There’s good reason to apply
what we’ve learned about marketplace brands to the workplace. If an
organization’s brand can attract a marketplace community that embraces and
shapes the values that the brand represents, why shouldn’t we view an
organization’s workforce as a parallel brand community in its own right?
Every organization has a brand—a set of perceived qualities and associations that collectively express what the organization means to its key customers and constituents. Your organization may or may not be cultivating the specifics of this ‘image’ consciously, but it’s there just the same—the lingering imprint of all your interactions with stakeholders, buyers, members, observers, and so on.
It shouldn’t surprise you, then, that the way people view your company or organization as a place to work can be a critical element in your overall brand. This is the basis of what our team calls a Talent Brand, a critical tool for organizations of all sizes to refresh and preserve its most valuable assets--the quality and energy of its workforce.
The premise of
talent branding: if you demonstrate your workplace’s culture and values
authentically and resonantly, the best qualified applicants will self-select. The
ideal talent brand finds its power in the organization’s top-line business
focus, its workplace culture, and, ultimately, in the shared values it
embodies.
Is there a better way to attract the candidates most qualified and inclined by their own values and temperaments to contribute to an organization’s future? But to succeed in this pursuit organizations have to take responsibility for defining their own distinctive talent brands.
From time to time I’ll fill in the picture of how a talent brand can help your organization communicate your value and your organizational values to all your stakeholder communities, not just your recruiting targets.
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