Or How to Attract and Retain Highly Qualified Employees
The term “employer brand” began to take shape in the 1990s, with the original definition proposed by Simon Barrow and Tim Ambler (Ambler, T. and Barrow, S. (1996), “The Employer Brand,” Journal of Brand Management, Vol. 4, pp. 185–206) was a package of functional, economic, and psychological benefits provided by the job and identified with the hiring company. Currently, the employer brand is closer to Minchington’s 2010 definition in *Employer Brand Leadership – A Global Perspective, in which he defines the employer brand as the organization’s image as a “great place to work” in the minds of current employees and all interested external stakeholders.
An employer brand isn’t something you create—at least not in the sense of “I’ll make a decision now and start building an employer brand.” Since it’s connected to the people in the company and all external stakeholders, an employer brand is therefore established when the company is founded—meaning every company has its own employer brand. In fact, we should ask ourselves the following questions: How do I manage my employer brand? Do I need to do anything for my employer brand? What will I gain if I have a strong employer brand? How can I develop a strong employer brand?
The benefits for organizations that build and maintain a strong employer brand are: