An employer brand is more than just introducing new policies or publishing a laundry list of work-life initiatives on the company’s career site in the hope of building an engaged workforce. In a talent-short market like Malaysia where employment rate is at an all-time high, employers need to think about how they can positively impact people’s lives if they want to stand out differently.
A compelling employer brand is one that excites and inspires people on both a professional and personal level. Some job seekers look for employers that are financially healthy as they are typically perceived to be good paymasters. On the other hand, you have existing employees who are more interested to know how the company can continuously support their development and growth within the company to meet their changing career aspirations. The key challenge for companies is crafting an employer brand that will resonate with both their internal and external audiences.
When done right, the employer brand can be a powerful attraction and retention tool. However, we still see many companies in Malaysia having difficulties defining and communicating their employer brand to employees and job seekers.
In our latest white paper, ‘Enriching the Employee Experience’, we delve deep into the insights from our annual research to help companies improve their talent strategies and advance the employer brand by focusing on the employee’s experience.
According to Deloitte, a productive, positive employee experience has emerged as the new contract between employer and employee. Employers are increasingly expected to make employee experience an organisational priority, which includes helping your people identify areas of growth, eliminate hurdles and reduce complications at work. This could mean introducing new technology to shorten the workflow process, providing guidance on how to defuse conflicts and involving your employees in business-critical projects from the very beginning.
4 employee experience key actions:
A great employee experience that will work in Malaysia stems from four key actions:
1. identifying your target audience
- conduct surveys regularly or partner with an expert organisation to find out who is your target audience, what matters most to them and their career motivations.
2. less is more
- with limited resources, prioritise strategies and initiatives that you want to drive.
3. committing to executing
- even if you do not see any immediate return-on-investment, do not give up. Building a powerful employer brand is a long-term investment, so make sure you commit to it.
4. communicating what you are doing
- The fear is in the unknown. Always communicate what you are doing with both your internal and external stakeholders, even if it’s bad news.
Malaysia is an exciting emerging market with endless opportunities for employers and employees. In today’s world where candidates have exposure to multiple job opportunities both offline and online, a positive employee experience is more critical than ever for a company to stand out and win the war for talent.
Our latest Employer Brand Research surveyed more than 3,000 employees and job seekers in Malaysia this year to find out what are their perceptions of Malaysia’s top 75 commercial companies. We also seek to understand what motivates them so that we can help you identify and highlight areas of opportunity to strengthen your employer brand and talent strategies.
It is with this comprehensive research analysis that we work with you to identify, design and deliver a positive employee experience.