Branding key to winning battle for talents

Enterprises will have to compete harder to attract and retain talented staff in the years to come, and building up a good employer brand will give them an edge, according to head hunter Navigos Search.

Releasing the results of its new survey on “Employer Branding” yesterday, the company listed four criteria that employees looked for in an attractive brand: a good leadership team; a good working environment; support for employee training and development; and a good salary, benefits and bonus system.

Nguyen Thi Van Anh, Managing Director of Navigos Search, said: “In a dynamic and competitive market like Viet Nam, the battle for talents has been there for years and is getting stronger over time.

We would like to understand what experienced professionals in Viet Nam perceive as good values of “an employer of choice”.

This “Employer Branding” survey was an ongoing effort of Navigos Search to help companies better understand the concept as a strategic way to attract and retain talents, he said. The survey, conducted between January and March of this year, covered over 4,800 senior-management cadres working in both local companies and multinational corporations.

The survey found that 76 per cent of participants considered having a good leadership team as the top condition that the most attractive employer brand should have.

A good working environment, physically and spiritually, was highlighted by 75.2 per cent of participants, ranking this factor second amongst the four most important criteria.

The other factors, support for employees’ training and development and have a good remuneration package, came in third and fourth with 71.8 per cent and 66.4 per cent respectively.

One interesting fact the survey brought out was that only 14.3 of the respondents chose multinational companies as being a factor in their choice of employers.

“Historically, multinational companies (MNCs) in Viet Nam have enjoyed a big advantage: local employees viewed them as employers of choice, offering better environment, better pay and better career prospects than domestic companies,” a company release said.

The importance role that the media plays in helping build an attractive Employer Brand was also stressed in the survey results.

ost respondents (61.8 per cent) said that when they considered working for a company and wanted to check its reputation, they searched for information in newspapers and the Internet.

This compared with other information channels like family (11 per cent), friends (33 per cent) and current employees (42.8 per cent).

“According to this result, we can highlight the important role of the media in employer branding communication. Today’s employees choose to work with employers they trust.

Hence, it is essential to develop a good employment branding image and communicate it externally and internally,” Van Anh said. — VNS

Tags: Vietnam companies, Vietnam enterprises