Social media and the advent of Talent Branding
Analysts and business gurus are of the opinion that SMAC (Social Media, Mobility, Big Data Analytics and Cloud) is the future of IT. Also, many IT companies have been investing on SMAC to create a competitive advantage for the organisation. As per the analyst report by Offshore Insights, despite current global economic situation, companies are investing in emerging technologies such as Cloud, Mobility, Analytics and Big Data. Companies want to stay ahead of new trends and focus on leveraging these technologies.
Social Media and Big Data Analytics have certainly changed the vision of HR. In this blog, I will focus on the advantages of Social Media with respect to Talent Branding.
Talent branding overtakes Employer Branding
Talent Branding, an offshoot of social media, is an extension of Employer branding wherein the employees of the organization share their cognitive and emotional connect with the company over social media.
Until a few years back, the buzz was around Employer Branding. Prospective employees are not interested in Employer Branding as it is considered an artificially created positioning and a one-way communication, that is, the positioning of an organisation in the market by the organisation itself.
Think, Feel & Express are critical aspects of positive talent branding. Employees that are satisfied with their career opportunities, job content, profile, challenging work, and total rewards represent their engagement at a cognitive level. Feel provides inputs on how employees feel valued, connected to the organization and its value systems, safe, recognized in the company, and find the overall culture conducive to their emotional wellbeing. If employees are satisfied on these fronts, they will surely express a positive behaviour (express) and share positive branding for the company.
Negative reflection always represents disengagement level of talent in a company leading to negative talent branding. Disengaged or disgruntled employees vent their frustration about the organisation on various social media platforms like Glassdoor or Facebook.
Leveraging the power of positive talent branding
HR teams in many companies have failed to leverage the power of talent branding using their most engaged employees.
Engaged population in Indian companies according to Aon Hewitt:
· Best employers : 76%
· Indian IT services: 63%
In the IT services sector, close to 20-30% of the remaining employees are nearly engaged with 10-15% population being completely disengaged. What is reflected in social media platforms today is the representation of just 10-15% of the population of these companies. For positive talent branding, HR teams can leverage the power of the two-thirds of their employees who are engaged with the company.
HR Heads have a big responsibility today to create a culture of "Brand Ambassadors on Social Media" conducive to positive Talent Branding. Prospective employees don't believe in employer branding, and so Talent Branding is critical for companies to attract talent.
Talent Branding cannot be planted, rather it has to be enabled. Enabling happens through the "Cognitive, Emotion, and Express" process. HR teams need to first create an experience around these for our employees and then encourage them to express and share their experience on social media platforms. Engaged people always take pride in their association with the company but they are ignorant about Talent Branding. HR teams have an important role to play here.
Social media and the power of one-to-many
Facebook today has more professional significance than LinkedIn. Facebook users mostly visit their page on a daily basis which is not the case with LinkedIn. Also, most Facebook users have their professional connects in their Facebook friends list. In my own case, I have over 950 contacts in my Facebook account and nearly 95% of them are from my professional network.
Any branding which I create about my company through the process of "Cognitive, Emotion and Express" is shared with 950 people and through them, to thousands of others from their friends list. This is powerful branding seldom achieved through big spending by any company.
Recently, our team stepped out for lunch and towards the end, I announced two deserving promotions from the team and we congratulated both of them and presented them a bouquet each. Some of these moments were captured on camera and later uploaded to Facebook with most of us tagged in the uploaded pics.
What attracted my attention the most was a positive comment by someone who is not from my company, and yet was able to relate with our happiness and team cohesiveness. His comment was "You are lucky to have such a great team". This statement is the true representation of Talent Branding.
Similarly in another example, my company was recognized by Glassdoor as among the Top 15 companies with the best Work Life Balance globally. When most of us posted that news on our timeline in Facebook, it was not considered as Employer Branding but as Talent Branding.
Talent Branding on other social platforms
Talent Branding doesn't happen only on social media, it happens on various touch points as well. As an Interviewer, am I sharing my positive experiences and positive branding of the company with the candidates I am interviewing? Am I representing my organisation on various forums I visit for interaction? These are few questions we must ask ourselves as Leaders or Managers when representing our company.
In few years from now, I am sure we will rename, "Employee Value Proposition" to "Talent Value Proposition". Social Media has certainly made it possible and I personally look forward to that day.
