How to convince your CEO to approve an Employer Branding budget

Article by Petr Hovorka, Employer Brand Baker / Managing Partner of World Employer Branding Day 2016 co-organising partner BrandBakers, Czech Republic's leading employer brand agency.

Leaders are busy people! So I’ll be quick!

Here are 4 key arguments you can use to convince your leaders to “give you the money” to build a stronger employer brand.

When building an employer brand, I see 4 key advantages – arguments use myself when talking to CEOs and CFOs:

1. To be a good employer and partner for people (employees) when the pool of talent is drying up, is not only a necessity, but also a matter of personal “taste”. Whilst companeis are at different stages of their employer branding lifecycle, most have started the journey.

2. The productivity of a company stands and falls on its employees. It also depends on how much they understand and are in harmony with its values and the company‘s strategy. To achieve this goal, the employer brand is a wonderful tool.

3. When a company cannot present its candidates an attractive offer, it usually increases the monthly wage and offers a wider range of benefits. Research shows that companies with a stronger employer brand, “collect” on reduced wage growth pressure (similar to how strong customer brands collect on the “price premium” in higher prcies and operating margins – look at the price of iPhones in comparison to Alcatel, Sencor, or Huawei).

4. The most effective marketing tool is word of mouth, which is driven by a positive experience with a product. In the world of HR, we define a product as an entire company including its culture. Smarter leaders would rather invest over the long term into their own people rather than quick fix recruitment advertising campaigns and ads.

But please, don’t think that if you decide to build a strong employer brand you will not need to support your career pages or your brand awareness program using PPC campaigns (e.g. search engine, Facebook or public transport ad campaigns). No way! You will still have to pay for general advertising. In the case of an employer brand you will be investing far more into your own estate – your employer brand, which cannot be copied (it can only be badly imitated) and it will provide you with a long-term competitive advantage in the job market where the fight for the best employees has already started.

The arguments for leaders have been developed further on the following slides. You are welcome to use them to support your business case when you next decide to fight for your “HR budget.”

Good luck!

Petr will co-present with Eva Vacikova, Senior HR Business Partner, FEI Company at World Employer Branding Day, for full details about the event click here>