Does Your Employee Experience Match Your Employer Brand?
Is HR Broken?
What do you think? I’ve heard and read it often that HR is, indeed, broken.
Human Resources and Talent Management are supposed to assist employees (ranging from high-ranking executives to the newest and most subordinate player) in their experience at work, making it better. HR should, most definitely, listen to and be responsive to every employee on payroll.
Human Resource Professionals have fought for years to get a seat at the table. But, what exactly does that mean? We should be tired of the excuses given for why bad employment experiences exist. If employees are taken care of, basic needs met, if they are heard, if managers are doing their jobs? Perhaps lawsuits and attrition would drop and those tremendous employer branding efforts would be a little less necessary.
Do Employees have a Voice?
It may be important to note that job seekers are stepping forward and taking control of their own destinies. They are fully in charge of their job search, they have found their own voice. That voice doesn’t quiet once they secure full-time employment, so where does that leave HR? Great talent acquisition efforts have had a serious impact on job search and employer branding which naturally leads to a workforce that wants similar interaction and promises fulfilled once in the workplace. It doesn’t matter how great your employer branding and Instagram feed are, if the employee experience is wanting, the word will get out. And your employees will find a way out.
Does working for you look like a party?
Balance is necessary. Many companies fail and lean too far in promoting what it is like to work for them and then lose sight of their company, product, and service brand as they build out an employment brand and culture that cannot deliver in the real world.
Employee Experience is as valuable as Candidate Experience
How have we forgotten this?
Employment Branding is often just a pretty package with a pretty bow, but what is underneath that wrapper – what is it REALLY like to work for your company? That is the TRUE employee experience. You may be asking why employees leave, but perhaps you should also ask why would they stay.
History has proven that the truth always comes out. Perhaps we start with developing a great employee experience and have that lead to a powerful and true employer brand.
Perhaps “branding” is the wrong word. Maybe the buzz is more hype than truth.
