As Britain attempts to break free from the recent looming recession, businesses and organisations are investigating way in which to achieve higher levels of efficiency and profitability, but with teams and departments which are now even up to half the number they originally used due to redundancies and layoffs. HR needs to be recognised as directly impacting the success of a company’s profitability and efficiency. It has an integral role in developing the ‘Employer Brand’ and therefore must be incorporated into a company’s overall strategy.

The question on many minds is how do you increase work load between fewer employees and maintain high staff retention? Often employees will simply leave for a better work- life balance, even if that means taking a pay cut. Resulting in further recruitment costs, as well as the loss of revenue from the previous investment in that staff member - meaning lowered efficiency and profitability statistics. For staff to make long term commitments to a company and be at their most productive they need to be happy in their company culture, and need to have social pride in their role working for the company.

How do you achieve this? One strategy is ‘Employer Branding’. Companies need to be inspired to stand out, working to recruit top talent and retain them. Employer branding is essential to inspire pride in staff, building a sense of achievement to be working for such an esteemed employer. One method of achieving this is for companies to participate in ‘top employer’ ratings through Times Top 100, Britain’s Top Employers, FT Best Places to Work etc. The recognition of being a top employer increases the employer brand. It allows them to achieve higher visibility, strengthening PR campaigns and as a result attracting a higher calibre of applicants.

Employer branding encourages companies to take an overall look at their strengths and weaknesses and allows them to see how they compare to others in the industry. Opening up to this self analysis changes the mind set of staff, looking more seriously at their branding strategy and internal operations and how these could be improved. As a result of entering into publicised ranking tables, often the participating companies will be given reports analysing their company’s own operations, giving an objective critique of what a company is doing right and what areas need to be improved. Being aware of successful competitor companies’ HR strategies allows brands an understanding of what in fact are the best HR practices.

There needs to be a bond between employer and employee; the better the relationship the stronger the commitment and the most in line staff will be with the company’s overall strategy. This bond can be created through the employer’s HR department being open, receptive and engaged with their staff. Promoting these positive attitudes will directly affect all areas of a company’s success, directly impacting its position in Top Employer rankings (and thus affecting PR, advertising and visibility in the recruitment fields). Completing the cycle it will also impact present staff’s feelings towards their own position; Holding Top Employer status acts as proof to employees that it is a worthwhile commitment to make.