EMPLOYER BRANDINGTRENDS in the Czech Republic

Petr HovorkaBrandBakers

2017

The benefit of Employer Branding is gaining a competitive advantage on the employment market. Each further development stage is more demanding on know-how, resources and execution. Trends in Employer Branding in 2017 in the Czech Republic will carry out in that spirit.The conflict on the employment market is raging ever so intensely. There have always been too few top people but even the average ones are hard to find these days. Former miners are getting retrained as coders, shop clerks as welders and pastry cooks as operators in car

factories (how sweet will those cars be). It's hardly worth talking about any connection of education to business, just like that of politicians to reality. Our Prime Minister wants, just in these days, to deal with low wages in Ahold, privately owned Dutch retail company. At a time when the market is the sheer lack of job seekers.The range of weapons used in this war is wide – from air rifles to heavy calibers. From better recruitment ads and career websites all the way to including employees in company culture strengthening projects and referral programs.

Employer Branding Trends in 2017

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Companies who need to fight with heavy weapons are starting to plunge in Employer Branding. Or they've already started long ago. Such companies don't want to leave anything to chance. They want to control their business with a long-term vision. They want to underpin what the company competition advantage will be more and more about – about people, their talents, and the teams into which they'll be able to assert their talent.

And what can we look forward to in Employer Branding in 2017 in the Czech Republic? Just like last year — look at my Employer Branding trends prediction in 2016 and rate how well I've polished my crystal ball last year — I haven't done any big survey nor did I take over the following 5 trends from foreign news articles. It's simply an intersection of year-long debates with company owners and HR professionals, of opinions in numerous articles and surveys, and of my own vision. The trends are not listed in order of importance.

Employer Branding Trends in 2017

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It all began once upon time with the founders handing in the reins into the hands of managers and the management. The number one motto in the corporate speech became "Profit for Shareholders". Take a look at the message of ExxonMobile company: "We're committed to being the world's premier petroleum and petrochemical company. To that end, we must continuously achieve superior financial and operating results while simultaneously adhering to high ethical standards." Afterwards, some companies understood that targeting their

attention towards the customers would be the key to success. This paradigm of orientation towards clients has been changing abroad for quite a few years already. Only motivated and loyal employees are capable of attracting satisfied and loyal customers. As Simon Sinek says: "Customers will never love a company until the employees love it first." "Employees first" will gradually spread more in the Czech Republic in 2017 as a model of cooperation between companies and people.

#1 Employees First

3.

The past few years have seen the majority of companies in the Czech Republic focusing on approaching candidates, which is the first function of the Employer Brand (attract -> engage -> retain). This year we've witnessed a rise in recruitment campaigns that promised wage increases well above union requirements. The offer of employee benefits had also been extended. However, company offer is not created only by the hard parameters. When we build an Employer Brand and create its offer (EVP), we always have to include soft factors that make up the company culture.

Year 2017 will see companies targeting on working with the current employees. They will start to tackle fluctuation seriously. They will learn to ask in a better way why their people are leaving. The most common answer for leaving is "I have a better financial offer" but it hardly is the truth. Companies will ponder, and not only ponder, about their company culture and the inclusion of its employees in the creation of meaningful, uniting, and synchronizing activities and thoughts of their companies.

#2 Retain Current Employees

4.

In this year and years past, there was a lot of talk about preferences of generations Y and Z. Analysis were selling like crazy and the theme was filling up specialist media and conference halls. There were new EVPs (Employer Value Proposition) targeting future graduates with pillars like personal development, internships abroad, social responsibility, work-life balance or friendly culture.

Year 2017 will get us a level further and we'll learn how to adjust those EVPs and get them to individual groups of recipients. We'll be interested in their motivations, wishes, needs and fears, perceived benefits of particular offers.

#3 Targeting Groups

5.

In simple terms – This year was a lot about working on new recruitment ads and career websites capturing an attractive offer of the companies as employers. And often we forgot what our basics were, such as answers to candidates who show an interest in working at our company. Have a look at how poor the numbers are in the Czech Republic: 67% of candidates get within 14 days any message and 55% of candidates get within 30 days any message from a company. No “thank you” for sending a resume or a decent rejection.

 Year 2017 will shift the attention from words to deeds, towards the "physical" work with candidates and employees – specifically towards improving the recruitment process and the communication that comes along with it, the first day at work, the welcome packs and the following on-boarding. It will be about affirming an attractive offer, transforming it into an experience, that's listed in the new ads and on the new career websites.

#4 Terrific Experience

6.

Let's admit it – the performance of recruitment communication and of individual communication means and channels hardly used to be measured in the past years. It used to be tested what's going to work and what's not (whether we can approach our target group on Facebook or Twitter, whether someone will get intrigued by a single recruitment post, whether people will take notice of drones with job offers). However, I think there's and end to this now, in the extent it used to be in the past years.

2017 will see more attention and money being invested in Employer Branding, and therefore also KPIs, measuring and reporting. We'll be setting parameters of successful recruitment communication contents (for example for Facebook: P = 3x comment + 2x share + 1x like) and steer our strategy and publishing plans according to the results. We'll look into Google Analytics reports more frequently and measure the efficiency of recruitment communication content, campaigns and all activities.

#5 Detailed Measuring

7.

In conclusionI recall the press conference when Nokia announced they're getting passed on to Microsoft. Nokia's CEO finished his speech with these words: "We didn't do anything wrong, but somehow, we lost." Nokia used to be a respected company. They didn't do anything wrong, but the world changed quickly nevertheless. The competition was too strong as well. What moral can you learn from this story? You should realize that your former competitive advantage could be quickly beaten by trends of the future. Nothing that you do has to be wrong, until your competition catches up to the

trends and uses them in their favor. Afterwards, you can quickly lose your best employees and good financial results, or even bankrupt right away.I don't know how many companies will use the new Employer Branding trends in their favor the next year, but I don't think there will be too many –unfortunately for employees, fortunately for the competitive advantage of companies.

And what are you going to work on the next year? Please, let me know.

8.

More articles about Employer Branding:• Employer Branding - Part 1 - Benefits and Measuring• Employer Branding - Part 2 - The Right Steps in the Beginning• Recruitment Is Dead• The game (era) of Recruitment Is Over• Baking a strong employer brand (case study)• How to convince your CEO to approve an Employer Branding

budget?• Employer Brand Uncovered• How does the company culture influence employee motivation?• Employer Branding Trends in 2016 in the Czech Republic• 20 parts of recruitment communication• Recruitment process: WOW experience or a disappointment?

All articles can be found at cz.linkedin.com/in/petrhovorka1

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The Era of Recruitment Is Over.The Future Is in Attracting.

Petr HovorkaEmployer Brand Baker & MP @ BrandBakers+420 602 271 011petr.hovorka@brandbakers.cz

cz.linkedin.com/in/petrhovorka1@Petr_Hovorka1