alignment of internally and externally aimed employer...

ALIGNMENT OF INTERNALLY AND EXTERNALLY AIMED

EMPLOYER BRANDING EFFORTS

– A CASE STUDY OF THE NOVO NORDISK EMPLOYER BRANDING

PROGRAMME ‘LIFE CHANGING CAREERS’

BACHELOR THESIS – SPRING 2011

SUPERVISOR: FRANCES JØRGENSEN

STUDENT: SUSANNE KOLLE – 300142

BSCB IM

Alignment of internally and externally aimed employer branding efforts | 1





ABSTRACT To make profits, and thereby please the shareholders, companies strive for competitive

advantage. To create competitive advantage has though become increasingly difficult because a

lot of parameters of differentiation are easy to imitate for competitors. Therefore, there has been

an increasing focus on the human resources, as the human capital is one of the ways companies

actually can differentiate themselves. Attracting, training, developing, and retaining the talented

employees with the right skills needed in the company has become a key issue. This is especially

because of the increasing competition in the market for labour, where skilled employees are in

high demand. But the right organisation can lead to sustainable competitive advantage. Further,

the stakeholder view has contributed to businesses caring more about other stakeholders than

just the financial owners of the company, including the current and potential employees.

Employees are important for the business, because employee performance will in the end

influence customer satisfaction and the final bottom line.

Companies have, due to the increasing competition in the labour market, had to deal with a

paradigm shift from being buyers of labour to being sellers of jobs. Therefore companies have had

to put forward employer value propositions to make employees chose exactly their company. Not

only must they make potential employees aware of themselves as a great place to work, they must

also make sure, that it is the best applicants that make it successfully through the recruitment

process. And further, the company must also retain the employees and make sure that the

employees understand and commit to the company goals to get a return on the investment in the

human capital. The changes in strategic focus and the paradigm shift has led to a merger of

practices within the areas of marketing and human resource management. And employer

branding have been found to be advantageous for the companies in their search for the right

employees.

A solid foundation of existing knowledge is outlined in the thesis reviewing relevant literature,

including literature on the terms internal marketing, employee branding, and employer branding,

before a case study of the pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk. The aim of the study was to

find out whether alignment of internally aimed and externally aimed employer branding efforts


would be recommendable, as this is not clear from prior literature. To find out whether an

alignment would be recommendable, a study was planned to illustrate how and by what potential

and current employees’ perception of the employer brand of Novo Nordisk were influenced. And

for that purpose, a sample of a potential employee, a current but recently hired employee and a

current employee, who have been with Novo Nordisk since before the initiation of the employer

branding project, was selected for a qualitative case study of the company.

Focused interviews were conducted, and in the analysis of the interviews, it was found that the

three interviewees had similar perceptions of the employer brand even though they had been

influenced in different ways. The sources which had been affecting the interviewees most were

the sources intended to influence them in their given situation, and other communication had only

little influence. The interviewees, as a result of their interaction with the company, had a

perception of Novo Nordisk being a successful, professional, credible and committed company

with an employee focus offering possibilities, a good work-life balance, a job to be proud of, and

working towards a greater goal.

An important finding was that the consistency of the communication had played a role for all

interviewees in the perception of the employer brand. This was despite the fact that Novo Nordisk

have not formalised internal employer branding of the company but only the externally aimed

employer branding effort. However, the consistency could be due to Novo Nordisk basing their

externally aimed employer branding efforts on the internal values in the company, which has been

possible, because the company has a quite strong internal employer brand. The aim of the Novo

Nordisk employer branding project is therefore initially, to increase the awareness of Novo

Nordisk as employer in the external market for potential employees.

From the results of the study, however, it was found to be recommendable to fully align the

internally and externally aimed employer branding efforts for Novo Nordisk. This is especially due

to the importance of the consistency in communication, and because internally and externally

aimed employer branding efforts are in fact two sides of the same coin. They can to some extent

function separately, but if the two processes are not aligned consistency will be missing and the

credibility of the employer brand will therefore decrease. To ensure consistency alignment is

therefore key and this is a step in the direction of utilising the full potential of the employer

branding efforts.

To secure the continuous alignment it is recommendable to follow up the employer branding

efforts by measuring them with key performance indicators maybe even incorporated in the

balanced scorecard of the company. But not much knowledge exists about which key performance

indicators are the most effective to use when monitoring employer branding efforts. It is though

suggested to both monitor recruitment and retention.


CONTENTS Abstract 1

1. New tendencies in human resource management 7

1.1. Internal marketing 7

1.2. Employee branding 9

1.3. Employer branding 10

2. Marketing Aspects of employer branding 13

3. Human resources management aspects of employer branding 15

4. Definition for reference within this thesis 17

5. Why use employer branding 17

5.1. Employer branding as a strategic initiative 19

6. The ‘how to’ of employer branding 21

6.1. The role of communication in employer branding 23

7. Aims of this study 25

7.1. Problem formulation 26

8. Methodology 26

8.1. The case study 27

8.2. Novo Nordisk 28

8.2.1. Life changing careers 29

8.3. Sampling 31

8.4. Interviews 32

8.4.1. The interview guide 33

8.4.2. The technical aspects of interviewing 35

8.5. Analysis of the data 35

8.6. Limitations of the study 37

8.6.1. Criteria of qualitative research 37

8.6.2. Limitations of methodology applied in the study 38

9. Results 38

9.1. The potential employee 39

9.2. The current employee hired after initiating the employer branding project 40


9.3. The current employee hired prior to the employer branding project 41

9.4. Comparison 42

10. Implications of the results 43

11. Learning and Recommendations 45

12. Conclusions 47

13. Bibliography 49

Appendix I – The Novo Nordisk Way 53

Appendix II – Analysis of interview with potential employee: 56

Appendix III – Analysis of interview with current employee hired after initiation of employer

branding project: 57

Appendix IV – Analysis of interview with current employee hired before initiation of employer

branding project: 58






All companies seek to gain competitive advantage compared to other companies in their

respective industries. This is done because gaining competitive edge is a step towards creating

profit and pleasing shareholders, which is the traditional aim of doing business. However, as

Kroager and Schmidt (2002) put it; “it has become increasingly difficult to sustain or establish

significant competitive advantages through either skilful financial management or through

purchasing new machines or new equipment, as this can be copied or bought relatively easily

today” (translated from Danish, quoted in Engelund, Buchhave 2009, p. 20). And Van Hoye (2011)

adds that for a company to experience success and even just to survive in the harsh business

climate today, attracting and retaining the most talented employees is crucial. Therefore an

increasing focus has been put on human capital, as this is still a parameter with possibility for

differentiating the company and building a gap to competitors. And if companies understand to

use their human capital and organisation optimally, this can be very hard to imitate for

competitors (Backhaus, Tikoo 2004).

Building up a human capital that can give the company the very important competitive edge is

easier said than done because of a global tendency of change in the demand and supply of labour.

Skilled workers who can add value within the company, the so called pool of talent, can be hard to

tap into in developed as well as developing economies ((Turban, Forret et al. 1998), (McKenzie,

Glynn 2001), (Rousseau 2001), (The Conference Board 2001), (Ewing, Pitt et al. 2002), (Lloyd

2002), (Berthon, Ewing et al. 2005), (Moroko, Uncles 2008)). This has led to companies putting a

bigger focus on human resource management, including employer branding. Potentially, the firms

that embrace employer branding will gain competitive edge. Indeed the motivation to implement

strategies to attract and retain staff is high as financial markets are increasingly recognising human

capital or the skills, experience and knowledge of employees as a source of value to the company

and therefore also to the shareholders (Moroko, Uncles 2008).

The value of distinctive human resources is derived from the resource based view, which is a

strategic view of creating value within companies. The organisation is in the resource based view

regarded as a bundle of resources, amongst these the employees who constitute the human


capital of the company. In the resource based view resources must be valuable, rare, imperfectly

imitable and imperfectly substitutable to accumulate a sustainable competitive advantage for the

company (Bowman, Ambrosini 2007).

Furthermore, new views of what to focus on when running a business have come to the surface.

And one new way of looking at the aim of business includes the stakeholder view, which implies

that companies have an obligation to all groups and individuals with a legitimate stake in the

activities of the firm. This means that not only the shareholders and other investors who own the

company financially are in focus (Ewing, Pitt et al. 2002). Bergstrom and Anderson (2000/1) agree

that addressing multiple stakeholders both inside the company and external to the company will

be critical when communicating a brand effectively. Therefore they state that managing the

relationship between internal and external stakeholders is very important (Bergstrom, Anderson

2000-2001). This statement is derived from the ‘employee-customer-profit chain’ developed by

Sears, that showed a relationship between employee satisfaction, customer satisfaction and in the

end bottom line results (Bergstrom, Anderson 2000-2001).

Companies have had to deal with strategic shifts in focus and simultaneously in a paradigm shift

from being buyers of labour to being sellers of jobs (Engelund, Buchhave 2009). In the past there

was a sense that people should be grateful to have a job, and this has changed tremendously

(Lloyd 2002). This paradigm shift has led to employees, who are sought for by competing

companies, and potential employees to demand more and ask questions such as “what is in it for

me, my employability, and my career” (McKenzie, Glynn 2001, p. 22) or “now that I am working

50-60 hours a week with this company, what is the social infrastructure like, what access do I have

to facilities I need? How will my job depth and scope be developed? And will I learn new skills or

go overseas?” (Lloyd 2002, p. 64). And therefore companies have had to put forward employer

value propositions that makes employees chose exactly their company (Lloyd 2002).

The companies therefore face quite big challenges with regards to staffing. Not only must they

make potential employees aware of themselves as a great place to work, they must also make

sure, that it is the best applicants that make it successfully through the recruitment process. But

this is not the end, the company must also retain the employees and make sure that the

employees understand and commit to the company goals (The Conference Board 2001). Employer

branding will though be helpful for the employers to engage in when facing such challenges to

build up a distinct and skilful human capital to ensure the future success of the company. In this

thesis a solid foundation will be outlined reviewing relevant literature within this area before the

problem will be formulated. This is to make sure that the point of departure is taken in existing

knowledge in the area. This will, furthermore, illustrate existing gaps in the theory, which can be

looked into via the case study, which will be introduced later in the thesis. First, though, a look at

how the term employer branding came about, from where the thesis will depart into a theoretical

discussion of the different aspects of the term employer branding, before stating a definition for

use in the study and a problem formulation to investigate.


1. NEW TENDENCIES IN HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT From the companies point of view the changes in strategic focus and the paradigm shift has led to

a merger of practices within the areas of marketing and human resource management. At the

same time research in this new hybrid area is appearing, and several new terms have seen the

light of day. Now companies should no longer only focus their branding efforts only towards

product branding or corporate branding, but now also towards branding the company for

stakeholders, among these employees. Therefore branding activities have moved into the area of

human resource management, and such efforts have been labelled internal marketing, employee

branding and employer branding.

The three terms are all related to different aspects of employee attraction and retention, though

the first two originally emerged as more or less pure branding initiatives aimed at improving the

organisational image perceived by the customers as a part of the rise of the branding of services

((Kotler, Keller et al. 2009) & (Foster, Punjaisri et al. 2010)). However, an employee experience is

far more complex than any service experience (Mosley 2007), and this has led to the development

of the third term employer branding, which as a broad umbrella covers quite a few perspectives of

employee attraction and retention, with aims moving beyond pure customer satisfaction. To reach

an understanding of how the term employer branding came about, it is important to consider

internal marketing as well as employee branding too. Hence, the point of departure of this thesis

will reflect the chronological development, thus an introduction of internal marketing. But before

giving the final definition of employer branding for the use in the study of this thesis, the

marketing and human resources management aspects respectively will be introduced.

1.1. INTERNAL MARKETING

Initially the term internal marketing was used in relation to marketing of services, a phenomenon

that appeared in the 1970’s (Kotler, Keller et al. 2009). But Berry (1981) was one of the first to

mention internal marketing as marketing towards employees and opposing external marketing. He

defines internal marketing as “applying the philosophy and practises of marketing to the people-

resources that serves the external customer so that (1) the best possible people can be employed

and retained and (2) they will do the best possible work” (Berry 1981, p. 15), a view that is not far

from the idea of employer branding today. Berry (1981) was also amongst the first to define

employees as internal customers and jobs as internal products with the point of companies having

to design the internal products - jobs - to meet the needs of the internal customers - employees.

Ambler and Barrow (1996) states that ‘employers do not provide employee benefits altruistically

any more than they provide products to customers purely for customer satisfaction’ (Abler,

Barrow 1996, p. 191). This is a statement, which really do put the above statement in perspective,

because viewing employees as internal customers and jobs as internal products in the end will be

beneficial to the company. As Ambler and Barrow put it earlier in the same article; “continuous

good relationships between the company and its customers necessarily involves employees”


(Abler, Barrow 1996, p. 185), and “improved employee motivation should lead to improved

employee performance which should, in turn, lead to improved customer relationships” (Abler,

Barrow 1996, p. 188).

According to Kotler, Keller et al. (2009)

internal marketing was used to engage

employees, to minimize tensions between

marketing people and other employees,

and to bring a unified approach to the

customers of the company mentions.

Kotler (1994) had in his earlier version of

the same book defined internal marketing

as “the task of successfully hiring, training,

and motivating able employees who wants

to serve customers well” (Kotler 1994, p.

22).

In fact Kotler (1994) suggests that internal marketing must precede external marketing, as he

argues that the company cannot promise excellent service before the company’s staff is ready to

provide excellent service. This he illustrates with the following example; “Bill Marriott tells the job

candidates that the hotel chain wants to satisfy three groups: customers, employees, and

shareholders. … Bill Marriott reasons … Firstly, the company must satisfy its employees. If the

employees love their work and feel a sense of pride in the hotel, they will serve the customers

well. Satisfied customers will return frequently to the Marriott. The repeat business will in turn

yield high profits for the stockholders” (Kotler 1994, p. 23). In Figure 1 the interaction between key

stakeholders as well as internal and external marketing can be seen.

Marketing of services was indeed the kick starter of internal marketing, however, it has developed

since the 1970’s and Rafiq and Ahmad (2000) describe the development of the internal marketing

concept through three phases. In the first phase, in the 1970’s, the focus was put on employee

motivation and employee satisfaction. This was due to the belief that “to have satisfied customers,

the firm must also have satisfied employees” (George 1977, p. 91), and it was seen as a way to

align employee and company goals and objectives. It was also in this first phase that companies

started viewing jobs as ‘internal products’ offered to employees (Rafiq, Ahmed 2000). This is a

view that has followed through to the contemporary literature of employer branding where jobs

are described as employment experiences ((Ewing, Pitt et al. 2002) , (Mosley 2007), (Foster,

Punjaisri et al. 2010)).

In the 1980’s and the beginning of the 1990’s the second phase of internal marketing shifted the

focus from the employees to the customers. In this phase the internal marketing was used to

create customer oriented employees, who would also be sales minded. Performance was key and

FIGURE 1

(Kotler 1994)


internal marketing was a tool for improving the performance of the employees in the company

(Rafiq, Ahmed 2000). Third phase, which is also the most recent phase that started in the late

1980’s or early 1990’s overlaps time-wise with phase two. This phase of the development of

internal marketing has broadened the scope to strategy implementation and change management

and has become an important tool for such actions (Rafiq, Ahmed 2000).

After reviewing the three phases of literature on internal marketing Rafiq and Ahmad suggests the

following definition; “Internal marketing is a planned effort using a marketing-like approach to

overcome organisational resistance to change and to align, motivate and inter-functionally co-

ordinate and integrate employees towards the effective implementation of corporate functional

strategies in order to deliver customer satisfaction through a process of creating motivated and

customer oriented employees” (Rafiq, Ahmed 2000, p. 454).

Ewing, Pitt et al (2002) also views jobs as internal products and employees as internal customers.

They argue that these “job products must attract, develop, and motivate employees, thereby

satisfying the needs and wants of these internal customers while addressing the overall goals of

the organisation” (Ewing, Pitt et al. 2002, p. 10).

As it is also seen from the above definitions internal marketing focuses largely on the adoption of

the branding concept inside an organisation to ensure that employees deliver the brand promise

to the external stakeholders (Foster, Punjaisri et al. 2010). Mosley (2007) supports this by stating

that internal marketing is “the task of ensuring employees understand the brand promise and

their part in delivering an on-brand customer experience” (Mosley 2007, p. 128). Though he adds,

that internal marketing, therefore, can be seen as putting on a show for the customers rather than

a natural extension of a deeply rooted brand by employees.

Boyd and Sutherland (2006) suggests that companies who are good at internal branding treat the

consumer and the employee brand as two sides of the same coin and integrate their

communication accordingly.

1.2. EMPLOYEE BRANDING

Employee branding has been defined a number of times by different researchers, and it moves

beyond internal marketing in including more specifics on human resource management. For

instance Miles and Mangold (2004) suggest that “employee branding goes beyond attaining

customer satisfaction through internal marketing as it utilises all the organisational systems,

including internal marketing methods, to motivate employees to project the desired organisational

image” (Miles, Mangold 2004, p. 68). Thus, employee branding moves beyond internal marketing,

but it is still described as a tool of branding the company towards customers via the employee.

Though, here the motivation of the employee does also play an important role.


Miles and Mangold’s (2004)

conceptualisation of the em-

ployee branding process,

which can be seen in Figure

2, includes four elements.

The first element, being the

sources or modes of mes-

sages, which can be internal

as well as external and

formal as well as informal.

The second element is the

employee perceptions with

regards to the psychological

contract (a term further

elaborated on in section 3. Human resources management aspects of employer branding)

between employee and company, and whether it has been upheld or not. These two elements

leads to an interpretation of an employee brand image which in turn can affect the employee

turnover, employee satisfaction, service quality, customer retention and the word of mouth

communication. A positive influence on the latter should be the effective outcome of a successful

employee branding process. This model, though, is rather general and do not just consider the aim

of branding towards employees for the sake of the customers of the company. Later in 2007

Mangold and Miles specified their definition of employee branding to be; “the image presented to

an organisation’s customers and other stakeholders through its employees” (Mangold, Miles 2007,

p. 424).

Furthermore, it is also mentioned by Boyd and Sutherland (2006) how a corporate culture can be

supporting of or different to the employee branding initiatives. They found that companies must

create a culture and value set, which views employees and their training and development as a

focus area to successfully obtain employee commitment to living the brand of the organisation.

Competing for the best talent is not enough. And the company must create such a culture and

keep the culture relevant rather than changing it sporadically based on dipstick monitoring.

Additionally, the study supports making employee branding a key business priority and to

communicate and live by a clear set of values (Boyd, Sutherland 2006).

1.3. EMPLOYER BRANDING

The trend in literature about internal marketing, employee branding and employer branding has

been to move from using the terms internal marketing and employee branding to using the term

employer branding. However, the term employer branding covers more concepts and includes

both the internal marketing aspects and the human resources management aspects of employee

FIGURE 2

(Miles, Mangold 2004)


branding. Jobs are still seen as internal products offered to internal customers, and there is still a

focus on motivating employees like in employee branding (Boyd, Sutherland 2006). Now though, a

broader focus has been laid out. Backhaus and Tikoo (2004) suggest that employer branding is a

practice that is based on the assumption that human capital can bring value to the company as

discussed in the very beginning of this thesis. The assumption is that if the company invests in its

human capital it can enhance the company’s performance. They thereafter divide the employer

branding efforts into external and internal marketing of the employer brand as two different

processes.

The focus of the external marketing of the employer brand is according to Backhaus and Tikoo

(2004) to be able to attract a distinctive human capital on the base of establishing the company as

an employer of choice. This distinctive human capital is then shaped by the internal marketing of

the employer brand with the aim of creating at a workforce that is difficult for competitors to

imitate. And according to Backhaus the first step in developing competitive human capital in a

company is attracting the appropriate applicants. Appropriate or ‘right’ applicants may be the best

and the brightest, but it may also be the ones who fit the organisation the best, and here

employment branding plays a big role (Backhaus 2004). Backhaus and Tikoo (2004) define the

employer brand as “the process of building an identifiable and unique employer identity”

(Backhaus, Tikoo 2004, p. 502), which should then be a part of the process of differentiating the

employer from its competitors.

Engelund and Buchhave (2009) suggest the following definition of employer branding, which

opposed to the above is not divided into two different processes; “Employer branding is the

strategic process of trying to influence the company’s brand as an employer so that the real

employer brand will be as close to the employer brand wished for as possible. The primary driver

in the process is the work with the company’s employer profile, and through that strengthen the

dynamics between the company profile, identity and image as an employer” (translated from

Danish, Engelund, Buchhave 2009, p. 28). When discussing the employer profile, Engelund and

Buchhave refer to the way the company presents itself as employer. The company identity is how

the organisation within the company experience the company as employer and the employer

image is how the outside world sees the company as employer. Again both intentional and

unintentional communication will have an influence on the employer brand, as it is based on

efforts and opinions from the inside of the company as well as perceptions from the outside of the

company.

Working with shaping the employer brand is the employer branding process, and it is important to

keep in mind that an employment brand needs constant follow-up as it is dynamic and develops

with changes in the in the company’s business, employees’ wishes, market developments, external

stakeholder views, trends etc. This is supported by Martin (2009) who writes that it previously

have been seen as a positive thing to have a stable employer brand, however now it is important


to have flexible organisational identities that can cope with the rapid changes seen in today’s

world.

An employer brand is not just a slogan or a logo, though according to Bergstrom and Anderson

(2000-2001) these are often used as verbal and visual aids to communicate the brand to the

employees. The brand communicated to the employees can be a separately established employer

brand, but it can also just be translating the brand used externally to a relevant message for the

employees (Bergstrom, Anderson 2000-2001).

In their report on engaging employees The Conference Board (2001) states that employer brands

establishes “the identity of the firm as an employer. It encompasses the firm’s values, systems,

policies, and behaviours toward the objectives of attracting, motivating, and retaining the firm’s

current and potential employees” (The Conference Board 2001, p. 10). Backhaus (2004) elaborates

by stating that such a definition indicates that employer branding involves promotion activities,

both within and outside the firm. The Conference Board (2001) further suggest that an effective

employer brand is holistic and applies for both the internal and external markets of employees.

More precisely the employer brand should be:

Known and understood throughout the company all employees know the brand’s

message and (more importantly) how it applies to them.

Known in the employment market place candidates will be familiar with the brand and

will be applying to the company on the strength of the brand.

(The Conference Board 2001, p. 31)

Whereas the above definitions put emphasis on both external and internal aims of employer

branding, Mosley (2007) defines employer branding as a tool for internal use with the aim of

“providing a coherent framework for management to simplify and focus priorities, increase

productivity, and improve recruitment, retention and commitment” (Mosley 2007, p. 130).

Bergstrom and Anderson (2000-2001) add that to improve overall retention, employers use

branding techniques to help applicants screen companies for the correct match between their

values, priorities, and work styles and those of the organisation (Bergstrom, Anderson 2000-2001).

This is similar to the definition presented by Ambler and Barrow (1996), which is that “the

employer brand can be defined as the package of functional, economic and psychological benefits

provided by employment, and identified with the employing company” (Abler, Barrow 1996, p.

187). This definition is based on the assumption of the employee – employer relationship being a

series of mutual exchanges of benefits.

Lastly, Engelund and Buchhave (2009) state that employer branding is a multidimensional

discipline which pulls together efforts from many areas within the company. As it is not specifically

placed in one function of the company or in one area of research, different definitions have been

developed, some of which have been mentioned above. It is also important to notice that

employer branding is a process whereas an employment brand is the outcome of the employment


branding process. Backhaus and Tikoo (2004) defines functional benefits of the employer brand as

salary, benefits, and leave allowances, whereas symbolic benefits of the employer brand are

perceptions about prestige, and social approval.

2. MARKETING ASPECTS OF EMPLOYER BRANDING As the term employer branding originated out of a merger of marketing and human resource

management theories there are significant parallels to the marketing discipline, which has also

been mentioned by quite a few authors ((Ewing, Pitt et al. 2002), (Backhaus, Tikoo 2004), (Mosley

2007), (Moroko, Uncles 2008), (Engelund, Buchhave 2009)).

Engelund and Buchhave (2009) as one

example hereof mentions that there are

significant overlaps between employer

branding and other branding activities in the

company, and that there therefore can be

big synergy effects, a relationship depicted in

Figure 3. They point out that one significant

difference is the target group, which for

employer branding is current and potential

employees (Engelund, Buchhave 2009).

Backhaus and Tikoo (2004) agree with this to

some extent, but mention that employer

branding can be combined with product or

corporate branding. Whether or not this

should be the case, they point out that it is

important that the employer branding is aligned with both product and corporate branding

activities. This can be formulated generally as done in Lloyd (2002) “you have to have an alignment

between what is seen externally and what happens internally” (Lloyd 2002, p. 66). This is in

accordance to the emphasis on always delivering a consistent and distinctive brand experience,

which has always been the aim of brand managers (Mosley 2007). However, Martin (2009)

disagrees, as he mentions that successful employer branding depend on an analysis of the internal

and external employer brands. If the analysis proves the brands to be in agreement, then

internally aimed efforts should be aligned with externally aimed efforts.

In The Conference board’s survey from 2001, they state that ‘in practise a radical split between the

corporate and employer audiences is obviously a bad idea’ (The Conference Board 2001, p. 12) but

that companies with less strong corporate brands tended to make a bigger distinction than

companies with very strong brand identities (The Conference Board 2001).

EMPLOYER BRANDING

PRODUCT BRANDING

CORPORATE BRANDING

Figure 3

Inspired from (Engelund, Buchhave 2009)


Ewing et al. points out the paradox of having a bipartite target group, which in marketing

consisting of current and potential customers, is very similar to employer branding. They point out

that unfortunately, in practise, the desire to reach potential new users has dominated both

creative and media planning strategies (Ewing, Pitt et al. 2002). Transferred to employer branding,

this means that there would be a bigger focus on branding the company towards potential

employees via the externally aimed employer branding processes than at the current employees

via the internally aimed employer branding processes. Lloyd (2002) agree that this has been the

situation, but state that companies are realising that the internal target group, current employees,

are equally important.

Moroko and Uncles (2008) point out that the aim of differentiation and several characteristics of

employer branding are consistent with consumer and corporate branding. Brand awareness is

important, and being known and noticeable is therefore key. Relevance and resonance are also

important and so is being differentiated from competitors (Moroko, Uncles 2008). Backhaus and

Tikoo (2004) agree that employer branding is a process that allows the company to differentiate

itself from other employers competing for talent and to attract applicants who ideally possess

similar, if not the same, values as the organisation, and thereby highlight the unique aspects of the

company’s employment offerings. Though Backhaus (2004) found that, when looking at the

employer brands in a study done using the UK online recruitment site monster.com, the brands

differed between industries, but employer brands tended to be similar within industries. This once

more highlights the importance of employer branding efforts - in this case externally aimed

employer branding efforts, as it is important to separate the company from its competitors and

stand out for the potential employees.

It became obvious from the very first paragraphs of this thesis that talent matters. But Martin

(2009) argues that the company should not only attract talent and arbitrarily including them in the

organisation. Managing talent differently can be very important to ensure that different types are

managed according to their values and attitudes. Furthermore, he states that some talent is more

important to the company than other, and therefore it is important to pay special attention to the

most important employees within the organisation so that they do not leave the company. This is

also due to the fact that some talent have far bigger influence on the company reputation than

other employees. This is, though, not as simple as just that, because both top talent and other

employees must feel appreciated for them to experience job satisfaction, to avoid creating

winners and losers, and to avoid barriers for teamwork within the organisation (Martin 2009).

This leads to another parallel to marketing of having sub-segments within advertisement

campaigns, whether this will be for product branding, corporate branding or employer branding.

And such sub segments should be followed closely as they can change over time. And as early as

1981 Berry already suggested that “marketing research can be used to identify employee needs

and attitudes just as it can be used to uncover consumer needs and attitudes” (Berry 1981, p. 15).

And further he states that it is possible to divide employee markets into segments and that should


be done, when doing internal marketing and can therefore also be used when engaging in

employer branding.

3. HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT ASPECTS OF EMPLOYER BRANDING Martin (2009) argues that it is through leaders’ actions or failing to act that employees experience

the true organisational identity rather than through formal corporate messages and internal

marketing. Thereby the leadership styles of the managers within the company become important

for the organisational image in the way that they must be consistent. Gaps between rhetoric and

reality can weaken the image in the eyes of the employees, and their resistance to change will

increase (Martin 2009). The leadership in the company is also is an important part of managing the

psychological contract between company and employees.

The psychological contract is constructed between the current or potential employee and the

employer, and it can be very important for the employer brand. The psychological contract is

named so because it is not a written contract, but rather it is an implicit set of obligations and

expectations of what the individual and the organisation expect to give to and receive from each

other. The psychological contract can be motivating for the employees if upheld, and it can be

demotivating for the employees if breached ((Brooks 2009), (Jørgensen 2010)).

In the above description the psychological contract is something that exists for both employees

and employers, though, they may not be identical. However, Mangold and Miles (2007) disagree

and state that it is important to notice that the contracts do only exist within the employees’

mind, and that employers may not be aware of them. They also mention that both formal and

informal communication can influence the psychological contract, and that a formation of a

psychological contract starts already in the recruitment phase.

According to Rousseau (2001) every

worker has his or her own

psychological contract, but this does

not mean that the employees are

actually treated any different by the

company. The psychological contract is

therefore an expression of the

difference in perception but not

necessarily a difference in treatment.

However, different treatment can be a

contributing factor to different

psychological contracts, and different

treatment of employees can under-

FIGURE 4

(Rousseau 2001)


mine trust and cooperation in the company (Rousseau 2001). Rousseau (2001) suggests that

several things can influence the psychological contract of the individual as seen in Figure 4.

According to Mangold and Miles (2007) two critical issues are defined with regards to whether an

employee will reflect the desired brand image of the company whether the employee know which

image they are expected to reflect, and whether the psychological contract has been upheld

(Mangold, Miles 2007). For now, it is not crucial for the argumentation whether the psychological

contract is only present for employees or whether companies can also have non-written

expectations for the employees. The important thing is to be aware that implicit expectations can

influence the view of the credibility of the employer brand.

Not only an upheld psychological contract can motivate employees to work effectively and

efficiently for the company. Mitchell (2002) also argues that “when people care about and believe

in the brand [employer brand], they are motivated to work harder and their loyalty to their

company increase” (Mitchell 2002, p. 99). And loyal, motivated employees can act as natural

ambassadors for the company in their externally aimed employer branding (Engelund, Buchhave

2009). Another way of interpreting motivation via employer branding is touched upon by Turban,

Forret et al. (1998). They draw on expectancy theory, a process theory of motivation ((Brooks

2009), (Buelens, Sinding et al. 2011)). According to the expectancy theory applicants will be more

attracted and employees will be more motivated by jobs that provide more valent outcomes than

jobs that provides less valent outcomes ((Brooks 2009), (Buelens, Sinding et al. 2011)). And

according to Tuban, Forret et al. studies have shown that positive organizational attributes such as

compensation, the work environment, and the type of work can have a positive effect on

attraction due to the valence (Turban, Forret et al. 1998). These are just some of the company

attributes, of which the perception can be influenced by the use of employer branding.

According to the regression of attractiveness made by Berthon, Ewing et al. (2005) there are five

factors influencing attractiveness of a company. The first factor is the interest value of the

company, which refers to the extent of exciting work environment, novel work practises and use

of creativity the employer provides. The second factor identified, is the factor of social value,

which covers the work environment and atmosphere similar to what Turban, Forret et al. (1998)

pointed out above. The third factor affecting attractiveness is made up by the economic value of

the employment. The economic value of the employment could be an above average salary, the

compensation package offered, the job security or the promotional opportunities. The

development value is the fourth factor of attractiveness, which refers to the extent of which the

employer is providing recognition self-worth, confidence and career-enhancing opportunities.

Lastly Bethon, Ewing et al. (2005) find the application value to be a factor of attractiveness. The

application value factor covers the extent of application of what the employees’ previous learning

(Berthon, Ewing et al. 2005, p. 159-162). All of these can be motivating factors if they are valent

outcomes for the employees according to the expectancy theory as mentioned above.


4. DEFINITION FOR REFERENCE WITHIN THIS THESIS From the definitions of the three terms it can be seen that the employer branding term is broader

than the two other terms and can act as an umbrella of the notion of employee attraction and

retention theories. Therefore this term will be the main term used in this thesis. For this thesis the

definition of employer branding will be:

Employer branding is the strategic process of trying to influence the

company’s brand as an employer so that the real employer brand will be

as close to the employer brand wished for as possible. It is an inter-

departmental process with the objective of attracting, motivating, and

retaining the firm’s current and potential employees, and securing the

correct fit between employees and organisation.

An employer brand should therefore be relevant, in line with corporate

and product branding, and differentiated from competitors, as the

employer brand establishes the identity of the firm as an employer, and it

encompasses the firm’s values, systems, and policies.

To separate efforts aimed at current employees and potential employees, they will be referred to

as externally aimed employer branding efforts towards potential employees, and internally aimed

employer branding efforts towards current employees.

5. WHY USE EMPLOYER BRANDING The Conference Board (2001), who in 2001 did a survey amongst affiliated companies, states the

following reasons for companies to engage in employer branding, which comes from the

companies themselves:

Achieving a reputation as an employer of choice

Facilitating integration following mergers and aquisitions

Helping employees internalise the company’s values

Recruiting employees

Retaining employees

With a more theoretical view of employer branding, Engelund and Buchhave (2009) explicitly state

that all companies have an employer brand, whether it is a well-known brand or not. It may be so

that the external environment of the company and thereby also potential employees are not

aware of the employer brand, but as a minimum the current employees have a perception of the

company as employer and thereby a brand perception (Engelund, Buchhave 2009). So if all

companies have an employer brand, which is also the logical conclusion of the definition above,

then the companies might as well try to influence it and the potential to create awareness of the

brand via employer branding activities.


That all companies have an employer brand may be one way of justifying the need for managing it.

However, Engelund and Buchhave (2009) list several further reasons for why employer branding is

not just another business buzz-word but a strategic initiative with, if done right, has positive

consequences such as:

Lower recruitment costs due to the streamlined processes, the use of common tools that

can be produced centrally and then be used by all parts of the company, and the

opportunity to look for potential employees for more than one specific job via the

employer branding activities. This should ultimately bring down cost per newly hired

employee and also the time spent per newly hired employee.

More qualified applicants for positions with the company and through this less

unsuccessful recruitment processes.

Lower employee turnover.

More satisfied employees, which in turn can lead to a better performance by employees

and in the long run the company itself.

Positive spill-over effect on the corporate brand and product brands.

The internal employer branding can furthermore support the experienced quality of employment

and thereby contribute to the retention of employees. This is the effect of the employer brand

equity, which is the result of successful employer branding activities (Backhaus, Tikoo 2004). And

as loyalty can be earned in product or corporate branding, so can the company gain employer

brand loyalty, where the employees commit themselves to their employer (Backhaus, Tikoo 2004).

Employer branding can be a part of developing employees, which according to Bergstrom and

Anderson (2007) is crucial for the company to be successful. Furthermore, the company must

according to Bergstrom and Anderson (2007) recognise that current employees can be a valuable

source of new employees. This is because loyal employees can act as ambassadors in externally

aimed employer branding activities as mentioned above.

Moroko and Uncles (2008) suggest that employer brands will fall in one of four categories with

regards to the attractiveness of the employer brand and the agreement of the external perception

and the internal experience of the employer brand. These categories are shown in the figure

below.

The axis Unattractive Attractive relates to whether the employer brand is known, noticeable,

relevant, resonant and differentiated from competitors’ employer brands. Whereas the axis

Aspirational Accurate relates to whether the company with its employer brand also is fulfilling

the psychological contract that is formed on this basis, and do not have unintended appropriations

from a different corporate brand or product bands. Unintended appropriations of brand values is

when current or potential employees transfer brand values from corporate branding or branding

of specific products to apply to the company as employer. If the employer brand is not aligned


with these other branding efforts then misleading psychological contracts can be formed (Moroko,

Uncles 2008).

FIGURE 5

(Moroko, Uncles (2008)

Moroko and Uncles further suggest that the situation can be managed according to the category

that the employer brand falls in. The most attractive category to fall in is the attractive and

accurate category, and it is desirable to move the employer branding in that direction. If the

employer brand falls in the accurate but unattractive category, the company should adopt a

strategic integrated approach to the employer branding communication to make the employer

brand more attractive i.e. more known, noticeable, relevant, resonant, and differentiated. If the

employer brand falls in the aspirational and attractive category the company should try to

communicate their employer brand more realistically compared to the internal experience, or the

company could rework the internal experience of the company as employer so it reflects the

external promotion of the brand. Lastly, if the employer brand falls in the unattractive and

aspirational category, the company must both look at making a new promise when communicating

to potential employees to make the company more attractive, and reworking the internal

experience to fit the new communicated promise (Moroko, Uncles 2008).

5.1. EMPLOYER BRANDING AS A STRATEGIC INITIATIVE

Engelund and Buchhave (2009) suggest that employer branding should be a strategic initiative

rather than done through ad-hoc communication, and they suggest making the employer value


proposition the message platform. An employer value proposition is the unique selling points as

employer (Engelund, Buchhave 2009). The employer value proposition should therefore be the

focal point of the strategic process of branding the company, as the employer value proposition

should reflect the unique selling points of the company as employer.

Looking at employer branding in a strategic point of view, it is argued that employer brands work

best “when they are credible (which is at the heart of all good external and internal

communications), aspirational (embracing a distinctive focal point and ‘big idea’), and sustainable”

(Martin 2009, p. 26). Martin (2009) further argues, that it is becoming an increasingly important

issue to manage corporate reputations, amongst other things because there is emerging empirical

proof of a strong link between corporate reputations, brands and financial performance. And

Backhaus and Tikoo (2004) have suggested that the increasing use of employer branding is due to

its power to attract new employees and at the same time making sure that these new employees

are engaged in the culture and the strategy of the firm (Backhaus, Tikoo 2004).

Engelund and Buchhave (2009) also suggest a five step model, which focus more on how to

develop an employer brand than the employer branding process itself. First they suggest that it is

made clear what the goals of the employer branding initiative are. These, both short term and

long term goals, should be based on the main goals of the company.

When the goals of the initiative have been made clear, Engelund og Buchhave (2009) suggest to

make it clear what the target group of the employer branding will be. This will often be both

potential and current employee segments, but it may be necessary to focus on one of the two

groups initially if there is an issue with either recruitment or retention. The message developed for

the employer branding of the company

should be aligned with the aims and the

target groups of the employer branding,

and should as such be a product thereof.

As the message, the channels chosen for

the employer branding communication

should also be aligned with the prior stages.

When these things have been analysed, an

action plan with concrete milestones about

what, when and where can be laid out

(Engelund, Buchhave 2009). The action plan

will be similar to a marketing plan for a

product in the company.

GOALS

TARGET GROUP

MESSAGE CHANNELS

ACTION PLAN

FIGURE 6

Inspired from: (Engelund, Buchhave 2009)


6. THE ‘HOW TO’ OF EMPLOYER BRANDING To get started on the employer branding process Engelund and Buchhave (2009) suggest that a

central employer branding function is established in the company, and that if this is not possible,

then to form a project group, with the responsibility of developing and implementing an employer

branding strategy. One of the first things for such a function or group to focus on is defining which

qualifications and human capital are critical for the company to attract, develop and retain to

reach the strategic goals of the company, and whether any of these are particular hard to attract,

develop or retain.

Engelund and Buchhave (2009) further suggest that the employer branding process must be aimed

at employees in the entire employee life-cycle. This is important because the first building blocks

of the psychological contract are mainly formed in the first faces of the employee life-cycle, but it

is maintained through the following faces of the employer life-cycle. Farrell (2002) supports this

argument by stating that to ensure an effective corporate branding of an organisation, the

company must ‘walk the talk’ (Farrell 2002). He further argues that actions speak louder than

words, and that employees believe what they see being implemented in the company rather than

what they are told will be implemented. Therefore the communication in the company should be

two-way communication recognising the employees’ contributions to build respect and trust

within the company. The main point being that the promises the company keeps means more than

the promises the company makes (Farrell 2002).

This is agreed to by Hildebrand and Stadil

(2007) and Sanne Frandsen, both cited in

Engelund and Buchhave (2009). Sanne

Frandsen states that it is important for both

parties to balance the psychological contract

in the first phases of the employee lifecycle,

but that “a lot of people forget that the

psychological contract is revised every day –

and the employer branding efforts of the

company towards the current employees

does often play an important role in making

the employees feel that the psychological

contract is upheld” (translated from Danish,

Engelund, Buchhave 2009, p. 54). Hildebrand

and Stadil (2007) states; as a company “you must reappoint every day. Every day you must earn

the right to your employees staying with the company” (translated from Danish, Engelund,

Buchhave 2009, p. 21).

RECRUIT-MENT

INTRODUC-TION

RETENTION &

DEVELOP-MENT

PARTING

ATTRAC-TION

FIGURE 7

(Engelund, Buchhave 2009, p. 53)


When this is done the level of existing internal and external recruitment and employee directed

communication should be outlined and compared with the needs defined above. When doing this

comparison it will be possible to find out whether the company is attracting and retaining the right

people, with the right messages and through the right channels. On this foundation a business

case can be prepared using the strategic model portrayed in Figure 6 in section 5.1 Employer

branding as a strategic initiative.

McKenzie and Glynn (2001) suggest an inside out approach to employer branding. The base should

be found via asking current employees ‘what is compelling and differentiating about working

here’, then a recruitment strategy should be inspired by the question; “how do we get the

message across to potential recruits in a way that demonstrates the reality of what we have to

offer” (McKenzie, Glynn 2001, p. 23). The recruitment story should in other words reflect what the

company offers new employees when they join the company.

Similarly, but in more detail, Backhaus and Tikoo (2004) suggest a three step approach after

reviewing relevant literature within the field. First the company should develop an employer value

proposition, which should be based on information about organisational culture, management

style, qualities of current employees, current employees’ image, and impressions of product or

service quality of the company. This employer value proposition should make it clear what

particular value the company can offer to potential or current employees, and it is important that

it is a true representation. Secondly, the firm should use this employer value proposition in their

externally aimed employer branding, aimed at potential employees, recruitment agencies or the

like. The third step in the process of employer branding, according to Backhaus and Tikoo, is

internal marketing. Here they choose to incorporate the term of internal marketing into the

employer branding process because they find it is important to incorporate the brand promise as a

part of the organisation. This is essential for the experience to live up to what was promised

potential employees (Backhaus, Tikoo 2004).

Mitchell (2002) suggests that the company ask itself the following questions when it want to start

working with managing the employer brand:

What do employees think of the company?

What do we want them to think?

What will convince them of this?

And why should they believe us?

(Mitchell 2002)

And Mitchell further suggests that natural turning points for the company (even when created by

the company itself) can be used to implement employer branding because resistance to change is

lower at these times. Examples of turning points can be challenging survival, new leadership, new

marketing strategy or similar situations (Mitchell 2002).


When engaging in an employer branding process, as with any other business improvement

initiative, it is important to be able to measure progress. This is one of the topics that has barely

been touched upon in literature. Though, it is suggested in both Engelund and Buchhave (2009)

and Bergstrom and Anderson (2000-2001) that this can be integrated into a balanced scorecard,

which is a business tool that already have an existing people aspect built in. In Bergstrom and

Anderson (2000-2001) specific key performance indicators are even suggested such as;

effectiveness of new employees, effectiveness of training, percentage of employees trained,

voluntary separation rate, and time per recruited new employee, which was also mentioned as

one of the reasons to engage in employer branding above. But this is still an area with no clear

outline in the literature.

6.1. THE ROLE OF COMMUNICATION IN EMPLOYER BRANDING

Ewing, Pitt et al. argues that advertising may become an important tool in the battle of acquiring

and retaining skilled employees with the current shortage of skilled employees. This is due to the

fact that advertising can create employment brands, and thereby build sustaining employment

propositions that are compelling and different (Ewing, Pitt et al. 2002). Berthon, Ewing et al.

(2005) agree that advertising may become very important. However, they consider non-employer

branding related advertising important too as it may also influence both current and potential

employees, and it is therefore suggested that externally aimed advertisements also are considered

in an internal perspective. This is furthermore helpful as employees’ behaviour can either

reinforce brand values or undermine the credibility of the advertised messages (Berthon, Ewing et

al. 2005).

Backhaus and Tikoo (2004) find it important to have a coherent brand image with consistency

between internally and externally aimed employer branding. And according to Mosley (2007) this

view has recently begun to gain grounds. This is not only with regards to an alignment between

the internally aimed and externally aimed employer branding processes but also, as mentioned to

be important above, with regards to an alignment between employer branding and corporate and

customer oriented branding.

Successfully recruited employees develop assumptions about the company as employer that they

carry into the company via creation of a psychological contract between employee and employer.

Such employees will be committed to the values they experienced in the externally aimed

employer branding process. This makes alignment very important for the employee to experience

the psychological contract being upheld. It is possible for the company to manage the psycho-

logical contract through message consistency, and therefor formal and informal communication

must be aligned with the mission statement, values and the desired brand image of the company

(Mangold, Miles 2007).

As both company controlled sources and sources not controlled by the company can influence the

employer brand associations it is important to pay attention to both formal and informal channels


when building the employer brand. Formal channels of company communication can be

presentations, job descriptions, print or web write-ups and advertising, whereas informal

communication covers face-to-face interactions outside formal settings from co-workers,

managers, customers or acquaintances, often also referred to as word-of-mouth communication

((McKenzie, Glynn 2001), (Mangold, Miles 2007)). It is important to remember that informal

sources are not directly controlled by the company, but that it is possible to influence them

indirectly through other recruitment and communication activities (Van Hoye 2011).

Van Hoye (2011) has proved that informal sources are important in a study with particular focus

on word-of-mouth communication. She concluded that with regards to company attraction, the

time spent receiving information via word-of-mouth explained more variance than all other

sources controlled for in the study (being recruitment advertising, recruitment events and

publicity), which may be due to the high credibility of word-of-mouth communication. And in

particular it seemed that word-of-mouth communication had an effect on employees, which were

in high demand (Van Hoye 2011). Therefore Van Hoye (2011) suggests making accurate

information about the company as well as information about vacant positions easily available for

all employees, making companies able to influence the word-of-mouth communication. This is in

line with the discussion above about being able to use current employees as ambassadors for the

company. If they feel loyalty towards the company, they will then engage in positive word-of-

mouth communication, which may be very beneficial to the company.

As seen above, the use of word-of mouth communication should not be underestimated, whether

its source is internal or external to the organisation. Word-of mouth communication is highly

credible, compared to the organisation’s formal communication and the messages that come

through media advertising, resulting in a substantial effect on employees’ expectations, attitudes,

and perceptions of fairness (Miles, Mangold 2004). As word-of-mouth communication has high

credibility, it is important to pay attention to, as current employees have a potential for creating

either extremely positive or extremely negative images of the company via word-of-mouth

communication (Mangold, Miles 2007). Van Hoye and Lievens add that negative word-of-mouth

communication can have a larger impact than positive word-of-mouth communication, why this is

important to be aware of (Van Hoye, Lievens 2005).

The framework developed by Miles and Mangold (2007), which is depicted in Figure 2 in the

section 1.2 Employee branding, implies that organisational messages are the fundamental building

blocks. Therefore it is suggested that some guidelines are followed with regards to organisational

communication. Amongst suggested guidelines are the following:

Messages directed towards external constituencies must be in line with the messages sent

to employees.

Messages directed towards external constituencies should be sent internally as well.

The design of recruitment and selection systems should incorporate messages that

consistently and frequently reflect the brand and organisational image.


Accurate and specific job previews should be given to new employees so that realistic

expectations are incorporated into their psychological contracts.

(Miles, Mangold 2004)

7. AIMS OF THIS STUDY As the employer branding is still a fairly new research area, articles have been written about the

matter, but many aspects still have not been treated by researchers ((Ewing, Pitt et al. 2002),

(Engelund, Buchhave 2009)). Some of the areas, which has been touched upon, have been done by

reviewing literature about the topic adding literature about related issues and making conclusions

based on this ((Rafiq, Ahmed 2000), (Backhaus, Tikoo 2004), (Miles, Mangold 2004), (Mosley

2007), (Martin 2009), (Foster, Punjaisri et al. 2010)). Other studies have produced empirical results

using students as units of analysis ((Turban, Forret et al. 1998), (Van Hoye 2011)). Only few studies

are based on real life cases including companies ((Boyd, Sutherland 2006), (Moroko, Uncles 2008)),

which is why a case study have been chosen here.

As mentioned above Backhaus and Tikoo (2004) divide the employer branding efforts into external

and internal marketing of the employer brand as two different processes. But there has been

some inconsistency with regards to whether internally aimed employer branding efforts and

externally aimed employer branding efforts should be aligned.

Ewing et al. (2002) argues that there is a bigger focus on branding the company towards potential

employees via the externally aimed employer branding processes than at the current employees

via the internally aimed employer branding processes, but does not reflect on whether such

branding is aligned or not. Mosley (2007), however, does. He argues that brand managers always

aim to deliver a consistent and distinctive brand experience, and that this aim can be transferred

to the employer branding process. Also Backhaus and Tikoo (2004) find it important to have a

coherent brand image with consistency between internally and externally aimed employer

branding. On the contrary, Martin (2009) mentions that successful employer branding depend on

an analysis of the internal and external employer brands. And he then suggest that if the analysis

proves the brands to be in agreement, then internally aimed efforts should be aligned with

externally aimed efforts.

Therefore the motivation of carrying out this study is to gain further knowledge of the interaction

between the internally aimed employer branding processes and the externally aimed employer

branding processes. Are they in fact two sides of the same coin or are they overlapping or

complementing processes that can function separately or in cooperation with each other? It is

interesting to be able to use the employer branding processes to their full potential both with

regards to internal and external effects. And how are potential and current employees affected?

Are they only affected by the communication that is aimed at them? There has not been put much


focus on this in previous literature, but I find the influencing factors to be an important piece of

the puzzle in knowing how important the alignment is.

7.1. PROBLEM FORMULATION

To find out whether alignment of internally aimed employer branding efforts and externally aimed

employer branding efforts should be aligned, it is a primary objective is to find out how internally

aimed and externally aimed employer branding efforts affect current employees and potential

employees. A secondary issue is to find out which forms of communication that affects current

and potential employees view of the company and how this affects the expectation forming. These

issues are important to gather knowledge about to be able to say whether an alignment of

internally aimed and externally aimed employer branding processes would be of advantage, when

looking at the application of employer branding in a real life case company.

The above questions will be addressed on the basis of the review of existing knowledge, which has

been produced, and will then be further illustrated by studying a company, who engage in

employer branding activities combined. Therefore the thesis will be a study on the alignment of

internally and externally aimed employer branding efforts through a case study of the pharma-

ceutical company Novo Nordisk’s employer branding programme ‘Life Changing Careers’.

8. METHODOLOGY As application of employer branding from the company’s point of view is the main aim of this

thesis, it will be relevant to do a case study of a company. This is supported by Ewing, Pitt et al.

(2002), who suggest that case studies regarding employer branding would add considerable value

in this early stage of empirical discovery in particular. Furthermore, this is also supported by Flick

(2009) by the statement that “qualitative research is oriented towards analysing concrete cases in

their temporal and local particularity and starting from people’s expressions and activities in their

local contexts” (Flick 2009, p. 21). This means that it is possible to start with tendencies and

transform these into research programmes with qualitative research, and thereby gain under-

standing of the researched phenomenon from different perspectives.

When doing research, qualitative and quantitative methods are appropriate in different situations,

and they may even complement each other in some studies. When doing qualitative research, the

possibility to reflect the perspectives of the participants and their diversity is bigger than when

doing quantitative research. This is because the results are not quantified, but also because the

researcher reflectivity is a part of the study, what critics would call a disturbing variable (Flick

2009). However, if a process or a complicated phenomenon is under study, as in this thesis,

qualitative research methods may be more open for understanding the view of the units of

analysis of all aspects of the phenomenon since they have more opportunity to answer freely. If

this should be measured on a quantitative scale, the selections of questions to answer will have to


be more specific and therefore the researcher would have a higher influence on which aspects of

the phenomenon that are illustrated.

The qualitative method therefore opens up the possibility to understand phenomena from

different perspectives. This is more important in this case, than understanding the exact impact

measured quantitatively. Therefore the case study in this thesis will be using qualitative research

methods, which have become increasingly important in understanding social relations, contexts,

and perspectives especially due to the increasing individualisation, pluralisation and diversification

(Flick 2009).

Furthermore Flick (2009) suggests that when dealing with one of many new research areas

constantly surfacing now, it is most appropriate to use an inductive approach. However Berthon,

Ewing et al. (2005) disagree to some extent and argues for a mix of the deductive and inductive

methodology. They argue that a study can be based on a deductive foundation, and taking a point

of departure in known theory (deduction), then discovering new aspects of the given research

area (induction). This will also be the approach of this thesis. A deductive foundation has been

built by reviewing previous literature on the topic and choice of model, which will be followed by

an inductive approach seeking to gain new knowledge in the study area.

8.1. THE CASE STUDY

The study in this thesis will be an exploratory study of the employer branding processes in the

multinational pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk. It will be a study of one case but with three

embedded units of analysis to gain an in-depth knowledge of the case, but at the same time

reflect the variety of the issue. Furthermore, it is convenient to do a case study since an interesting

and relevant problem is at hand.

Doing a case study is relevant when using a problem based approach, which is the situation here.

The relevant problem that Novo Nordisk is facing is the end of their three year employer branding

project, which has been run by a project group in the corporate human resources department. The

formal work project was started in the summer 2008 and will finish in the summer 2011, and it has

focused on the externally aimed employer branding of Novo Nordisk. Therefore the company is

now assessing whether to implement employer branding as an aligned strategic initiative with

both internally aimed employer branding and externally aimed employer branding, or whether it

should keep the focus on the potential employees (Page, Kolle 2011).

Therefore this study has the aim of discovering in practice how the different employer branding

efforts with regards to potential and current employees influence other than the targeted

segment, and whether an alignment of internally aimed and externally aimed employer branding

efforts will be of advantage. From this focused case study it will be possible to derive some specific

knowledge and recommendations for Novo Nordisk as well as an example for how companies in

similar situations can act. This approach is supported by Flyvbjerg (2006) who states that “one can


often generalise on the basis of a single case, and the case study may be central to scientific

development via generalisation as supplement or alternative to other methods. But formal

generalisation is overvalued as a source of scientific development, whereas ‘the force of example’

is underestimated” (Flyvbjerg 2006, p. 228).

A further advantage of a problem-based case study is that the results are more easily applicable,

but the learning from single case studies is how the case can be compared to previous knowledge

(Stake 2000). Stake (2000) later adds that “perhaps the most unique aspect of case study in the

social sciences and human services is the selection of the cases to study. Intrinsic casework

regularly begins with cases already identified” (Stake 2000, p. 446). He further argues that

opportunities to learn is the primary influencing factor when choosing a case. This is also the

situation here. Novo Nordisk have been chosen because it is a company, which have published

that they are running an employer branding programme, and the availability of such a case

outweighs the criteria of random selection.

8.2. NOVO NORDISK

The case company of this thesis, Novo Nordisk, is a pharmaceutical company providing treatment

options for diabetics, haemophilia patients, people with growth hormone deficiencies, and for

women experiencing the symptoms of menopause. However, the main area for the company is

the diabetes care area, in which the company is the global leader measured by volume. This is also

a main focus in the innovations of the company (Novo Nordisk 2011), who have a proclaimed aim

of defeating Diabetes and finding the cure to the disease, which is now considered a chronic

disease (Novo Nordisk 2010).

A key characteristic of the company is their reporting which is done according to the principle of

the triple bottom line - balancing financial, social and environmental considerations in a

responsible way. A model suggested by Lise Kingo, the Chief of staffs at Novo Nordisk, who also

points out that the stakeholder interests of the

company, goes all the way back to the beginning

of the company’s history (Becket 2010).

The company has performed impressing results.

Novo Nordisk has reached double digit sales

growth rates in the recent years (Novo Nordisk

2010) and the company reached a turnover of

60.8 billion DKK in 2010. A considerable amount

of this, 9.6 billion DKK, was spent on research

and development, but there still was a profit of

14.4 billion DKK (Novo Nordisk 2011).

0%

10%

20%

30%

-

20.000

40.000

60.000

80.000

06 07 08 09 10

Turnover Net profit R&D costs

FIGURE 8

(Novo Nordisk 2011, p. 14)


Novo Nordisk is a multinational company competing globally. It has Danish origin, and its

headquarters are still placed in Denmark. It is a company that has experienced an impressive

growth since it was formed in the 1920’s, which is obvious when walking down the main street of

the headquarters with the variety of buildings occupied by the Novo Nordisk group, now covering

quite a proportion of Bagsværd, a suburb of Copenhagen. This is where the headquarters are

placed and this is also the main site in Denmark, though they have sites scattered around the

country. In the Bagsværd site you pass the impressive amount of buildings occupied by the Novo

Nordisk group, which does not only house employees working on various projects, but also such

things as a library, a fitness centre and a child care centre.

When entering the main building you are met by big posters showing the diverse workforce of

Novo Nordisk under the header ‘The Novo Nordisk Way’, which is the core value-base that the

company operates by (see the full section on ‘the Novo Nordisk Way’ from the 2010 annual report

in Appendix I). This was formulated a decade ago after the then newly appointed CEO, Lars Rebien

Sørensen, had spent time talking to various stakeholder groups of Novo Nordisk such as patients,

health care providers, and employees. He did this again in 2010, after tripling the workforce and

the turnover of the company, and the ‘Novo Nordisk Way of Management’ has been updated to

be more precise, but the message is still the same. The framework is put in place to provide

guidance for all employees, but also to hold everyone in the company accountable for their

actions, and therefore this is also a focus during training of employees (Novo Nordisk 2011).

‘The Novo Nordisk Way of Management’ is also important for other stakeholders of the company,

but especially for the employees. As it is stated in the annual report of 2009 it is important to their

ability “to attract employees who want to work for a company that prioritises ethical behaviour

and social and environmental responsibility” (Novo Nordisk 2010, p. 5). This systematic focus on

values and the fact that the values are expressed through all of the company’s employees, has led

to Novo Nordisk being compared to a religious society. But the chief of staffs explains that this is

because the employees at Novo Nordisk have consciously chosen to work for a company, which

reflects their own values (Becket 2010).

8.2.1. LIFE CHANGING CAREERS

Novo Nordisk has more than 30,000 employees in 74 countries worldwide, 2,700 of which are

working in the corporate headquarters in Bagsværd. The company markets their products in

further 100 countries ((Becket 2010) ,(Novo Nordisk 2011)). As can be seen in Figure 9 they have

managed to stop the steep increase in employee turnover, though there was a little rise again in

2010. This was though deemed acceptable as it was mainly found to be in the area of International

operations, which does have a higher employee turnover than the other geographical areas of the

company (Novo Nordisk 2011).


Lars Rebien Sørensen states in his opening letter

in the annual report of 2010 that succeeding in

future growth “requires that we attract, retain

and engage the most talented people to support

global growth” (Novo Nordisk 2011, p. 4). In

relation to this there is also a separate section in

the annual report called ‘Attraction, retention

and development of our people’. In this section

it is stressed that talented employees are critical

to sustain the growth of the company, and that

the company therefore has developed an

employer branding programme under the slogan

‘Life Changing Careers’ (Novo Nordisk 2011, p. 19). This has been necessary despite the fact that

Novo Nordisk are constantly being named among the most attractive places to work in Denmark,

and also have been recognised as being among the top places to work in countries such as

Argentina, France, Poland, South Africa and USA (Novo Nordisk 2010).

The company’s employer brand is inspired by the three strategic value drivers which are the main

focus for Novo Nordisk; globalisation, innovation and leadership, but also by the people strategy

and the branding strategy in the company (Engelund, Buchhave 2009). A project group was

formed in the organisation falling under the people department of the company (Page, Kolle

2011). The global implementation of the employer brand was divided into several phases. Phases,

which the global project team were responsible for was:

Formulating goals, purpose and project design

Analysis and data gathering

Formulating employer branding proposition

Development of the guiding concept of the company’s employer branding efforts

Development of tools to be used in employer branding efforts

Phases, which should be carried out by local brand agents, to make sure the effort is fitted to the

local needs and culture:

Identifying target group

Fitting employer value proposition to local culture and needs

Developing strategy for which sources of communication to be used in the local employer

branding efforts

(Engelund, Buchhave 2009, p. 132)

The project group carried out an analysis of the internal situation, but chose to leave the

competitor analysis to later. This was due to the fact that the project group found that the

0%

5%

10%

15%

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10.000

20.000

30.000

40.000

06 07 08 09 10

Employees Employee turnover

FIGURE 9

(Novo Nordisk 2011, p. 15)


company had many different competitors with regards to employment in many different

industries. However, the company did compare the final employer value proposition to

competitors in the pharmaceutical industry to make sure it was differentiated from them. In the

internal analysis the project group found that employees were mostly attracted by the

opportunities in the company, but that the main retention factor was the possibility to make a

difference. The possibilities with the company were only a secondary retention factor (Engelund,

Buchhave 2009).

As the employer brand had to be aligned with the overall corporate branding concept ‘Changing

Diabetes’, the final employer brand was headed by the slogan ‘Life Changing Careers’ and have

four subheaders; ‘The Novo Nordisk way’, ‘making a difference’, ‘my opportunities’ and ‘a

successful company’ (Page, Kring 2009). The aim of Novo Nordisk’s employer branding efforts is to

increase the awareness of Novo Nordisk as employer, as they found to have a bigger present

challenge in their hiring than their retention mainly, because 75% of new hires should happen

outside Denmark in the future, where the company is less known (Engelund, Buchhave 2009).

Therefore the initial focus of the employer branding has mostly focused on potential employees.

8.3. SAMPLING

As mentioned above the study will be a study of one case company, Novo Nordisk, but with three

embedded units, current and potential employees, to gain an in-depth knowledge of the issue, but

at the same time reflect the variety of the case. This is also called stratified sampling, which is

dividing the population into clearly separable strata, and sampling from these strata to be able to

generalise for selected subgroups within the population (Flyvbjerg 2006). By including few cases

but with great variety it discloses the variety in the field and it allows us to gain understanding of

the researched phenomenon from different perspectives.

Therefore, the structure of the study includes some a priori definitions of the strata of the

population. This was done to make sure to reflect the variety of the employer branding within

Novo Nordisk, and it was found to outweigh the limitation of having a subjective starting point.

Furthermore, in theoretic sampling, which is used for qualitative studies, sampling is done

according to relevance rather than representativeness, which is the aim of quantitative sampling.

The a priori definitions of population strata was given as follows:

One interviewee must represent the strata of potential employees and therefore not be a

current employee of Novo Nordisk.

One interviewee must represent the strata of current employees of Novo Nordisk, who

was hired after the initiation of the employer branding programme. This employee must

be a current, but recently hired employee of Novo Nordisk not hired more than three

years ago.


One interviewee must represent the strata of current employees of Novo Nordisk, who

was hired before the initiation of the employer branding programme. This employee must

be a current employee of Novo Nordisk, who was hired not less than three years ago.

For convenience the potential employee was made up of a third year bachelor student of Aarhus

School of Business, whereas the two current employees were randomly chosen by the department

of people support in Novo Nordisk.

Sampling should stop when theoretical maturity is reached, which means that no further value

adding knowledge can be derived from additional data. This is the ideal, however, it is also

important to consider resources, as limited resources may determine when to stop the sampling

too. This is relevant in this case where only one representative of each stratum was chosen. This

was due to the fact that it is very resource demanding to do qualitative research as much time is

spend on the interviews - both at carrying them out but also on the transcription and the analysis

of the interviews. In this case it was decided that the amount of knowledge gained in by adding

further units of analysis would not outweigh the allocation of the limited resources.

8.4. INTERVIEWS

Interviews were chosen instead of observations, as they would lead to bigger possibilities of

gaining understanding of how the employer branding processes are working. The processes of

employer branding and the effect it has on potential as well as current employees will be an

internal process, where it can be very hard or close to impossible to observe.

The role of the interviewer must be considered when entering the field. The interviewer will in

some way intervene in the social system they enter. This can be experienced in both defensive

behaviour or in the actors in the system becoming aware of the system itself (Flick 2009). In this

case the intervention related to the interviews may be the interviewees becoming more aware of

the fact that the company is branding itself towards them, or they may see the interviewer as

someone who is checking up on whether they are saying the right things. The aim of the

interviews is to enter as neutral as possible with the aim of not developing any negative feelings

during the intervention.

When interviewing it is preferable to be able to interview good informants, who are characterised

by having “the necessary experience and knowledge, the ability to reflect and articulate, the time,

and be ready to participate” (Flick 2009, p. 123). In this study the interviewees were considered to

fulfil most if not all of these criteria. The interviewees did not need to have knowledge about the

theories of employer branding, but knowledge and experience with their own perception of the

employer branding of Novo Nordisk. They volunteered their time and agreed to participate in

advance as well as signing an informed consent after being briefed on the interview.


To leave some room open for gaining new knowledge during the interviews and letting

interviewees elaborate on the aspects they find important, a semi-structured interview was found

to be preferable. This leaves freedom to change order or wording of questions to fit the individual

interview situation, but still induce a structure that ensures that the relevant questions are

covered in the interview. This gives preference to the focused interview, which includes a stimulus

as well as a series of questions and it falls in the category of semi-structured interviews. The aim of

the interviews was to gain insight to how the different approaches used by Novo Nordisk towards

potential and current employees influences the interviewees.

In addition to the use of stimulus, which will be elaborated upon in section 8.4.1 The interview

guide, there are four criteria for the focused interview; non-direction, specifity, range, and depth

and personal context. The criteria of non-direction entails that unstructured, semi-structured, and

structured questions should be used when conducting the interview, but leaving space for the

interviewee to elaborate. This can be done by starting with broad questions and then move

towards asking more specifically. To fulfil the criteria of specifity the interviewer must ensure that

he / she brings out the specifics of the effects of employer branding and their influence on the

interviewees. Range refers to the interviewer making sure that all relevant aspects are covered

during the interview. The basis for this is a well prepared interview guide with questions for the

interviewee, which will be further elaborated upon in section 8.4.1 The interview guide. Last but

not least, the criteria of depth and personal context is the goal of getting self-revelatory answers

from the interviewee (Flick 2009). As this process is mostly going on inside the head of the

potential and current employees this is important for understanding the process of employer

branding with reference to Novo Nordisk.

A limitation of the focused interview is that it is hardly ever used in its pure form, and adjustments

are often necessary to fit the interviews around the individual studies. However, this limitation

may be turned into a strength if the researcher understands to conduct the interview in the spirit

of the pure focused interview. Though, the interview must be worked around and fitted to the

specific research as this process can enhance the quality of the data. In this case the stimuli did not

appear till the questions started narrowing down to become very specific. This can be done as the

focused interview is very flexible, though it still reflects the pure form of the focused interview

(Flick 2009).

8.4.1. THE INTERVIEW GUIDE

An interview guide was developed for the interviews. It was developed on the background of the

problem formulation and was also inspired by the questions companies must ask themselves

according to McKenzie and Glynn (2001):

What is compelling and differentiating about working here?

How do we get that message across to potential recruits in a way that demonstrates the

reality of what we have to offer?


These questions were reformulated to be asked the potential and current employees and became:

What is your perception of Novo Nordisk as employer? Do you have any expectations to

Novo Nordisk as employer?

On what do you base your perception and expectations of Novo Nordisk as employer?

Which sources?

(Both translated from Danish, as the interviews were conducted in Danish.)

Another inspiration for the interview guide was the model proposed by Miles and Mangold which

was already introduced as Figure 2 in section 1.2 Employee branding. Both questions above and

further questions were asked to illustrate the process according to the model. An example of one

of these questions is the following:

Have you noticed if there is a difference in how Novo Nordisk is branding themselves as an

employer towards current employees and towards potential employees?

(translated from Danish)

A feature of the focused interview is the use of stimulus. In the interviews conducted for the

research of this thesis, the slogan used by Novo Nordisk for their employer branding programme

‘Life Changing Careers’ as well as the four sub headers making up the employer value proposition

of the employer brand, was chosen to be used as stimuli. The slogan and the subheaders are

depicted in Figure 10 and they are developed to create both an emotional as well as a rational

appeal. But what are the perceptions of the potential and current employees?

These stimuli were chosen because this will

make it possible to compare the general

content of the interview with the intended

perception of Novo Nordisk as employer.

When using stimuli in a focused interview,

the meaning of this should be analysed

before doing the interviews, and this will

function as the objective meaning, which can

be compared to the subjective meaning

found when analysing the interviews. The

stimuli were analysed using the three

categories of employer brand advertising

suggested by Ewing, Pitt et al (2002). The

three categories are; transnational, mission to

Mars, and the ‘local’ (Ewing, Pitt et al. 2002).

The transnational category of employer branding advertisements is focusing on status and

mobility, that it is a global company and that it is big and successful. The employment proposition

is described as “we’re big, we’re stable, we’re multinational and we’re a respected and admired

FIGURE 10

(Page, Kring 2009, p. 13)


company - why look any further?” (Ewing, Pitt et al. 2002, p. 13). The mission to Mars category of

employer branding advertisements focuses on excitement and new experiences. The employment

proposition here is “what we do is so exciting – join us and be ahead of the herd” (Ewing, Pitt et al.

2002, p. 13). Lastly the ‘local’ category of employer branding advertisements focuses on

identification, that there is some source similarity. The employment proposition is described as

“these are the kinds of people who succeed in our organisation – if you’re the same ilk, join us and

succeed too” (Ewing, Pitt et al. 2002, p. 14).

When analysing the stimuli used for the interviews on the above given background, they do not fit

into just one category. The statements ‘the Novo Nordisk Way’, ‘my opportunities’ and ‘a

successful company’ are all examples of statements of a transnational brand signalling status and

mobility. The ‘making a difference’ statement though come closer to a mission to Mars

characteristic. This statement together with the slogan heading the campaign ‘Life Changing

Careers’ are both creating excitement and directly related to Novo Nordisk’s mission to Mars – to

find the cure. It can therefore be concluded that Novo Nordisk is with their employer brand and

employer value proposition trying to signal status and mobility of their global company, which is

both big and successful and at the same time to create excitement and expectations of new

experiences.

The full interview guide can be found on the attached CD also containing the informed consents of

the interviewees, the sound recordings of the interview and the transcriptions of the interviews.

8.4.2. THE TECHNICAL ASPECTS OF INTERVIEWING

The interviews were recorded with only the sound, as this is less disturbing than for instance using

video equipment. However, it is important to be aware that electronic recording equipment can

have an influence on the interviewees’ willingness to share, even though the least invasive

recording instrument has been chosen (Flick

2009).

8.5. ANALYSIS OF THE DATA

For the analysis of the data the interviews

were transcribed and then coded. The

interviews were coded separately first as

suggested by Flick in Flick (2009) using

Strauss and Corbins approach. The separate

coding is done when a priori defined groups

exist such as in this case. Strauss and

Corbins approach to coding is to start out

with open coding of the interviews, where

key meanings are applied to sections of the

PHENOMENON Causal

relations

Strategies of action /

interaction

Consequenses

Context and intervening

factors

FIGURE 11

(Flick 2009)


interview. This is done in a very systematic way line by line or sentence by sentence. Then axial

coding was applied to these key points identified in the open coding. This is the second step in

Strauss and Corbins approach to coding. When doing the axial coding Flick (2009) suggests using

the paradigm model, which is depicted in Figure 11, but also Miles and Mangold’s (2004)

conceptualising model of the employer branding process was used. This model was supplemented

with additional types of sources; presentations and website from McKenzie and Glynn (2001) and

additional consequences; more qualified employees, less unsuccessful recruitments, and positive

spillover effect on corporate or product brand from Engelund and Buchhave (2009). The final

model can be seen in Figure 12.

When doing the axial coding it is a constant switch between inductive thinking, finding new

aspects of the phenomenon, and deductive thinking, checking these new aspects against passages

that differ. The last step in Straus and Corbins approach to coding is the selective coding where the

findings of the analysis are formulated (Flick 2009). Following the procedure described above, the

analysis of the interviews were done individually. First open coding was used to apply key words as

described above, and then axial coding was used according to Strass and Corbins approach. In the

axial coding process the key words found in the open coding was applied to the paradigm model

as suggested in Flick (2009), but also the model for employer branding suggested by Miles and

Mangold (2004) which has been referred to several times in the thesis. Illustration of the

application of the key words to the models can be found in appendix II-IV. Using the paradigm

model the analysis was applied to the phenomenon being the perception of Novo Nordisk’s

employer brand. Then causes of the perception, the context or intervening factors, the interaction

strategies and the consequently perception was analysed from the data of the interviews. The

SOURCES OF MESSAGES

• Internal

•Formal

•HRM systems

•PR systems

• Informal

•Culture

•Coworker influence

•Leaders / managers

•External

•Formal

•Advertising

•PR

•Website

•Presentations

• Informal

•Customer feedback

PERCEPTIONS

•Employee psychee

•Psychological contract

INTERPRETATIONS

•Employer brand perception

CONSEQUENSES

•Employee turnover

•Empoyee satisfaction

•Service quality

•Customer retention

•Positive word-of-mouth communication

•Recruitment costs

•Qualified applicants

•Unsuccessful recruitments

•Positive spillover effects on corporate and product brands

FIGURE 12

Inspired by: (Miles, Mangold 2004), (McKenzie 2001) & (Engelund, Buchhave 2009)


main parts used for analysis from Miles and Mangold’s (2004) conceptualisation of the

employment brand were the sources and the interpretations of the employer brand. This was due

to the fact that the sources functions as the input in the model, which is then perceived by the

employee according to the psychological contract theory, and then produces interpretations,

which functions as the models output, that has a set of consequences portrayed in the last box in

the model. That the employee, current or potential, perceives the output and bases

interpretations on the psychological contract strengthens the individual interpretation of the

efforts.

Both of the above mentioned models were applied because they shed light on different aspects of

the process of employer brand perception. One focuses on what causes the perceptions and the

other focuses on how the perceptions came about. Further, the actual perception is not the most

important here but the factors influencing the perception according to the problem formulation,

as the aim is to understand whether alignment and integration of the external employer branding

efforts and internal employer branding efforts is recommendable. Finally, a comparison was made

of the objective meaning and the subjective meanings of the stimuli used for the interviews. To

conclude, the coding selective coding was applied to find tendencies within individual interviews

and when comparing the interviews.

8.6. LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

Before looking at the results of the analysis it is important to be aware of the limitations of the

study. This is because limitations may influence the applicability and generalisation opportunities

of the results.

8.6.1. CRITERIA OF QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

When doing qualitative research there are certain criteria that must be fulfilled according to Flick

(2009). One criterion important to consider is that of reliability – reliability in the way of whether

the interviewees actually say what they think about the processes due to both conscious and

unconscious reasons. As mentioned above the interviews were recorded with only the sound, as

this is less disturbing than for instance using video equipment. But this can have an influence on

the interviewees’ willingness to share, especially for the current employees, as they may be

concerned about giving ‘the wrong answer’, since the interviews have been facilitated by the

company they work for. However, since the interviews are done by a researcher external to the

company the hope is that the reliability is ensured this way.

As there have only been conducted interviews in this study, reliability cannot be ensured by

method triangulation - the use of different methods to complement each other and cover blind

spots or using different kinds of data. Triangulation is important for qualitative research as this

heightens the quality of the findings. Triangulation can happen via comparison of observations and

statements, or being two or more researchers with different theoretical-methodological


backgrounds. As this is not the case here the only triangulation possible in this thesis is the

comparison of statements to previously constructed models within the area of employer branding.

In qualitative research it is also relevant to consider validity as there are not the same possibilities

for control as in quantitative studies. The research findings are second degree constructs –

constructs based on the constructs of the interviewees. But if they are well-grounded and

supportable then the findings can be deemed valid (Flick 2009), which is believed to be the case in

this study.

8.6.2. LIMITATIONS OF METHODOLOGY APPLIED IN THE STUDY

As mentioned above some a priori definitions of the strata of the population was used for

sampling. This was done to make sure to reflect the variety of the employer branding within Novo

Nordisk, and it was found to outweigh the limitation of having a subjective starting point. Further

though, one must have in mind that the sample of this study was rather limited due to the time

constraints that applies because the study was done singlehanded and over a limited period of

time.

Focused interviews were used for the study and a limitation of the focused interview is that it is

hardly ever used in its pure form, and adjustments are often necessary to fit the interviews around

the individual studies. In this case the stimuli did not appear till the questions started narrowing in

to become very specific. This, however, can be done as the focused interview is very flexible, and it

was therefore found to still reflect the pure form of the focused interview. This was found to be

upheld even though one of the criteria of the focused interview, depth and personal context – to

get self-revelatory answers from the interviewee, was questioned. This criteria was questioned, as

the process of perceiving an employer brand is going on inside the head of the interviewees.

The interviews were conducted in Danish for the convenience of the interviewees, and then

transcribed in Danish too. Not until the process of coding were the underlying meanings translated

into English. This procedure was followed to mitigate the risk of wrong interpretations. Further,

errors arising from cultural differences should be minimal as both interviewer and interviewees

were of Danish origin. Also, as interviewer I had an extended opportunity to understand

references made to the corporate culture of Novo Nordisk, since I am myself a former employee of

the company. This however, can also be seen as a limiting factor as some statements may be ‘over

interpreted’.

9. RESULTS As it was stated in section 8.5 Analysis of the data the interviews were analysed individually first.

Therefore the results of each interview will be accounted for below in separate sections and a

comparison will be summing up similarities and differences of the findings. To see the full

applications of keywords to models please see appendix II-IV.


9.1. THE POTENTIAL EMPLOYEE

When looking at the potential employee, the strategies of interaction affecting the perception,

that had been most effective in the interviewee’s consciousness, were not advertisements but the

face to face interaction. With regards to face to face interaction the formal interaction, such as

events and speeches, proved to have made a bigger impression of the company’s employer brand

than the informal interaction with friends. An intervening context factor would be that the

pharmaceutical industry was found to be an interesting line of business, which is likely to influence

the employer brand perception of Novo Nordisk, a large player in the pharmaceutical industry, in a

positive direction. With this in place it is time to look at the causes of the perception of the Novo

Nordisk employer brand. The perception of the company as employer was that it is a successful

company in growth with an aim of making a difference and finding the cure (to diabetes). There

was also perceived to be multiple focus areas for the company (internally in Novo Nordisk referred

to as the triple bottom line).

The consistency in the communicated message from the company coupled with the absence of

bad publicity or bad word-of-mouth communication led to the consequent perception of Novo

Nordisk being a professional company experiencing success and growth. It is seen as a company

with integrity and the moral in the right place that has credible values, though it was questioned

whether these were too soft. The company was also seen to offer a career with big impact,

development possibilities and at the same time caring about and appreciating the employees and

providing a good work-life balance. The perception of Novo Nordisk’s employer brand was

prevailingly positive.

Turning the attention to Miles and Mangold’s (2004) conceptualisation, face to face interaction

was found to be the far most important influencer. The interviewee had had some informal face to

face contact with friends, but mostly emphasised the partaking in events with speeches and

possible interaction with Novo Nordisk employees. Furthermore, the absence of negative press, an

external source, or word-of mouth communication from inside the company supported the

consistency of the brand. When moving on in the model it can be seen that the communication

that reaches the potential employee shapes and is perceived according to the psychological

contract. The potential employee does not work for the Novo Nordisk, but as argued in section 6

The ‘how to’ of employer branding, the formation of the psychological contract starts already in

the early phases of the employee life-cycle which are attraction and recruitment.

The interpretations of the company’s employer brand are still that Novo Nordisk is a professional

company experiencing success and growth. It is a company with the moral in the right place and

with integrity that has credible values that might be too soft. The company was seen to offer a

career with big impact, development possibilities and care about and appreciate the employees,

providing them a good work-life balance. The most relevant consequences of this positive

employer brand perception by the potential employee are positive word-of-mouth communication


and lowered recruitment costs via amongst other parameters more qualified applicants and less

unsuccessful recruitments. In addition, there can be possible positive spillover effects on

corporate and product brands too.

The key words applied to the stimuli was career with big impact, inspiring company, possibilities,

creating or improving something bigger, leaving a positive mark on the world, and possibility for

choosing employer with matching values. This is in line with the objective meaning of the stimuli

found when analysing it before the interviews and show a perception of both status and mobility

but especially excitement. This perception again is in line with the results gained from the analysis

of the interviewee’s perception of the Novo Nordisk employer brand above.

9.2. THE CURRENT EMPLOYEE HIRED AFTER INITIATING THE EMPLOYER BRANDING PROJECT

Moving on to the current employee hired after the initiation of the employer branding programme

at Novo Nordisk, there is an important context factor. She was hired just as she finished her

education and was therefore highly targeted by potential future employers, amongst these Novo

Nordisk. When looking at the strategies of interaction and affecting the perception of Novo

Nordisk as employer, again advertisements had, according to the interviewee, been very little

effective, as she described herself as very little receptive. One can speculate, whether the low

effect of advertisements was due to her being new in the job market. This important intervening

context factor of being a new entrant in the job market means that she was targeted with

advertisements from a number of potential future employers. Instead and quite similar to the

potential employee, event participation was a very important form of interaction with regards to

influencing the interviewee’s perception. She had also been influenced by the company website

though it was perceived to have more abstract than tangible information given the situation. And

then it was also a factor that it is a company that is well-known from the media.

Having accounted for the context factor and the strategies of interaction we can move on to the

causes of the perception of the Novo Nordisk employer brand, which were described as follows.

Novo Nordisk is a company of a certain size that therefore offers internal job rotation, but also the

possibility of specialising in one area. Further, the recruitment process also showed that the

company care about finding the right person for the right job. Additionally, it is a well-known

employer with happy employees that feel challenged professionally. Such employees did, during

the events participated in by Novo Nordisk, answer honestly to questions about for instance

number of hours worked during the week, which led to the perception of Novo Nordisk being a

professional company offering a good work-life balance but at the same time offering an

environment for living out ambitions. It is also seen as a company, which put emphasis on

choosing the right employees and focus on the development of the employees. The employees at

Novo Nordisk are seen to be proud of working there, and because the employees are seen as

important assets that should be taken care of, there is a sense of community, stating that no one


could be spared and that everyone is important as they are working towards a greater aim (finding

the cure of diabetes).

Then looking at Miles and Mangold’s (2004) conceptualisation the sources are in focus. The

internal human resources management system was important with regard to putting emphasis on

matching the person and the job, but formal external sources were the most prominent. Via public

relations efforts the company is a well-known employer. The company also offers recruitment

information on the company website, which did also play a role in the perception, but the most

important source was once again the face to face interactions at presentations and events for

students. The perception of Novo Nordisk as employer was, as described above, a professional

company offering an opportunity for living out ambitions, but at the same time offering a good

work-life balance. The employees at Novo Nordisk were perceived to be proud of working there,

because they are important assets in the community of workers, where no one could be spared, as

they are by joint efforts working towards a greater goal.

The most relevant future consequences will in this case be an increase in employer satisfaction

and service quality, positive word-of-mouth communication and a decrease in employee turnover.

However looking back highly relevant consequences of the employer branding was an increase in

qualified applicants and less unsuccessful recruitments.

It is obvious from the results of the coding that the interviewee has changed the perception of

Novo Nordisk very little since she was hired. Therefore it is reasonable to assume that the

psychological contract, which was initially formed during the attraction and recruitment phases, is

still upheld, and that there is consistency between the image communicated to the potential

employees and the actual employment experience at Novo Nordisk.

With regards to the stimuli used in the interview the key words attached to these were focus on

employee development, making employees feel important, and a sense of community working for

a greater aim. This is very much symbols of status and mobility, and some excitement can also be

identified. This is in line with the objective meaning of the stimuli found when analysing it before

the interviews. This perception is therefore again in line with the results gained from the analysis

of the interviewee’s perception of the Novo Nordisk employer brand above, but with a slight

difference in the emphasis compared to the potential employee.

9.3. THE CURRENT EMPLOYEE HIRED PRIOR TO THE EMPLOYER BRANDING PROJECT

The interviewee representing the third strata, the current employee, who was hired before the

initiation of the employer branding project at Novo Nordisk, felt that being present at the

workplace every day was the thing most affecting her. Further strategies of interaction included

job advertisements noticed and meeting other Novo Nordisk employees outside the company and

experiencing, which types of people they are. No intervening context factors were obvious from

the interview. Causes of the perception of the employer brand of the company were mainly the


open and attentive attitude that gave the employees the possibility to work independently, and

the mutual respect between the employer and the employees. Furthermore, the consistency in

image internally and externally was also a causing factor, as it shows that the company is not just

trying to sell itself with empty words but is actually following through. The perception, which this

leads to, is that Novo Nordisk is a credible, open, attentive and modern company. And a job at

Novo Nordisk is a job to be proud of and a job that will make you happy. Additionally, the

company was seen to be ambitious, committed and sympathetic.

In Miles and Mangold’s (2004) model several sources were influencers of the interpretation of the

employer brand. When looking at the internal sources the open and attentive attitudes can be

linked to the formal human resource management system of the company. Informally, there was a

co-worker influence with both friends and acquaintances being employed by the same company.

But also just the fact that the probability of randomly meeting other colleagues not known in

advance is somewhat bigger than most other employers due to the size of the company. External

sources were only represented by job advertisements, which the interviewee had noticed, but the

consistency in the internal and the external communication was important for the experienced

employer brand perception.

When turning to the stimuli used in the interviews the key words for this interviewee were a job

that will make you happy every day, a good job and a sympathetic company. This subjective

meaning deviates a little from the objective meaning of creating excitement and signalling status

and mobility, but looking at the three categories defined by Ewing, Pitt et al. (2002) the

transnational employer brand does come closest of the three with the characteristics being that it

is a global company and that it is big and successful and an employment proposition is described

as “we’re big, we’re stable, we’re multinational and we’re a respected and admired company -

why look any further?” (Ewing, Pitt et al. 2002).

9.4. COMPARISON

When comparing the analysis of the three interviews, the actual perceived employer brand of

Novo Nordisk is quite similar. So they reach more or less the same result but are influenced by

different sources, causes and strategies of interaction. Surprisingly the third interviewee, the

current employee that had been with the Novo Nordisk group for eight years and thereby since

before the initiation of the employer branding programme, was the only one of the interviewees

to have noticed job advertisements. She was also the only one to recognise co-workers’ influence

on the perception of the identity of the company as employer. The potential employee and the

current employee hired recently were both very influenced by events and face-to-face

communication with employees of the company, and more so in formal settings than informal.

The similarity in the way these two interviewees were affected may be due to the perception of

the current, but recently hired employee was formed mainly in the recruitment phase and had not

changed much since then, as stated above.


Both of the current employees had been affected by the human resource management within the

company, which is only reasonable to assume to be a general tendency for employees. The human

resource management of the company is exactly there to manage the people of the company. But

according to The Conference Board (2001), the objectives of a company’s human resource

management systems are in very close connection to the employer branding activities of the

company.

Another general tendency was the fact that both the potential employee and the current

employees were mostly influenced by sources or strategies of interaction actually aimed at the

segment they belong to. Furthermore, all of the interviewees agreed that the consistency between

the internal and external employer branding was important for them, and this was a contributing

factor to their perception of the employer brand of the company.

All of the current and potential employees’ subjective perceptions of the stimuli used, the slogan

‘Life changing careers’ and the four subheaders; the Novo Nordisk way, making a difference, my

opportunities and a successful company, were similar to the objective meaning found by analysing

the stimuli prior to the interviews. It can therefore be concluded that all of the three interviewees

had similar perceptions of the employer brand of Novo Nordisk, perceptions roughly equal to the

objective employer brand of the company. But these brand perceptions were not interpreted on

the background of the same sources.

10. IMPLICATIONS OF THE RESULTS Going back to the problem formulation of the study the main aim was to clarify whether alignment

of internally aimed employer branding efforts and externally aimed employer branding efforts

should be aligned and to do that find out how externally aimed employer branding efforts affect

current employees and how internally aimed employer branding efforts affect potential employees.

A secondary issue was therefore as a consequence of the primary issue to find out which forms of

communication that affects current and potential employees’ view of the company and how this

affects the expectation forming.

As can be seen above when comparing the interviews, different forms of communication affected

the interviewees with regards to their perception of the employer brand of Novo Nordisk. Mostly

the interviewees were affected by communication targeting their segment (current / potential

employee). But even though the sources of influence were different, both the potential employee

and the current employees were affected in similar ways and had positive perceptions of Novo

Nordisk as employer. Several key words were also repeated in the different interviews such as

successful, professional, credible, committed company, possibilities, work-life balance, a job to be

proud of, employee focus and working towards a greater goal. So even though the interviewees

were in different situations and even in different stages of the employee life cycle, they had a

similar perception of Novo Nordisk as employer. This was confirmed when comparing objective


and subjective meanings of the employer branding of the company used as stimuli in the

interview.

Novo Nordisk has not formally aligned their internally aimed and externally aimed employer

branding efforts. They have a formalised externally aimed employer branding programme, but not

a formal internally aimed employer branding programme (Page, Kolle 2011). However, the

externally aimed employer branding process is based on the internal perception of the employer

branding. They have used the so-called inside-out approach when building their branding

platform, as suggested by McKenzie and Glynn (2001). As mentioned in section 6 The ‘how to’ of

employer branding, McKenzie and Glynn (2001) suggest basing the externally aimed employer

branding process on knowledge gained when asking current employees ‘what is compelling and

differentiating about working here’, and devising a recruitment strategy inspired by the question

“how do we get the message across to potential recruits in a way that demonstrates the reality of

what we have to offer” (McKenzie, Glynn 2001, p. 23). These questions were also used as an

inspiration when making the interview guide for the interviews, and the main idea of this

approach to employer branding is that the recruitment story should reflect, what the company

offers employees when they join the company.

It has been possible for the company to take an inside out approach to employer branding

process, because they have a strong internal employer brand both in Denmark but also abroad,

and therefore the main aim of the employer branding project has been to create a higher

awareness of the Novo Nordisk employer brand especially abroad (Engelund, Buchhave 2009). If

linking this to the strategic five step model suggested by Englund and Buchhave (2009) outlined in

section 5.1 Employer branding as a strategic initiative and in Figure 6, this is the first two steps of

the model. First the aim of the initiative should be made clear, which in this case is to increase the

awareness of Novo Nordisk as employer. Ambler and Barrow also identified awareness as a key

factor to be able to recruit the best people (Abler, Barrow 1996). Then the target group should be

decided upon. Here Novo Nordisk chose to focus on potential employees as they found to have a

bigger present challenge in their hiring than their retention mainly because 75% of new hires

should happen outside Denmark in the future, where the company is less known (Engelund,

Buchhave 2009). So far Novo Nordisk has mostly focused on potential employees, which according

there to Ewing, Pitt et al. (2002) has been a tendency to do when having a bipartite target group.

Though Lloyd (2002) argued that companies are starting to realise that the internal target group is

equally important, which also seems to be the case with Novo Nordisk.

The employer branding process was described as a three step approach by Backhaus and Tikoo

(2004), which is relatively similar to the inside-out approach of McKezie and Glynn (2001).

Backhaus and Tikoo (2004) state that an employer value proposition should be developed in the

first phase based on the organisational culture, management style, qualities of current employees,

current employees’ image and impressions of product or service quality of the company. This

employer value proposition should make it clear what particular value the company can offer to


potential or current employees and should therefore be a true representation of the above

mentioned parameters. The employer value proposition should then be used in the externally

aimed employer branding in the second step of the employer branding process. Where Backhaus

and Tikoo (2004) separate themselves is with the third step of their employer branding process,

which is the internal marketing of the employer value proposition to make sure the organisation

lives up to their promise made to potential employees.

So according to Backhaus and Tikoo’s (2004) outline of the employer branding process Novo

Nordisk has been through step one, is still working on step two and have not yet implemented

step three. And here the company find itself at a crossroads of its employer branding. Should the

company stick with the inside out approach, or should it implement the employer branding to the

cover internally aimed processes also and thereby fully align its employer branding efforts?

According to Backhaus and Tikoo (2004) the company should take the further step and implement

internally aimed employer branding efforts of the employer value proposition to make sure it can

live up to the promises made to potential employees. However, according to the findings,

consistency was not only important to the potential employee but also for the current employees.

Therefore some sort of alignment must be said to be important. Novo Nordisk has already a

relative high alignment, because they have based its employer value proposition on the internal

values of the company, but to have a continuous alignment it may need to take the step further

and implement the internally aimed employer branding efforts of the employer value proposition.

11. LEARNING AND RECOMMENDATIONS If aiming for continuous alignment between external and internal employer branding efforts this

must be monitored in one way of another. This is an area in which recommendations in the

literature is very scarce, though it has been suggested that such measuring can be implemented in

the balanced scorecard ((Bergstrom, Anderson 2000-2001), (Engelund, Buchhave 2009)) – a

strategic management tool already used by Novo Nordisk. Bergstrom and Anderson (2000-2001)

goes a step further and suggest using key performance indicators such as:

Effectiveness of new employees

Effectiveness of training

Percentage of employees trained

Voluntary separation rate

Time per recruited new employee

Additionally the consequences from Miles and Mangold’s (2004) conceptualisation can be

translated into the following key performance indicators:

Employee turnover

Employee satisfaction

Service quality

Customer retention


Potential for positive / negative word-of-mouth communication

Recruitment costs

Qualified applicants

Unsuccessful recruitments

Positive spillover effects on corporate and product brands

((Miles, Mangold 2004), (McKenzie, Glynn 2001), (Engelund, Buchhave 2009))

The key performance indicators of the above that are most relevant for ensuring continuous

alignment will probably be recruitment time and costs, unsuccessful recruitments, qualified

applicants, employee turnover, the voluntary separation rate, employee satisfaction, and potential

for positive or negative word-of-mouth communication.

With regards to the recruitment of new talent to the company, suggested key performance

indicators as unsuccessful recruitments, number of qualified applicants for positions and

recruitment time and costs are relevant. Even though unsuccessful recruitments and number of

qualified applicants can give an indication of whether the company is perceived positively as

employer externally to the company or not, it may though also be influenced by the general

financial situation in the markets and the unemployment rate. Furthermore, it only reveals

information on how the company is seen from outside the company and is therefore only telling

half the story.

To gain the full insight in the employer brand perception of the company, it is also necessary to

look at the internal situation in the company. Employee turnover, which is already being measured

by Novo Nordisk, and the voluntary separation rate will give a clear picture of the retention of

employees, which is also an aim of the employer branding. If employees are furthermore asked for

their reason when leaving the company, this will give more information on whether or not it is due

to a misalignment in the internally and the externally aimed employer branding efforts. It is

important to measure the retention of employees in the company, because it cost money to

recruit and train the best people, so if they do not stay with the company, the company does not

get a return on the investment in human capital (Abler, Barrow 1996).

However, it is also possible to get indications of a possible misalignment does not require anyone

leaving the company. In the annual employee satisfaction survey eVoice the company measures

the satisfaction of their employees (Page, Kolle 2011). This survey can therefore reveal

dissatisfaction amongst employees. Questions, regarding whether expectations to the company as

employer, are fulfilled or not can be included in such a survey. And it can even be possible to get

an indication of potential for positive or negative word-of-mouth communication by asking for

instance whether the employees would recommend Novo Nordisk as employer. These are very

similar measures to market surveys for products and fit well with the mind-set of employees being

internal customers and jobs being internal products. The area of key performance indicators for


use in measuring employer brand perception, as well as alignment of internally and externally

aimed employer branding efforts, is an area with lots of potential for future research, since this

has not been tested and given clear guidelines for. So far, the report from The Conference Board

(2001) suggest that employers have chosen to measure what was easiest to measure, because it

have not been easy to pinpoint exact key performance indicators, which can measure the success

of the employer branding effort.

A continuous alignment will also be an advantage with respect to Novo Nordisk’s employees

functioning as natural ambassadors of the company, which has been the case so far (Engelund,

Buchhave 2009). Because loyal, motivated employees can act as natural ambassadors for the

company and be a valuable source of new employees, they can act as ambassadors in externally

aimed employer branding activities ((Engelund, Buchhave 2009), (Bergstrom, Anderson 2000-

2001)). As the interviews revealed that face-to-face communication, even though mostly so in

formal settings, was very important, this is definitely something that Novo Nordisk should invest

in. And it looks, as if the company takes the final step and implements the internally aimed

employer branding effort of the employer value proposition, the employer branding efforts of the

company can become a self-reinforcing process.

Two things that can become obstacles for the employer branding effort are budget and

management issues. This was reported by The Conference Board (2001), who further stated that

“fears and habitual attitudes of management were frequently reported as obstacles of branding

success” (The Conference Board 2001, p. 27). This is because management have the final say in

approving budgets and strategic initiatives. Engelund and Buchhave (2009) also mention that it is

crucial to have management support when engaging in employer branding. Ambler and Barrow

(1996) also thought that management commitment was very important because building up a

brand is a long-term effort. And not unlike product or corporate brands, what takes years of

investments to build up can be vulnerable to critical incidents and experience crippling damage if

not managed correctly.

12. CONCLUSIONS The aim of this thesis was to gain further knowledge on specific aspects of employer branding and

doing it via a real life case study using a company as case, as much of the previous literature was

based on studies involving students or literature reviews. Using Novo Nordisk, the multinational

pharmaceutical company originating from Denmark as case, the aim was to find out whether

alignment of internally aimed and externally aimed employer branding efforts would be

recommendable, as this has not been clear from prior literature. To find out whether an alignment

would be recommendable, a study was planned to illustrate how and by what potential and

current employees were influenced with regards to their perception of the employer brand of

Novo Nordisk.


A qualitative case study of Novo Nordisk was chosen to find empiric evidence for the above

mentioned purpose. A sample of a potential employee, a current but recently hired employee and

a current employee, who have been with Novo Nordisk since before the initiation of the employer

branding project, was selected. Focused interviews were conducted using the employer branding

slogan ‘Life changing careers’ and the four subheaders describing the Novo Nordisk employer

value proposition being: The Novo Nordisk way, making a difference, my opportunities, a

successful company used as stimuli. Before the interviews the stimuli was analysed and found to

be signalling status, mobility, and excitement according to Ewing, Pitt et al. (2002). The interviews

were analysed using both the paradigm model suggested by Flick (2009) and the Miles and

Mangold’s (2004) conceptualisation of employee branding. Lastly, the perceived employer brand

from the stimuli was compared to the objective meaning found in the analysis before the

interviews.

In the analysis of the interviews, it was discovered that the three interviewees had similar

perceptions of the employer brand even though they had been influenced in different ways. Both

the potential employee and the recently hired current employee had been influenced mainly

during Novo Nordisk events, whereas the top influencer of the current but not recently hired

employee was the workplace itself. The sources which had been affecting the interviewees were

therefore the sources intended to influence them in their given situation. The interviewees, as a

result of their interaction with the company, had a perception of Novo Nordisk being a successful,

professional, credible and committed company with an employee focus offering possibilities, a

good work-life balance, a job to be proud of, and working towards a greater goal. Thus both the

triple bottom line and the proclaimed aim of finding the cure for diabetes, two highly important

issues for Novo Nordisk, are evident in this description.

An important finding was that the consistency of the communication had played a role for all

interviewees in the perception of the employer brand. This is despite the fact that Novo Nordisk

does not have a formalised internal employer branding effort but only a formal externally aimed

employer branding effort. However, this could be due to the fact that Novo Nordisk based their

externally aimed employer branding efforts on the internal values in the company using the inside-

out approach suggested by McKenzie and Glynn (2001). It has been possible for the company to

use this inside-out approach because the company has a quite strong internal employer brand.

The aim of the Novo Nordisk employer branding project is to increase the awareness of Novo

Nordisk as employer – especially abroad where 75% of the future new employees should be hired.

When referring to Backhaus and Tikoo’s (2004) three step approach in employer branding, Novo

Nordisk has not yet taken the third step of fully aligning the internal and external employer

branding efforts by implementing internal branding of the employer value proposition. However,

from the results of the interviews it is recommendable to do this for Novo Nordisk to fully align

their internally and externally aimed employer branding efforts. This is especially due to the

importance of the consistency in communication, which was a key point found in all of the three


interviews. A full alignment can also make sure that Novo Nordisk employees will keep being good

ambassadors for the company, because it can become a self-reinforcing process. It can become a

self-reinforcing process because natural ambassadors will represent the company well in both

formal and informal settings and can also be a source of new employees.

A further advantage of the full and continued alignment of the internally and externally employer

branding processes is that employees when recruited carry the expectations into the company and

will then feel that the psychological contract is upheld, if the branding is consistent. But to secure

the continuous alignment it is recommendable to follow up the employer branding efforts by

measuring them with key performance indicators maybe even incorporated in the balanced

scorecard of the company. Interesting key performance indicators to look at could be recruitment

related measures such as unsuccessful recruits, qualified applicants, and recruitment time and

costs per hire. But also retention related measures such as employer turnover, voluntary retention

rate, and employee satisfaction through the yearly satisfaction survey. In this survey questions

about whether expectations have been met and whether employees would recommend Novo

Nordisk as employer can be incorporated to gain further knowledge. Though the area of key

performance indicators with regards to employer branding is an area with very little recommenda-

tions in the literature and is therefore an obvious area for further research.

It can be concluded that internally aimed and externally aimed employer branding efforts are in

fact two sides of the same coin. They can to some extent function separately, but if the two

processes are not aligned consistency will be missing and the credibility of the employer brand will

therefore decrease. Furthermore, if the processes are not aligned and the internal and external

employer brands are different, this may lead to newly recruited employees not finding the

psychological contract being upheld and therefore feel less motivated and less loyal to the

company. Ensuring consistency alignment is therefore key and this is a step in the direction of

utilising the full potential of the employer branding efforts.

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APPENDIX I – THE NOVO NORDISK WAY

THE SECTION ON ‘THE NOVO NORDISK WAY’ FROM THE ANNUAL REPORT 2010:

The Novo Nordisk Way is the foundation of the values-based management system in Novo

Nordisk. It describes who we are, where we want to go, and how we work. Its origins can be traced

back to when the company was founded in the 1920s, and while the wording has been updated

over, the essence remains the same.

The continued relevance of the Novo Nordisk Way was reaffirmed during 2010. On the occasion of

the company's ten-year anniversary as a focused healthcare company and coinciding with his own

ten-year tenure as CEO, Lars Rebien Sørensen took the opportunity to revisit the document. With

an open mind and no predetermined outcome, he set out on a journey to engage with employees

and stakeholders to seek their inputs on what to retain and what to renew. The journey took him

to 7 destinations and face-to-face meetings with more than 350 employees and 100 patients,

healthcare providers and other stakeholders. The response was consistent across geographical

borders, organisational boundaries and external partners: The messages and the values embedded

in the Novo Nordisk Way were not to be changed. On the contrary, there was a strong wish to

reinforce the existing business principles and values. More specifically a more explicit focus on

patients needs and TBL to ensure that the Novo Nordisk Way clearly mirror our actions. The

values-based management unifies a strong corporate culture and guides behaviour in all parts of

the organisation.

While our values have not changed, the components of the Novo Nordisk Way have been

shortened and simplified, presenting the company's ambitions and values in a format that is easier

to understand and more accessible for all employees.

Importantly, as the company continues to grow and onboards several thousand new employees

each year, emphasis has been put on framing a list of ten Essentials which describe how the values

are put into action. Like before, a follow-up methodology helps us assess and manage the degree

to which the Novo Nordisk Way is actively put into practice throughout our company.

In 2011 the new Novo Nordisk Way was introduced to the organisaiton, with a range of activities

and tools that will help strengthen a unified culture around our revised ambitions, setting a clear

direction for the next decade.

THE NOVO NORDISK WAY

In 1923, our Danish founders began a journey to change diabetes. Today, we number thousands of

employees across the world with the passion, the skills and the commitment to continue this

journey to prevent, treat and ultimately cure diabetes.

Our ambition is to strengthen our leadership in diabetes.


We aspire to change possibilities in haemophilia and other serious chronic conditions where we can make a difference.

Our key contribution is to discover and develop innovative biological medicines and make them accessible to patients throughout the world.

Growing our business and delivering competitive financial results is what allows us to help patients live better lives, offer an attractive return to our shareholders and contribute to our communities.

Our business philosophy is one of balancing financial, social and environmental considerations – we call it the Triple Bottom Line.

We are open and honest, ambitious and accountable, and treat everyone with respect. We offer opportunities for our people to realise their potential. We never compromise on quality and business ethics.

Every day we must make difficult choices, always keeping in mind what is best for patients, our

employees and our shareholders in the long run.

It’s the Novo Nordisk Way.

THE ESSENTIALS

The Essentials are 10 statements describing what the Novo Nordisk Way looks like in practice. The

Essentials are meant as a help to managers and employees in evaluating to what extent their

organisational unit acts in accordance with the Novo Nordisk Way, the

degree to which we 'walk the talk'.

The Essentials are helpful in identifying actions which business units may take to further align

processes and procedures with the thinking and values that characterise the Novo Nordisk Way.

We create value by having a patient-centred business approach We set ambitious goals and strive for excellence We are accountable for our financial, environmental and social performance We provide innovation to the benefit of our stakeholders We build and maintain good relations with our key stakeholders We treat everyone with respect We focus on personal performance and development We have a healthy and engaging working environment We optimise the way we work and strive for simplicity We never compromise on quality and business ethics

Read more about the Novo Nordisk Way on our corporate website.

FOLLOW-UP METHODOLOGY

Novo Nordisk uses specific follow up methods to ensure ongoing and systemic documentation of

performance. These include financial, social and environmental reporting, succession management

and organisational audits.

http://www.novonordisk.com/about_us/novonordisk-way-of-managment/nn-way-of-management-default.asp


To evaluate the extent to which each business unit operates in accordance with the Novo Nordisk

Way of Management, we use an internal facilitation process. Facilitations are conducted by a team

of senior people with deep understanding of our business and business environment.

All units undergo a facilitation at least once every three years. Observations from this process are

reported to the Board each December.

As part of the follow-up methodology, we have a global facilitator team consisting of senior people

with deep understanding of our business and the business environment.

They evaluate the extent to which business units operate in compliance with the Novo Nordisk

Way of Management. Areas identified for increased focus include future business direction

and prioritising process improvement initiatives.

In 2010, 93% of all action points, based on a three-year average, were closed in a timely manner,

which is consistent with 2009.

(Novo Nordisk 2011)

NOVO NORDISK, 2011-last update, Novo Nordisk Way [Homepage of Novo Nordisk], [Online]. Available: http://annualreport2010.novonordisk.com/governance/novo-nordisk-way.aspx [20 APR 2011, 2011].

http://annualreport2010.novonordisk.com/governance/novo-nordisk-way.aspx


APPENDIX II – ANALYSIS OF INTERVIEW WITH POTENTIAL EMPLOYEE:

THE PARADIGM MODEL

MILES AND MANGOLD’S (2004) CONCEPTUALISATION

Perception of Novo Nordisk's

employer brand

Absence of negative press

Consistancy in communicated image

Telling a good story about the company

Employee focus

More than one focus area (tripple bottom line)

Participating in events

Face to face contact (formal / informal)

Sucess & Growth

Professional

Compny with integrity

Trustworthy company

Care about employees

Making a difference

Possibilities

Maybe too much focus on soft values

Pharmaceutical industry

SOURCES OF MESSAGES

•External

•Formal

•Advertising - low influence

•PR - No negative press

•Presentations of high importance - telling a good story about the company

•Consistancy in communication

PERCEPTIONS

•Employee psychee

•Psychological contract

INTERPRETATIONS

•Professional

•Successful

•Growth

•Moral in the right place and integrity

•Credible values (though maybee too soft)

•Career with big impact

•Development possibilities

•care about and appreciate employees

•good work-life balance

CONSEQUENSES

•Positive word-of-mouth Communication

•Recruitment costs

•Qualified applicants

•Unsuccessful recruitments

•Positive spillover effects on corporate and product brands


APPENDIX III – ANALYSIS OF INTERVIEW WITH CURRENT EMPLOYEE HIRED

AFTER INITIATION OF EMPLOYER BRANDING PROJECT:

THE PARADIGM MODEL



employer brand

Big company

Possibilities for internal job rotation

Possibility to specialise in one area

Well known employer

Happy employees

Challenged professionally

Care about finding the right position for the right person

Honest answers from current empluyees wbout Novo Nordisk as

employer

Partaking in events for students

Arranging own event and choosing students to participate with

professional challenges and info about company

Known from the media

Website - abstract

Professional

Work-life balance

Possibility to live out ambitions

Put emphasis in chosing the right employee

Proud emploees

Focus on development of employees

Sense of community - could not spare anyone - everyone are important

Working towards a greater goal with joint efforts (finding the cure)

Employees an important asset to be taken care of

Just finished education and looking for the first job, when hired, therefore higly targeted by

potential future employees

SOURCES OF MESSAGES

• Internal

• Formal

• HRM systems - focus on hiring the right person

• External

• Formal

• PR - well known from media

• Website - abstract

• Presentations - events for students

PERCEPTIONS

• Employee psychee

• Psychological contract

INTERPRETATIONS

• Professional

• Work-life balance

• Possibility of living out ambitions

• Put emphasis in chosing the right employee & focus on development of employees

• Proud emploees

• Sense of community - could not spare anyone - everyone are important

• Working towards a greater goal with joint efforts (finding the cure)

• Employees an important asset to be taken care of

CONSEQUENSES

• Employee turnover

• Empoyee satisfaction

• Service quality

• Positive word-of-mouth Communication

• Recruitment costs

• Qualified applicants

• Unsuccessful recruitments


APPENDIX IV – ANALYSIS OF INTERVIEW WITH CURRENT EMPLOYEE HIRED

BEFORE INITIATION OF EMPLOYER BRANDING PROJECT:

THE PARADIGM MODEL



employer brand

Open and attentive attitude

Possibilities of working independently

Mutual respect between employee and employer

Consistent image

Being present in the workplace - internal

communication

Meeting Novo Nordisk employees outside work

Job advertisements

Credible, open, attentive, and modern

company

A job to be proud of

A good job that will make you happy

Ambitious and committed company

Sympathetic company

SOURCES OF MESSAGES

• Internal

• Formal

• HR systems - open and attentive

• Informal

• Coworker influence

• External

• Formal

• Job advertisements - a job to be proud of

• Consistancy in internal and external communication

PERCEPTIONS

• Employee psychee

• Psychological contract

INTERPRETATIONS

• Open & attentive

• Credible

• A job to be proud of

• Modern company

• Ambitious & committed company

• Sympathetic company

• A job that will make you happy every day

CONSEQUENSES

• Employee turnover

• Empoyee satisfaction

• Service quality

• Customer retention

• Positive word-of-mouth communication

alignment of internally and externally aimed employer...

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