a number of qualities and associations. It should therefore be in every company’s interest that these attract the right kind of talent, so that the company both attracts and retains the people who fit best. In fact, the US HR company CareerArc’s “Employer Brand Study” shows that 75% of job-seeking talent today carefully research a company’s employer brand and culture before applying for a role. In other words, work done before the talent even makes contact.

Decision-makers ask us every day why talent often no longer applies for their open roles to the same extent: “Do they want bean bags in the office? Are we drinking the wrong coffee, or what’s the deal?” Today we answer: “What does your employer brand look like?”

The employer branding journey starts now
Unfortunately there is still no magic potion that makes you wake up with a strong, living employer brand (although Oddwork’s research team is working hard on one). Developing your employer brand is long-term work. It is not as simple as buying colourful bean bags, even if changes to the office environment can sometimes be a valuable part of employer branding work. Nor is it always as simple as introducing flexible hours to meet today’s talent’s expectations of better work-life balance. On the contrary, it takes multifaceted work where many interwoven parts must work together.

The past year’s employer branding work, together with Oddwork’s experience in recruitment, has helped us identify clear areas where most companies see their biggest challenges. That is where you need to start working to develop your employer brand.

We at Oddwork are happy to be a link between business and the young generation we are part of ourselves. We also look forward to continuing to develop Swedish companies’ employer brands and cultures. Because one thing is certain: we are now all part of the adventure we call employer branding.

All the best,

Charles Sinclair
CEO & Head of Employer Branding
Oddwork

Click here to contact Charlie.

By the way: this text is part of Oddwork Insights, a platform where we will publish the insights we gain from our world among driven talent in today’s talent market, exciting company cultures, Oddwork’s extreme sports athletes and other adventures. We hope Insights will offer interesting insights, or even inspiration. Because if there is one thing we believe in, it is that the world becomes a better place if we all get to spread more love and knowledge to each other.

Want to strengthen your employer brand? Read more about how Oddwork works with employer branding.