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The role of Employer branding and Talent Management for Organizational Attractiveness
Babar Yaqub MS Scholar, Iqra University Islamabad Pakistan E-mail: babar_yaqub@yahoo.com Dr. Muhammad Aslam Khan Associate Professor, Preston University Islamabad Pakistan E-mail: aslumnuml@yahoo.com ABSTRACT Organizations all around the world always try to hire those people who can be an asset for the organization but it is important to know the efforts of these organizations to become employer of choice. Employer branding has a significant role for the hiring of human capital. This empirical study will investigate the role of employer branding and talent management for organizational attractiveness. The purpose of this study is to know about the perception of the university students about employer branding and different ways through which employers hire and manage the future talent. This study will also help to know about the importance of talent management and students approach for the potential employer. The sample size of this research study consists of 100 respondents from three universities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad. The results of this study indicate the relationship of employer branding talent management for organizational attractiveness. The findings of the study show that students are well aware of organizations recruitment techniques and they prefer to join those organizations where they can find better career growth. The practical implications of this study are helpful for both students and organizations. Students can make a better choice by the knowing the employer brand image of the organization and HR professional of organizations can make their techniques better to hire the new talent from the leading universities. The combination of talent management and employer branding can make any organization the employer of choice. Keywords: Employer branding, talent management, organizational attractiveness, employer brand image, talent retention. Paper Type: Research paper INTRODUCTION The present global economic crises have invited many issues for the business organizations both in production and service area. Due to these circumstances the role of an employer has become more significant and potential employees always associate some hopes to these employers. The concept of employer branding is becoming popular day by day therefore the talent management has become an integral part with it for organizational attractiveness. Every department of the organizations is trying its level best to get the results and in the same fashion the HR professionals are trying to hold the human capital. HR professionals are facing several issues like retention, compensation and recruitment. One of these issues includes the war of talent due to scarce opportunities for the employment. Lyon and Marler (2011) say that to attract and retain the appropriate employee is a burning issue therefore organizations are trying their level best to get the skilful and knowledgeable employees. In this regard they further add that the role of employer brand is worth
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mentioning which itself has the ability to become the employer of choice. Employer branding is actually a set package of different activities which help the organization to attract the potential employee. According to the views of Marin and Ruiz (2007), only the employer branding is not sufficient but along it the concept of employer brand equity is also attach. This concept actually encompasses the employer brand activities as a whole to attract the potential employees and to create more attraction for the current employees. While drawing the attention towards organizational attractiveness Celani and Singh (2011) add that the idea of employer branding actually makes the organization more attractive for the job seekers and an organization has to make less effort to develop its talent pool. Marshall et al (2010) advocates that organizational attractiveness serves at both internal and external level and now organizations are combining the efforts of production and HR department to attract both customer and job seekers through employer branding. Employer branding actually makes the organization attractive but in this regard the role of talent management is worth mentioning. Iles, Chuai, and Preece (2010) invite the attention by saying that talent management techniques actually pave the path for HR officials to design the employee friendly policies to retain them for a long time. This research is made to investigate the importance of employer branding and talent management which helps organizational attractiveness. This study is significant in such a way that the growing corporate knowledge of Pakistani university students can determine their future path for choosing the employer of choice. This research will help both students and employers to adopt the appropriate strategy for the role of employer branding and talent management for organizational attractiveness. The next part of this research paper will explore the back ground literature of the study to determine the future path. LITERATURE REVEIW In the current competitive era many organizations try to get different advantages but the importance of employer branding has its own significance. The term Branding can also be used in the human resource management and it is known as Employer Branding. Employer branding is the science of branding and its principles are applicable on the human resource management. The core job of employer branding is to make company attractive for the potential employees to get the maximum benefit of the market. Employer branding is defined by the many authors and organizations. According to CIPD (2009) employer branding is the set of intangible attributes and qualities which attract the potential employees to offer the services for the particular organization. Backhaus and Tikoo (2004) argue that employer branding suggests unique aspects of the organizations employment offerings which distinguishes it from other organizations. On the other hand King and Grace (2008) consider the employer branding as an identity of the organization as an employer. Similarly they described that employer branding is an image of the firm as a good place to work. Employer branding needs both internal and external marketing. Internal marketing of the employer branding helps the organizations to become as an employer of choice and to attract the best people. The internal marketing of the employer branding helps to develop a workforce which is difficult to imitate. For good employer branding the organizational effectiveness is important and Malik et al (2011) indicate several techniques of HR to achieve purpose. In the views of King and Grace (2008) the employer branding is considered as the applicants knowledge and feelings for the brand. Applicants normally decide about the job according to their knowledge of the employer brand. Davies (2008) explores, the concept of Employer Branding (EB) actually determines the attraction of job seekers towards the brand according to economic conditions, employment opportunities and brand trust. Some researchers like
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Martin and Beaumont (2003) consider the employer brand as the value preposition but in each case the recruitment of employees and to retain them for a long time is very important. Allen et al (2007) suggests that employer branding activities must be design to enhance the employer brand image. Employer branding needs some other techniques to help for the effective organizational attractiveness. Supornpraditchai et al (2007) and Heger (2007) say that normally organizations focus those employees who work in the best interest of the organization and try to achieve the organizational goals. In the recent competitive era, the company brand and corporate ethics are very important because organizations continually try to educate their employees about the engagement initiatives and sustainability of the organization. Dell and Hickey (2002) had identified the importance of talent management for the employer branding. Chapman et al (2005) adds that the concept of EB is directly related to talent management because talent management is combination of various HR practices which determine the future reputation of the organization as an employer. Morton (2005) and Fernon (2008) had also mentioned the retention and search of the talent. It is worth mentioning to discuss the key features of talent management as given by various researchers. Talent management is important for the organization and in the views of Lewis and Heckmans (2006) talent management consists of HR practices like recruitment, selection, development and career management. Bhatnagar (2007) said that employee engagement and a better talent management and retention can play an important role for organizational success. Vaiman (2008) said that talent management is the name of developing the workforce according to organizations future needs but it requires the appropriate potential employees to search. In the views of Joo and Park (2009) HRD professionals can manage the talent by searching and retaining them. Hughes and Rog (2008) and Gberevbie (2010) have mentioned that the core job of talent management is to arrange the best performers in such a way that they should highlight the brand image in the employee market which makes the organization attractive for the potential employees. Baptiste (2008) mentioned techniques of talent management which mainly include talent retention and talent acquisition or talent hunt. Jenner and Taylor (2009) argue that the concept of talent management is a useful tool for the employers to strengthen the brand of the organization which can make it attractive for the potential employees. Different organizations in the world are using different ways for acquiring the talented staff. TESCO is using different techniques for recruitment and retention for the school students, college students and university graduates. The combination of Employer Branding and talent management can make the organization attractive not only for the internal employees but for the external employees also. Organizational attractiveness (OA) is another key feature for any organization to make future growth. Cable and Turban (2001) considered the OA as competitive advantage for the employer due to its general attractiveness because it can attract the job seekers to join the applicant pool with the required skills and competency level. In the views of Robertson et al (2005) OA serves as mediator between recruitment message and intentions to accept the job offer. Albinger and Freeman (2000) had stated that growing influence of the media had made job seekers more vigilant and any positive or negative news of the organization directly influence the recruitment process and potential employees made their mind accordingly. Carless and Imber (2007) said that organizational attractiveness is the name of certain policies which attract the candidates and in this regard several theories are presented by the researchers. Potential employees always consider those organizations where they have the chances to grow. Lievens (2007, p62) advocates that normally organizational attractiveness is considered to attract the external or potential employees but in this regard the internal
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employees are also worth mentioning. Lyness and Kropf (2005) and Nadeler et al (2010), further add that HR department should consider the current issue of flexible working hours. In the views of Gomes and Neves (2011), OA is measured by new job seekers and experienced job seekers differently due to the prestige of the organization but in the both cases the employer branding serves as basic attribute of the organization to attract new employees. Jiang and Iles (2011) considered the OA as the power which draws the attention of potential employees to focus on the employer brand and the current employees to stay for long time to enhance the self image. They further divide the OA in to two categories, one is known as internal organizational attractiveness and the other is known as external organizational attractiveness. Jiang and Iles (2011) used the term Employee-Based Brand Equity along Employer Brand Equity and Employer Branding in their research work and they highlighted the five dimensions of the EBBE which include economic value, social value, interest value, developmental value and brand. As they had proved that these values have a close relationship with the organizational attractiveness but in this regard the role of talent management cannot be ignored which helps to retain the employees. In the light of their future research where they have suggested that a research should be made to determine how university graduates value the relationship of employer branding and organizational attractiveness. Theoretical Framework
Employer Branding

H1
Job and Organizational Attributes Employer brand Image Organizational Attractiveness General Attractiveness Prestige Talent Management Talent Retention Talent Hunt Model: Employer Branding and Talent Management for Organizational Attractiveness

H2

According to above given literature review and theoretical frame work the following hypothesis are developed. H1 Employer branding is positively related to organizational attractiveness. H2 Talent Management is positively related to Organizational Attractiveness.

METHODOLOGY The organizations working in the Pakistani corporate sector are of different origins some are owned by the well known Pakistani businessmen and some are owned by the foreigners. Therefore it is interesting to know about the image of these organizations as employers among university graduates. For this research work, the quantitative approach is used and for
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this purpose the primary data is collected. Due to time constraints, the sample size consists of 100 students to generalize the results. These 100 students belong to three well known universities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad, which include, University of Arid Agriculture Rawalpindi, National University of Modern languages and Iqra University. A 5 point likert is used in the questionnaire and questions will deal all the given variables where employer branding and talent management serve as independent variable, and organizational attractiveness as dependent variable. For employer branding the questionnaire is adopted from Gomes and Neves (2010) and Lyon and Marler (2011) and for organizational attractiveness from Highhouse et al (1999). For talent management the questionnaire is adopted from Zheng (2009).The results will be analyzed through SPSS. RESULTS A total sample (n) of 100 students was taken and questionnaires were personally administrated. The ratio of male respondents was 53% and 47% were female respondents. 36% respondents were from Iqra University Islamabad where as 37% were from Arid Agriculture University Rawalpindi and 27% were from National University of Modern Languages. 16% of respondents were MS scholars, 27% were postgraduates and 57% were graduates. The multiple regressions is used to evaluate the results. The overall value of the cronbach alpha is .853 (Table I) which confirms the reliability of the scale. Employer branding was consist of ten items in which job and organizational attributes and employer brand image contain five items each. Five point likert scale was used (1= strongly disagree and 5= strongly agree) and its cronbachs alpha value for this variable was .733 which confirms the reliability of its scale. The mean value for the Employer branding (EB) was 3.912 and its SD was 1.08742 (Table II). The correlation value of the EB is significant (p < 0.01) (Table III) which confirms its correlation to other variables which were talent management (TM) and organizational attractiveness (OA). The other variable was talent management and it also had ten items. These ten items were distributed between talent retention and talent hunt and each contain five items. The cronbach alpha value for this variable was .859 which confirms the reliability of the scale and for this variable five point likert scale (1= strongly disagree and 5= strongly agree) was used. The mean value of TM was 3.9320 and its SD was .76500(Table II).

Reliability of Scale
Table 1 Cronbach's Alpha .853 N of Items 3

Like EB the correlation value of TM was also significant for EB and OA (Table III). Organizational attractiveness was measured with the help of general attractiveness and prestige by using five items for each with five point likert scale (1= strongly disagree and 5= strongly agree). The cronbach alpha value for TM was .893 which confirms the scale reliability. The Mean value of TM was 4.0060 and SD was .77718 (Table II).
Mean and Standard Deviation

Mean EB TM 3.9120 3.9320

Std. Deviation 1.08742 .76500

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OA

4.0060

.77718

100

Table 2 Table 3 depicts the coefficients and it is important to mention that value of is .157 and its significance is .026. Although it is a positive relationship and proving the H1but even then its value is not as strong as it should be. On the other hand the value of talent management is .739 and its significance is .000 which is supporting the H2 and showing a strong relationship between talent management and organizational attractiveness. Table 3 Coefficients Unstandardized Coefficients Model
1

Standardized Coefficients Beta .157 .739 t -.508 2.257 10.640 Sig. .613 .026 .000 .451 .132 .071

B -.229 .297

Std. Error

(Constant) EB

TM .751 a. Dependent Variable: OA

Discussion and Conclusion In past the brands of organizations are considered due to their products and services. The emerging concept of globalization has wiped the demarcation lines of different economic regions and presently organizations have to care about their employer brand to attract the talent and this phenomena is prevailing almost the entire world. Aaker and Joachimsthaler (2000, p17) consider the employer branding as set of brand assets and liabilities related to brand value which an organization have for its employees. This study examines the views of students about employer branding and how they perceive their potential employers. In this study some notable observations are highlighted. The results of this research indicate that university students are well aware of this concept and most of the respondents have emphasised the need of learning opportunities and to enhance skills for better opportunities. Collins (2006) believes that it is basically the effect of brand image and knowledge which potential and existing employees have about the firm. The research outcomes show the positive relationship of employer branding for organizational attractiveness and respondents have given more importance to friendly and informal culture and show more intentions to join a prestigious employer. Similarly in the views of Wilden et al (2006), employer branding actually tells the attitude of potential and current employees towards job and organizational attributes which builds the employer brand image. According to Jenner and Taylor (2009), talent management is a key tool for HR professionals and according to empirical findings of this study the correlation of TM is reasonably to EB and OA. The results of this study also highlight the significance of
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training for the retention of talent which ultimately reduce the employees turnover. Education institutes are the best source of future talent therefore in the present study students have given importance to those items which are associated to job fairs, relationship of campus career office with companies and company sponsored speakers on the campus. In light of this study the organizational attractiveness is also important because organizations have to adopt certain practices to keep their prestigious position in the employer market and the same thought is supported by Carless and Imber (2007). The respondents of this empirical study are more inclined to those organizations which have general attractiveness like, ideal working environment and they are interested to know more about them. In this regard the prestige of the organization can be ignored and findings of this research paper show that respondents are strongly agree to those items which indicate their desired organization as excellent employer and they feel pride to become part of that organization. The repute of the organizations always makes them highly prestigious and people prefer to work in these organizations. It can be concluded that employer branding and talent management have a relationship with organizational attractiveness but this study has certain limitations like small sample size to time constraints and it is also needed to investigate other postulates of employer branding to check its impact for organizational attractiveness. This empirical study is made in the universities but the future research can be made in the leading organizations to know about their prevailing practices for employer branding and talent management to make organization attractive. The practical implication of the study can be helpful for the organizations because they can use better employer branding techniques for making their brand image better. On the other hand talent management techniques are of great importance and students give preference to those organizations which can provide them good opportunities for the career growth. The combination of employer branding and talent management can make the organization for both existing and potential employees. REFERENCES Aaker,D. A. and Joachimsthaler, E. (2000) Brand Leadership, The Free Press. London. Albinger, S.H. and Freeman, S.J. (2000) Corporate Social Performance and attractiveness as an employer to different job seeking populations. Journal of Business Ethics. Vol .28,pp 243-253 Allen,D.G., Mahto, R.V. and Otondo, R.F.(2007), Web-based recruitment: effects of information, organization brand, and attitudes towards a web site on applicant attraction, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 92 No.6 pp.1696-708 Backhaus, K. and Tikoo (2004) Conceptualizing and researching employer branding, Career Development international, Vol 9, No 5,pp501-17 Baptiste, N. (2008), Tightening the link between employee well being at work and performance, Management Decision, Vol. 46 No. 2, pp. 284-309 Bhatnagar, J., (2007) Talent management Strategy of employee engagement in Indian ITES employees: Key to retention., Employee Relations Vol 29 (6) pp 640-663 Cable, D.M and Turban, D.B (2001), Establishing the dimensions, sources and value of job seekers employer knowledge during recruitment, in Ferris, G.E. (Ed), Research in personnel and Human Resource Management, Elsevier Science, New York, NY, pp.115-163

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