Employer Branding as an HR Tool for Talent Management – An Overview
Keywords:
Branding, Employer Branding, Employee Engagement, Great Place to Work, Talent Attraction, Talent ManagementAbstract
Branding was originally used to differentiate tangible products, but over the year it has been applied to differentiating people, places and firms (Peter, 1999). According to Aaker, D.A. (1991), established brand is regarded as “a critical means for differentiating between products and creating competitive advantage for organizations”. Similarly, employer branding has become a new approach for gaining an edge in the competitive world. Employer Brand is “the image of your organization as a ‘great place to work’ in the minds of current employees, potential candidates, clients and other stakeholders. The term was coined in 1996 by Ambler, T and Barrow, S, in the Journal of Brand Management, London. Employer branding is defined as "a targeted, long term strategy to manage the awareness and perceptions of employees and related stakeholders with regards to a particular firm" (Sullivan 2004). The employer brand puts forth an image showing the organization as a great place to work (Sullivan, 2004). Employer Branding is very significant in today’s workplace as it involves employee attraction, employee engagement and employee retention. Like actual product branding, organizations have started to invest employer branding as employees are the internal customers of the firm. This made the Indian business organisation to strategically utilize employer branding as a strategic HR tool to attract and retain the talent to achieve pinnacle success in business.
This paper spreads a light on the concepts of employer branding, a tool for talent attraction and the present status of employer branding in India.
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