Employee branding: A winning strategy

By on November 25, 2011

The concept of branding has always been prominent in marketing circles. Recently, it has attracted much broader management attention for many good reasons. For many industries, branding offers the best opportunity for growth. This is important as companies emerge from a decade of cost-cutting and shift emphasis to growth in terms of revenue, market share, and profits. In today’s time when competition is more complex and more fierce than ever before, employees are also regarded as brand ambassadors and have a perceived value. This is where the need for employee branding comes in.

Understanding employee branding

Employee branding is a new twist on identity regulation. Employee branding is defined as the process by which employees internalize the desired brand image. They are motivated to project the image to customers and other organizational constituents (Miles & Mangold, 2004). Employee branding shapes employees’ behavior so that they project the brand identity of their organization’s products through their everyday work behavior. Employee branding is intended to induce employee-brand identification. It is a psychological connection between the employee and the brand, to provide an unobtrusive, seemingly non problematic engine for “on brand behavior” (Harquail).

Employee branding helps organizations grow

Employee branding process enables the organizations to consistently deliver its desired brand image to customers. Thereby solidifying a clear position in the minds of their customers and employees alike. When done well, it provides a competitive advantage that is achieved through employees. They have internalized the desired brand image and are motivated to project that image to their customers.

A winning strategy

Employee branding delivers two way results of committed workforce and improved brand image. It provides competitive advantage and high perceived value to the company’s brand. Its also helps in reduction of training and recruitment costs as employees start believing in the brand as their own. Hence, employee branding can be developed and used as a winning strategy by organisations.

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