By Lovisa Öhnell Universum Quarterly 2/2010

What gets measured gets done. It’s an old truth that most successful business leaders are acutely aware of. An area that isn’t measured and reported, does not get the attention it requires in order to achieve top performance.

Talent attraction is an area where top performance matters. Over the past decades, attracting and retaining talent has become recognised as a key driver of business success. In McKinsey’s War for Talent research from 2000, corporate officers of the largest companies in the US said that high performing employees in management roles generate 50
per cent more profit than an average employee.

Obviously, getting those high performers in the door, and keeping them there, will make a significant impact on shareholder value. During 2008, most of the clients I was in contact with were either in the process of, or were planning to, develop an employer value proposition and global employer branding strategy. However, when the financial crisis hit, many employer branding (EB) managers saw their budgets decline and large initiatives were
postponed. With low levels of recruitment,employer branding was made an easy target for cost cutting.

Return of investment
An HR Director at a large global consumer goods client recently told me that it is easy to start acting, but you need to measure and report progress in order to respond to critique and keep the attention of top management.
That is the difference between budgets that are easy to cut, and those that are not. Employers that are committed to long-term goals for their employer brand, and who see progress in achieving these goals, are less prone to lose interestalong the way.

Universum conducted a survey amongst HR professionals at the beginning of 2010, and the results showed that the employers who say that they use return of investment (ROI) calculations to evaluate their employer branding
activities got their budgets increased between 2009 and 2010. However, defining non-financial measurements is always tricky, and measuring the wrong things can be almost as damaging as not measuring at all. For example, if number of applications is used as a measure of talent attraction, recruitment staff will have an incentive to encourage all applications, regardless of whether the person has the skills andtalent that the employer is looking for. Sifting through applications will tie-up internal resources,bury the ‘right’ applicants, as well as increase the risk of badwill when a large number of applicants have to be turned down.

Universum’s recommendation to clients concerned with employer branding measurements is first of all to select key performance indicators (KPIs) that cover both the employer brand and the recruitment process. Ultimate
success in recruitment will depend on both the strength of the employer brand, as well as the quality of the recruitment process. Having one of these things in place is not enough. A strong employer brand is wasted if the recruitment process does not manage to reach the right talent, identify the ones who fit the organisation best, and raise the candidate’s interest in accepting an offer throughout the process. A high quality process will not yield successful results if the employer brand does not attract a sufficient number of appropriate candidates that have the right expectations of what it is like to work at the company.

Defining your role
Universum’s area of expertise lies within the employer brand arena, and when it comes to measuring the employer brand, it is important to measure both the strength and the quality of the employer brand. The strength can be
measured by external attraction rankings, such as the ideal employer ranking position in the relevant target audience.
The employer brand quality is reflected in the content of the image, i.e. is the image in line with the reality at the employer, and what the employer is trying to communicate? For example, a strong consumer brand might have
a very attractive employer brand, but for the wrong reasons.

A client we recently worked with in Asia had one of the strongest and most global consumer brands in the world. Since they did not work actively with employer branding in the region at the time, their consumer brand image dominated their employer brand, and the perception amongst potential employees was that they were very international and relaxed. In realty, this could not be delivered upon, and many employees were disappointed.

Universum regularly helps clients define their employer brand, and then measure whether the external perception (image) and internal perception (identity) is converging to this goal (profile). As a general recommendation, when selecting KPIs for your employer branding work, ensure that you will be able to track these KPIs over time. The measurements need to be reliable,affordable and available in the future. We recommend using internal and external metrics that are readily available, instead of launching a bespoke one-time effort. By continuously tracking the results of your employer branding work, you can ensure that you are not over or under spending on your employer brand. KPIs will provide a beacon that both guides your efforts, as well as raises awareness throughout the organisation.