Employer Brand-Bringing the Best of Brand Management to People at Work

Employer Brand-Bringing the Best of Brand Management to People at Work By Simon Barrow and Richard Mosley John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, P019 8SQ, England, Year 2006, Pages: 232, Price: US$70.00 ISBN: 978-0-470-01273-4Τ'he concept of Employer brand is not new to the business but its scope and application has definitely been uncertain. This book gives numerous reasons why employer brand is as important as a strong customer brand. The authors are of the opinion that creating a positive brand experience for employees requires the same amount of dedication, efforts, care and patience as customer brand experience would require. The most important and high involvement brand is not any product or service rather it is an employer brand. The rationale given by the authors for having a strong employer brand depicts that employer brand is a concept which in spite of achieving immense awareness is not a fad. The collaboration of Marketing, Communication and Human Resources community is the foundation stone for having a strong employer brand. The term Employer brand was first propounded in 1996 by Simon Barrow and Tim ambler of London Business School and they defined employer brand as "The package of functional, economic and psychological benefits provided by employment and identified with the employing company". Since then the term employer brand has mostly been limited to improving the look and feel of recruitment advertising. The authors of this book give a fresh and meaningful perspective of the term employer brand. It is a comprehensive, step by step guide to develop and manage the human resources of an organization.Although the book was written in 2006 it has got more relevance in today's time when the organizations are competing not only for customers but for talented employees. In the war for talent the concept of employer branding becomes all the more important as skills are in short supply and talented candidates have bargaining power. This book is a practical guide to develop a strong employer brand. The authors have enriched the content by citing real live examples of different organizations. The real world experiences of different organizations which have successfully developed and maintained a strong employer brand like Tesco and Reuters are the highlights of this book. The book has been written by two authors Simon Barrow and Richard Mosley and has been divided into two sections. Simon talks about the evolution of the concept of employer brand and Richard explains how the principles of marketing management can be applied to people at work. Both the authors have enriched the book with their personal experiences in different organizations like Unilever, John Lewis, Compass Group, etc. In the first section the author mentions about the different stakeholders of employer brand and the challenges associated in developing a strong employer brand. In today's time the needs and aspirations of employees have changed. They don't just look for functional benefits in an employment offer but psychological and emotional benefits associated with the employing firm. The employees today look for an organization whose name looks good on their resumes and gives them pride. The investors have become more aware about how their funds are being utilized. It is the responsibility of management to demonstrate that the funds are put in for productive purposes and employer brand is one of them. A strong employer brand needs the support of top management. It requires active leadership, commitment and encouragement from senior management. The second part of the book deals with how the concepts like brand communication, brand hierarchy, brand positioning and brand proposition can be applied to the people management. The major benefits of a strong employer brand can be lower costs in terms of recruitment, sickness absence, increased levels of customer satisfaction and positive financial results. …