Attracting And Recruiting People
In a business organisation, the Marketing department’s role could be described as carrying out active brand-building activities designed to:

  • Attract / acquire a customer
  • Retain / maintain a customer

so that the organisation could enjoy profitable business growth.

What has the Marketing function got to do with attracting and recruiting people? Plenty, especially when potential employees have a wide choice of employers to work for.

MARKETING THE EMPLOYER BRAND
Ana Maria Santos of Brand Learning, a marketing consultancy that has done award-winning work on global recruitment, believes that there are many parallels between Marketing and Human Resource (HR) and there are many practical approaches that HR can learn from Marketing in attracting and recruiting people.

According to her, HR needs to create and manage an employer brand that is relevant and differentiated in attracting its target candidates as well as connecting with existing employees to meet their needs. The employer brand must stand out from the competitors, must have clear candidate benefits and must be kept fresh and competitive over time. These are the same challenges faced by marketers and very much what effective marketing is all about.

EMPLOYEE VALUE PROPOSITION (EVP)
The set of benefits that an employer wants to offer to its target employees and candidates is sometimes referred to as the Employee Value Proposition (EVP). The EVP helps the business organisation differentiate itself from its competitors. A business organisation could be offering specific EVP for distinct groups of candidates or employees with different needs and behaviours e.g experienced executives/ managers and new graduates. The EVP could and should include benefits beyond financial compensation. The non-financial benefits could include a positive work environment, development opportunities, etc.

EVP FOR THE NEW GRADUATES – THE GEN Y
The new graduates entering the Malaysian workforce are part of the Millennial generation or otherwise known as Gen Y (it is generally accepted that the Gen Y are those born in the 1980s). The PricewaterhouseCoopers Malaysian HR Advisory team carried out a survey on the characteristics of Malaysian Gen Y employees based on 346 of their Gen Y employees in 2009. Part of their findings is summarised below. What would the Employee Value Proposition (EVP) for this generation of employees look like?


Some key characteristics of the Malaysian Gen Y workforce
  • They aspire to develop themselves in a variety of roles and organisations
  • They desire and expect to be mobile throughout their career lifetime
  • They are independent, and value the flexibility to balance between work and personal life
  • Issues of sustainability and climate change are of major concern, and will affect their career choices

The PricewaterhouseCoopers survey findings and the authors of the book ‘Recruit or Die: How Any Business Can Beat the Big Guys in the War for Young Talent’ have several recommendations on how to attract young employees and retain them in the business organisation. Among their recommendations for employers are:
  • Put in place mentoring, coaching and succession planning programmes
  • Engage the employees - they want to be heard, so communicate with them regularly and open up channels for them to air their views
  • Empower the young employees by giving them meaningful and challenging work
  • Provide flexibility in work arrangements that allow them some balance between work time and personal time
  • Provide opportunity for young employees to meet people / network throughout the organisation
  • Provide development opportunities to strengthen their skills and their resumes on a frequent basis
ROLE OF HR IN RECRUITMENT: MARKETING & BRANDING
Traditionally, the role of HR in recruitment has been to manage the administrative part of the whole recruitment process. However, with the changing role of HR in the business organisation to that of a business partner, HR may now need to lead a ‘marketing and branding’ approach to recruitment.

Using this approach, HR will need to work closely with the operations departments and the management to identify the EVP for distinct groups of employees. HR will also play a critical role in ensuring that the EVP is communicated and implemented consistently by the managers, the top management and the HR department during all interactions with the employees.

Attracting, recruiting and retaining people is important to the business organisation’s bottom-line results as having the right people, at the right time in the right positions will propel the business organisation (read The Lion Group) to greater heights of business success.

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