A sense of community lies at the heart of each brand .
Case in point :
FOR INNOVATION
A sense of community lies at the heart of each brand .
For many individuals in these brand communities , this felt sense of belonging is as important as the quality of the organization ’ s products or services . Brand power emerges from community and shared values .
There ’ s good reason to apply what we ’ ve learned about marketplace brands to the workplace .
If an organization ’ s brand can attract a marketplace community that embraces and shapes the values that the brand represents , why shouldn ’ t we view an organization ’ s workforce as a parallel brand community in its own right ?
This is the premise of talent branding , which takes a different tack than the employer brands ’ familiar from HR practice for a decade or more .
For the most part , this approach molded itself on the market-facing perspective of packaged goods brands . A talent brand should be authentic from the inside out .
Employer brands generally paid little attention to their native corporate cultures , to the notion that unique values , held in common , can boost an organization ’ s performance . The employer ’ s generalized perception of the preferences of its target segment , i . e . its potential recruits , were permitted to dominate how the organization positioned itself as a place to work .
Case in point :
In the heady days of the dot-com bubble , recruiters generalized that the casual workplace with its laissez-faire approach to schedules , attire , and workplace décor — would appeal in a big way to technical professionals , and especially to Web-savvy twenty-somethings . Before long , even staid and established companies were hyping their workout rooms , their air hockey lounges , their pet-friendly policies , and so on .
Where these environments authentically embody the top-to-bottom spirit of the company — at Google or Monster . com — this made perfect sense .
But for many companies , this positioning proved inauthentic and forced , a flimsy affectation that wouldn ’ t stick . In their scramble to join the Net revolution , organizations were inadvertently screening out their earned attributes , the distinct operating values and self-defined sense of community that made their workplaces — and their workforces — special .
A talent brand differs from nineties-style employer brands in that it anchors its appeal in the unique attributes that an organization offers , not in what it presumes its target expects from a workplace . In a nutshell , it starts at the opposite end of the supply / demand curve .
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