Summary: in any economy where supply of skilled workforce cannot keep up with the growing demand (and IT skills in Eastern Europe fall into this category) employer branding will become a key success factor. Building a great employer brand requires sustained effort and sustained funding. Employers who neglect this fact will face serious talent shortage as Generation Y is becoming the majority in their workforce.

 My PR and Marketing teacher once opened her class with the following question: What is the difference between a squirrel and a rat? The answer: Absolutely nothing, only the squirrel has better PR.

This blog post is an attempt to prove that not even ACME Inc. (my favorite hypothetical firm, renowned manufacturer of exploding tennis balls - tagline: “Surprise your opponent!”) can ignore this fact.

Observations (my perception is my realityJ)

1. Supply will not catch up with demand (for IT folks) in the next 5 years.
2. The coming generations (Gen Y and Z) have a different approach to work vs. Generation X. The “You should be happy that you can work for us” mantra no longer cuts it, they have a choice and they know it.
3. The workforce of a geographic location compares ACME to another company IN THE SAME location; PR efforts at the ACME HQ thousands of miles away are insufficient, employee branding has to have a local component. (This applies to employee satisfaction surveys as well.)
4. Gen Y (let alone Gen Y developers) relies on social media, they do not give a crap about printed media and mostly ignore last century electronic communication means like e-mail.
5. They can and will find out the real thing about any firm, so any communication has to be genuine.
6. The most effective (and unavoidable) PR comes through the word of mouth of the employees and the alumni. Your brand ambassadors are your own people.
7. One has to maintain an end to end + long term view on talent management: ignoring employer branding will result in more expensive workforce acquisition.
8. Rats want to look like a squirrel, so they started to spend on employee branding as well.

Proof points and suggested actions (I swore to the seven Gods to fit this post in two pages, so I give you the links to the sources instead showing it, happy readingJ.)

1. Supply will not catch up with demand any soon – there are some 20k (not a typo) IT jobs unfilled in Hungary while the output in computer science graduates dropped 30% in the last 10 years. The European Union is not in a better shape. (see ref. #1 and #2.)
2. A different approach to work: Within 4 years the portion of employees who think they would find another place within a few months grew from 23% to 49%. Most companies do every attempt to predict customer behavior and offer customized services to them. Now it is time to do the same with the employees. (see ref. #3 and #4)
3. The importance of acting at the geographic location: In an open economy one has two choices: A: to pick the optimal choice within his/her geography OR B: to move where the better opportunities are. There is no competition between London (or for that matter Zürich) and Budapest, the 3X compensation wins. (aka. London as the 3^rd largest Hungarian settlement before BREXIT). Those with an adventurous spirit (ie. who stay in Hungary) compare local firms, so ACME needs to position itself vs. other LOCAL employers.
4. Gen Y relies on social media – an example: my kids (14,15 and 18 years old) answer any FB Messenger or Viber message within 5 minutes. I bought them ESTA for a trip. They received a clarifying question from the embassy in e-mail. They realized it 2 months later… They do not read e-mail. (print media is out of the question) (see ref. #5 and #6)
5. The real thing about any firm: If you spend an hour on Glassdoor, LinkedIn and Facebook, plus you read the last two 10k reports of any major company (let alone ZDNet, TechTarget, InformationWeek if you are in IT), you will have a decent idea about its status. Press releases do not really matter…
6. The power of the word of mouth: when one intercepts contradicting information (eg. the tone of the speaker suggests the opposite to what he says) it is normal human behavior is to give credit the meta-communication over the written words. The same applies if the company’s PR says one thing while its employees say another to their buddies and family. (see ref. #7 and #8)
7. The need for an end to end view: The better the brand, the more likely a candidate will pick it vs. another one he/she has an offer from, ie. the declined offer rate goes down. Considering that the cost of a declined offer is identical to an accepted one AND one needs to pay premium if the perception about his/her firm is not good let alone non-existent it makes business sense to improve employer branding.
8. Rats want to look like a squirrel: even the incumbent local telco has a decent entry in this area. (see ref #9).

Bottom line: this is time to put together a multiyear local employer branding plan at ACME HUN, to assign resources and funding and to execute it. Should you have questions, comments or a counter argument, please let me know.

References – sources used

1. http://ivsz.hu/projektek/kutatas-az-informatikus-munkaerohianyrol/
2. http://eskills-monitor2013.eu/fileadmin/monitor2013/documents/MONITOR_Final_Report.pdf
3. Most Desired Employers of 2014 - White Paper
4. Consumerized Employee Services - the next evolution is shared services
5. http://aonhewitt.hu/download/575/file/lmf_2014_trendek_es_tanulsagok.pdf
6. http://www.hwsw.hu/kepek/hirek/2014/12/hwsw_microsoft_fejlesztoi_kutatas_osszefoglalo.pdf
7. https://www.randstad.co.uk/employers/randstad-award/talent_2015_key_insights_from_the_randstad_award_2015.pdf
8. http://www.randstad.hu/Award-2014
9. http://www.legyelteisinformatikus.hu/