the impact of employer branding on talent acquisition in banking sector of pakistan

Employer Branding

The impact of Employer Branding on talent acquisition in banking sector of Pakistan.

By

Exam Number

B032902

Dissertation Presented for the degree of

Msc Human Resource Management

2012-2013

The researcher can be reached through the following contact information. Please feel free to contact

me, I will be more than just willing to help you.

[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

Employer Branding

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Firstly I would like to pay my gratitude towards the supervisor Dr Sara Chaudhry. Her insightful and

intelligent step by step guidance held me together during my difficult times. Secondly I will pay my

thanks to the employees of Standard Chartered who not only provided with deep understanding of

the subject but also greeted me with warmth. Lastly I would pay my regards towards my family for

their endless support.

Employer Branding

DECLARATION

I hereby declare that this is a presentation of my original work. Wherever I have used other

contributions, every effort has been put to indicate it clearly. This work has been done under the

guidance of Dr. Sara Chaudhry.

The word Count is 16,050.



[email protected]


Employer Branding

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the impact of Employer branding on the residing talent within and outside the

organizations. In the current scenario, organizations in Pakistan face a challenge on distinguishing

themselves from the clutter of brands in the job market. Reaching the right talent and affecting them

from the very beginning seems to be the most crucial step in recruitment. So the organizations need

to know how building reputation can shape up the expectations of employees in labour market. They

also need to understand how various recruitment practices can impact their employer branding

process for hiring better pool of applicants. These all issues raise a concern for me to come up with

an insightful study of how employer branding is practiced around the banking sector of Pakistan and

most importantly what are its implications. This study also explores the major gap in existing

literature concerning the conflict of expectations and the organizational reality.

Employer Branding

Contents

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................. 7

1.1 Background............................................................................................................................................ 7

1.2 Why Standard Chartered?.................................................................................................................... 8

1.3 Target Audience .................................................................................................................................... 9

CHAPTER 2: LIERATURE REVIEW .......................................................................................................10

2.1 The Concept of Employer Branding ...................................................................................................10

2.2 The Fusion of Marketing and HR in Employer branding ...................................................................14

2.3 Recruitment and talent acquisition .....................................................................................................17

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY ...............................................................................................................21

3.1 Summary of method.............................................................................................................................21

3.2 Methodology and approach of research ............................................................................................21

3.3 Research Design ..................................................................................................................................22

3.4 Data Collection .....................................................................................................................................22

3.5 Data analysis and generalisation ........................................................................................................23

3.6 Limitations .............................................................................................................................................24

3.7 Ethics.....................................................................................................................................................24

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS .............................................................................................25

4.1 Employee expectations formed through Employer branding process in Standard Chartered ......25

4.2 Mismatch between job expectations and organizational reality and its repercussions. .................30

4.3. Various recruitment practices that shape employer branding to impact talent acquisition. ..........34

Employer Branding

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION ....................................................................................................................40

5.2 Recommendations ...............................................................................................................................42

5.3 Future Research ..................................................................................................................................43

5.4 Recommendations and implementations (CIPD) ..............................................................................44

REFRENCES ..............................................................................................................................................46

Appendix A ..................................................................................................................................................53

Appendix B ..................................................................................................................................................54

Employer Branding

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

This chapter will provide the background and reason for choosing the subject of Employer branding.

Secondly I will demonstrate the need to study this subject with respect to Pakistani perspective while

investigating the employer branding practice done in Standard Chartered Bank Pakistan. Lastly this

chapter will chalk out the basic themes which I will be arguing throughout the dissertation.

1.1 Background

In the era of globalization and on the verge of shifting demographics, the organizations are indulged

in stiff competition to acquire and retain human capital. Furthermore the increasing demand for

highly skilled and talented workforce has created an intense labour market in which organizations

find it difficult to navigate. The successful recruitment and succession of talent is now considered as

the leading issue in Human Resource Management. The increased focus towards corporate social

responsibility is due to the global emergence of media which scrutinizes the company’s treatment

towards employees (Aggerholm et al., 2010).

The term brand refers to a symbol that encapsulates many associations that are linked with a name

(Gardner and Levy, 1955). Branding might not sound a new concept but its application in

accumulating human capital and its implication on job market still needs investigation. Branding

initially used for differentiating tangible products but with the passage of time the concept also

started to highlight the uniqueness among people, places and firms (Peters, 1999). Employer

branding is a long term strategy used to create awareness and shape up the image in the minds of

existing as well as potential employees with regards to a particular firm (Sullivan, 2004). Employer

branding is more than just recruiting and managing talent, its crux lies in the provision of authentic

brand experience that engages employees.

Beside the differentiating attribute associated with employer branding, it has constantly gained a

strong foothold as a strategic approach to attract the better pool of applicants. Though employer

branding has been a topic of high attention in practitioners’ venues, still there exist a gap in

academic understanding of employer branding and the theoretical foundation still seems incomplete

(Backhaus and Tikoo, 2004). Well there is an established connection between employer branding

and attraction but the implications of attracting employees is still a developing subject. In the

process of building attraction, the brand often links an avalanche of expectations towards a

particular organisation or a job role. In the pursuit of creating awareness of brand uniqueness, the

Employer Branding

organizations need to understand the risk associated with building expectations. These expectations

becomes the part of your brand promise and unmet expectations can not only make an employee

leave the organization but also can impact the future recruitments. The study of this relationship of

employer branding and expectations would be one of the key concerns of my research. It should be

noted here that different recruitment channels can also impact the employee’s perception. With the

shaping technological services and contemporary recruitment methods, organizations seem to be

baffled by the affectivity of various recruitment channels. The question remains the same that with

this wide variety of recruitment methods, which amongst them will effects more on employer

branding to impact the talent sitting inside and outside the organization. Moreover the choice of the

method is how much affected by the advertised position and the targeted audience.

Unfortunately very less investigation has been done about employer branding with a Pakistani

perspective. The limitations of those studies are discussed in detail in the literature review section.

As Human Resource Management is still a developing field in Pakistan, the organization there

should know how they can be benefited by the concept of employer branding. However to study the

current scenario of HR practices, I took one multinational bank named as Standard Chartered

Operating in Pakistan. In short I will be looking at the impact of employer branding for talent

acquisition in Pakistan within the banking sector.

1.2 Why Standard Chartered?

There are various reasons for choosing Standard Chartered Bank as an object of investigation. As

the banking sector around the globe is going through a lot of public scrutiny due to the financial

crunch. Financial institutions have to work a lot in order to provide a secure and committed image to

their employees to counteract the negative image of banking industry. Standard Chartered Bank has

been operating in Pakistan since few decades. It’s the only international bank that has survived the

tough economic downturns of Pakistan. Rest of the foreign banks have either stopped operating or

they are completely downsized. So Standard Chartered provided me with an interesting analysis

about how they acquire and retain talent when the overall condition of Pakistani Job market was

tough. I believe that employer branding is developing into a crucial topic for nearly all the big

organizations working in Pakistan and unfortunately very less prior research is done on that with a

Pakistani perspective. Being an International bank, Standard Chartered provides me a good cross

analysis between local and the international practices. As Human resource Department of Standard

Chartered Pakistan is located in Karachi, which makes it more interesting to look how they

communicate with the other geographically diversified branches. Lastly Standard Chartered claims

to have a very effective recruitment network which makes my subject highly imperative that which

strategies they adopt to counter problems related with talent acquisition.

Employer Branding

1.3 Target Audience

This research paper will be useful for organizations who want to build their reputations in the minds

of potential and existing employees. The study can benefit HR employees by providing them with

insight of how the branding process shapes up the employee expectations and which situations can

result in conflicting expectations. Moreover this research also provides a theoretical contribution to

the people doing research on employer branding and its link with different recruitment practices.

Employer Branding

CHAPTER 2: LIERATURE REVIEW

Primarily this chapter will advance our knowledge about the relevant theory and concepts

surrounding the chosen subject, employer branding. I will attempt to explore the complexity of issues

surrounding employer branding and link key theoretical themes to my research questions. There

would be further investigation on how the knowledge of employer banding can generate value

proposition for existing and future employees and create synergy of organisational disciplines (HR

and Marketing). For this it is necessary to discuss how the term employer branding was coined and

how it is perceived and used in modern times by analysing its implication on strategic as well as hoe

it is communicate to the potential and existing employees. Moreover the chapter will discuss the

fusion of human resource management and marketing in the organisational development and

implementation of employer branding and the psychological contract.

Finally, this review will also present the connection between employer branding and talent

acquisition in order to highlight the efficiency of different branding channels and their impact on

various talent markets.

2.1 The Concept of Employer Branding

A pivotal distinction between the suggested values in what an organization claims to be (mission)

and values-in-use (how an organization actually behaves) was first made by Schein (1992) who

argued that the underlying values of a corporate brand should be ‘more than romanticism’ (Hatch

and Schultz, 2003) and should be inculcated within the lived experience of the employees. Brands

are clusters of functional and emotional values making promises about unique experiences and it is

not sufficient to just communicate the brand values to the employees but also to make it a part of the

corporate brand developmental process (de Chernatony 2001). This leads us to the fact that to

manage employer brand we need to understand how employees make sense of their world and the

role which symbols and stories play in this sense making process (Czarniawska, 1997). What does it

mean to work for globally recognised organisations like Google, Microsoft or Coke? The post-

industrial organization manages to inextricably associate emotional bonds and messages with the

corporate brand that helps attract and maintain managers, employees and network partners (Larsen,

2000). Therefore, the corporate identity which is symbolized using artefacts such as organisation

name, representation style, logo etc. (Hatch and Schults, 2000) should be developed as corporate

stories to form a corporate brand.

Employer Branding

The term employer branding was first coined by Ambler and Barrow (1996). According to them it is a

package of functional, economic and psychological benefits provided through employment which is

associated with the hiring organization. This means the brand creates an expectation and certain

values to employees which the organization wants them to hold. The authors sought to investigate

the previously unexplored connection between marketing and human resources, particularly

recruitment, and the value employer branding could add to the business. Their qualitative pilot study

conducted interviews with the top executives of 27 companies and highlighted that these executives

had a vague understanding of the significance of employer branding and commonly associated it

with corporate culture alone. However, this study led to a rather basic initial model for employer

branding which considered the relationship between best people - best shops – best word of mouth

– best applicants (Ambler and Barrow, 1996). Backhaus and Tikoo (2004) further investigated

different relationships of employer branding with how employees behave and stressed upon its

significance by saying that effective employer branding can provide companies with a competitive

edge. They conceptualised employer branding as a three-step process in which initially a firm is

engaged in developing a ‘value proposition’ that has to be made a part of existing employees. This

value proposition is created on the foundations of organisational culture, the style of management

and the popularity of the employment image (Sullivan, 2002). After the development of this first

stage the value proposition then has to be marketed externally to targeted potential employees. This

recruitment campaign is designed according to the type of target population and the recruitment

agencies and placement counsellors used. This is the stage where the generated value proposition

helps to attract potential employees. Lastly this image is supposed to become a part of the

organisation by using internal marketing. Up till now we understood that in employer branding we

generate value though culture and providing employment benefits and how employer branding is

related to the branding concepts which was previously given.

Davies (2007) attempted to compare a customer brand with an employer brand in order to highlight

any common grounds. He found four key attributes of consumer brands such as the ability to

differentiate, contribute to satisfaction, build loyalty and enhance emotional attachments that are

also relevant with respect to the employer brand. These four dimensions were predicted by the

aspects of brand personality in influencing outcomes and it was found out that agreeableness was

the most influential factor of the corporate brand personality for influencing outcomes. He suggested

the employers need to focus on this factor while promoting their employer brand. According to

Davies brand knowledge is developed through awareness and image and since awareness did not

seem to be an issue for existing employees because they already know about the existing values so

he put more emphasis on brand image by studying human associations with a particular brand. He

mentions a very crucial point that many employees take a decision to quit because of job

dissatisfaction and lack of commitment and this process is hugely affected by the corporate brand.

This is usually because of the mismatch between what employees expect from certain brand and

Employer Branding

what is practiced while doing their task. The intentions to quit are generally a repercussion of job

stress and lack of commitment to the employer (Mellor et al., 2004). The emotional attachment is

measured by how committed an employee is the employer (Tsai, 2005). This affinity of employee to

the brand is a result of good employers brand personality (Davies, 2007) despite that corporate

brand is the most significant factor in an organisation still lacks enough consideration.

As we established some factors that affect the employer brand it’s important to discuss how

employees relate to these concepts. According to CIPD (2010) there is a fundamental need to

understand how much you need a certain employee to associate themselves with the organisational

brand. Engagement surveys show that the biggest gaps lies between what the employer needs the

employee to understand about the organisational brand and what the employee actually

understands. This is when we find the concept of psychological contract very useful. The concept of

psychological contract develops our understanding about the relationship between the employer and

the employee and the implied expectations or obligations they share with one another (Eshøj ,2012).

The research of Eshoj (2012) found that the employer brand message leads to employer

associations and formation of some beliefs about a brand in the minds of potential applicant. This

relationship depends upon for how long the applicant is exposed to a particular brand. The following

diagram illustrates how various components of employer brand such as message, reputation,

marketing and publicity etc., which leads to different associations, is ultimately dependent upon

individual employees’ mental schema. This process then carries the development of the

psychological contact where the expectation between employer-employee relations is determined.

Fig 1.1 Adapted from Eshøj, A. N. (2012). The Impact of Employer Branding on The Formation of

The Psychological Contract. A master thesis, Aarhus University, Business and Social Sciences.

Employer Branding

The correct establishment of this relationship is crucial because if it is not communicated or done

properly then it might lead to post-employment dissonance. Post-employment dissonance in HR

perspective would refer to a state when there is a mismatch between employee’s perception and

organizational reality which will lead to conflicting attitude at workplace. Festinger's (1957) cognitive

dissonance theory suggests that instinctively we try to hold our attitudes and beliefs in harmony and

avoid any conflict. As discussed earlier that potential as well as existing employees make certain

expectations and associations with a particular brand. It’s the responsibility of an employer to live up

to the established brand promise. If the expectations are not translated into reality it can lead to

demotivation due to disharmony between the values you were promised and the conditions you are

provided with. So it can be implied that post-employment dissonance can lead to conflicting beliefs

in the workplace which can in turn affect the external image of the company through word-of-mouth.

Berthon (2005) suggest that there is a need for researchers to determine how ‘employer brand’

affects the post-employment dissonance and to establish whether an increase in job satisfaction

through employer branding can decrease post-employment dissonance. This literature gape leads to

my one of the research question that how a mismatch between job expectations and organizational

reality is created and what are its repercussions?

Previous section discussed the psychological understanding of a brand now we will look at some

other issues surrounding employer branding. It’s crucial to understand that employer branding is

done both ways; externally and internally. Though corporate marketing in very much directed

towards the external opportunities but it is essential to consider the internal activities while

integrating a marketing plan. This is because employees are in the unique position to interact with

both the external and the internal environments of the organization and therefore, can have a

significant impact on consumer perception (Harris & de Chernatony, 2001). A brand is not

represented by emotional values alone but also through various interactions of employees with

different stakeholders. Employees are the representatives of organizations who project a certain

image of the environment that needs to be compatible with what top management desires the

organization to be perceived as (Kennedy, 1977). This implies that employees become an integral

part of the branding process and the companies advertised values should be consistent with what

current employees feel about that organization. Any inconsistency can undermine the credibility of

the advertised message (Harris & de Chernatony, 2001) in the long run.

According to Harris and de Chernatony (2001) there is a need to investigate further into

organizations to understand the shift in employer branding literature from brand image to brand

identity. They stress that brand image considers the customer perception of brand differentiation

whereas identity talks more about how internal stakeholders, i.e. employees and managers can

make a brand unique. However, they ignore a crucial point that with regards to the concept of brand

identity there exists a subtle difference between organizational identity and corporate identity.

Employer Branding

Organizational identity refers to how members perceive and feel about their organization. It is

actually a shared frame of thinking about the distinctive values and characteristics of the

organization. On the other hand, corporate identity inclines more towards the function of leadership

and the advertised visuals such as corporate symbols (Hatch and Schults, 2000). However, it

creates a challenge for the current organizations to balance their brand identity as a whole with the

brand image they have. Organizational literature which focuses more exclusively on the internal

issues perceives brand image to be different from the marketing concepts. Whetten et al (1992)

define brand image as the way in which “organizational elites” would like their organization to be

perceived by outsiders. Organizational elites here refer to the top management which sets the

companies goals, vision and mission. They want their employees to think in the ‘companys way’

While marketing literature claims that image is not what the company believes itself to be, but the

feelings and beliefs about the company that exist in the minds of its audiences (Abratt 1989).

Previously organizations could prevent their internal functioning from influencing the external

environment because of the lack of communication channels between insiders and outsiders (Hatch

and Schults, 2000). With the advent of new technology and constant social interface, employees are

connected with the outside world in a better way. In my research I would be looking at the values

with which organization identifies itself with and the impact it has on the external and internal

stakeholders. My research will specifically study the importance of brand image in employer brand.

While discussing about internal branding, I would be using the concept of organizational identity and

the concept of corporate identity will be used as a foundation for external branding. These concepts

were not tested in Pakistani perspective so that makes space for my research that how employer

branding process is used in Pakistan to shape up the employer image. Moreover how this brand

image leads in the creation of expectations among the applicants of banking sector of Pakistan. So

my another research question would be How does image created through employer branding shape

the employee expectations in Standard Chartered?

2.2 The Fusion of Marketing and HR in Employer branding

Brand image forms the foundation on which the potential applicant’s decision is dependant and this

image resides in the memory of individuals. Such memory models postulate that information is

stored in the memory in the form of nodes (Collins and Stevens , 2002). When we recall a node it

actually triggers and activate other nodes associated with it according to the strength of link they

share. If we study this process under the hat of customer based brand equity than we can

determine two major dimensions of brand image. The key dimensions are the awareness of the

brand and its links related to information or the knowledge we have accumulated about the brand

(Keller, 1993).

Employer Branding

Fig 1.2 Adapted from CIPD (2010). Employer brand and total reward. Chartered Institute of

personnel and development.

As previously discussed that psychological contract is crucial in determining if the employer brand is

having a right impact or not on employees. The diagram above explains how through

communication you can go through different components that could help develop the brand (CIPD,

2010). This is where marketing mix becomes an important tool to spread awareness. Brand

awareness refers to whether consumer can recall or recognize a brand or simply hold some

information about it (Keller, 2008). The brand awareness created precedes building brand equity

and brand name forms memory nodes in consumers’ minds (Aaker, 1991). therefore, just as brand

awareness affects the information stored in consumers’ mind, it also affects the decision of potential

applicants applying for jobs. Now as brand awareness can act as a purchase decision heuristic for

customers (Hoyer and Brown, 1990) it also drives brand market performance. The underlying

assumption of the external marketing effort is that the right employer branding strategy will result in

the attraction of the right human capital, securing a future source of competitive advantage

(Backhaus & Tikoo, 2004, 505). It’s important to note here that all aspects employed in external

marketing is not equally adaptable to recruitment activities (Collins and Stevens , 2002). Because of

that Collins and Stevens tried to test recruitment against four marketing activities which were (a)

publicity, (b) sponsorships, (c) personal or word of mouth endorsements, and (d) brand –specific

product or service advertising. I will discuss the first two marketing activities here and the third one

in the next section. However I will not be focusing on the fourth one because it has a weak

connection with HR. The study of these marketing concepts is important in HR because for the

implication of Employer branding one needs to develop the synergy between HR and marketing.

Publicity is defined as a product or service communicated through editorial media which is not paid

for by the organisation (Cameron, 1994). There is a need for greater recognition of the value which

Employer Branding

publicity holds since this is a promotional tool which is often neglected (Lord and Putrevu , 1993).

The reason for considering publicity as a tool for improving employer branding is that it has some

advantages over traditional recruitment channels such as greater visibility, lower costs and a third

party endorsement leading to an increase in credibility (Kotler 1993). Barber (1998) implied that

media publicity of firms can have a spill over effect on their recruitment efforts. The data collected by

Turban and Greening (1997) also supports this contention. Their study on 500 fortune firms

revealed that those organisations which were rated highly in terms of corporate social responsibility

had more media exposure and were perceived as more attractive by potential employees. There is

an implication that publicity will shape the general perception about the firm and will have a greater

effect on employee attitudes than on their perception of job attributes (Collins and Stevens , 2002).

Through publicity the brand awareness will be increased resulting in a stronger brand image (Aaker,

1996). However, the studies of Baloch and Awan (2012) which tested publicity with brand equity with

the reference of telecommunication companies in Pakistan rejected the hypothesis that “publicity as

a component of employer brand equity is positively associated with the decision making about the

employer, amongst the fresh graduates of Pakistan” (pg.6) which also highlight that without the

mediation of external third parties like educational institutions of Pakistan its difficult to affect the

potential applicant decision through publicity. It’s important to notice that this study was conducted

on telecommunication companies of Pakistan which has different set of practices as compared to

the banking sector. Moreover the study only examined the brand equity and its relationship with

talent recruitment and no connection was established between how brand equity leads to developing

expectations in the mind of applicants. Moreover the discussion of recruitment practices lacked the

mention of modern day channels which I have discussed in my section that establishes a connection

between recruitment and talent acquisition.

According to Johar & Pham (1999) the raison d’etre of event sponsorship is actually to stimulate a

link between the event and the sponsoring brand and it is alarming that even sponsors are often

misidentified. Current practitioners have already raised a concern about this issue However,

corporate sponsorship can result in improvement of both brand and corporate images by generating

a positive effect on individuals who come and attend the sponsored events. Sponsor identification is

heavily biased towards the brands which are prominent/globally recognised. Prominent brands

include those which are not only accessible to memory but also regarded as plausible sponsors of

events that require significant amounts of resources (Johar and Phan, 1999). The studies of Poe

(2000) show that many corporations have started to stretch their recruitment efforts towards campus

activities where they build their employer brand image through sponsorship events. Hoek et al (1997)

examined two forms of brand awareness. The first one was general brand awareness that was

featured in video clip advertisements the second one was specific awareness of the brands that

involved sponsoring the event. Participants who were exposed to sponsorship material had higher

Employer Branding

recall scores and directly associated the event with the sponsors. Thus, it is crucial for consumer

awareness that event sponsor should explicitly link the stimuli of the sponsoring brand with the event.

Now as we move further we need to establish the connection between how the concept of marketing

and HR can fuse together in the form of employer branding and be used as tool for recruitment. The

marketing and HR needs to work together in formation of Employer branding because in marketing

holds the concepts of how customer segmentation is done similarly HR has to segment for

employees and candidates. For example its important to develop a targeted value proposition so

you can better address the right candidate and employee segment (Sochart, 2009). This helps in

tailoring the message just according to the needs of targeted audience and a crucial step for

effective employer branding.

2.3 Recruitment and talent acquisition

It’s really important to understand that the concept of employer branding is closely related to

recruitment. Different recruitment practices have different impact on employer branding and vice

versa. Recruitment is defined as the process of identifying and hiring the best –qualified candidate

(from within or outside the organization) for a job vacancy in a timely and cost effective manner

(Sangeetha, 2010). Rynes (1991) saw effective recruitment as a process that includes all the

organizational practices and decisions that affect can affect individuals who are willing to apply for or

to accept a vacancy. The recruitment process has traditionally involved advertisements highlighting

particular characteristics such number of vacancies, qualification required and job profile

(Sangeetha, 2010). Firms can choose multiple recruitment channels to guarantee higher visibility of

their vacancy/s among different strata of the population. Widespread job searches enable

employees to tap into a larger and more diversified pool of applicants that could justify the cost of

recruitment through higher gains (Kirnana et al. 1989) for example It is easier to judge the response

rate by posting a telephone number and determining the frequency within the time limit (Davids ,

1986). The candidate sourcing itself can be done through newspapers, magazines, journals, e-

recruitment, word-of-mouth publicity, job fairs and recruitment process outsourcing (Stoops, 1984;

Sageetha, 2010; Parry and Tyson, 2008; Herr et al., 1991; Anderson, 2007). Classified advertising

in particular has been identified as an excellent vehicle for corporate communication (Stoops, 1984).

Although recruitment ads are directed toward potential employees, other audiences such as inactive

job seekers, stockholders, competitors, and consumers may also read the ad. Unfortunately, over

time creativity in newspaper ads has not increased and uninspiring ad’s focusing on a list of

qualifications was not having an impact on company image (Rawlinson, 1988). Bucalo(1983) states

that most recruitment advertisements in newspapers for professional and managerial personnel

were relatively ineffective in attracting the desired type of applicant largely was due to organisational

inability to understand the unique and responsive needs of the ideal applicant. Recruitment

Employer Branding

advertisement was criticised for being nothing more than a mere announcement of a vacancy in a

company (Palkowitz & Mueller, 1987). However in well-established organizations the chances of

attracting potential applicants using newspaper advertisements are low (Wells, 1997). The use of

specialised magazines and journals are adding a new dimension through which employers can

create awareness of their brands in specific and niche labour markets. Sageetha (2010) stresses

that well established firms like to advertise their job opportunities and planning through professional

magazines , journals and newsletters to attract individuals who are not actively searching job

opportunities but are looking for better course of work. As opposed to these formal communication

sources, information spread by word-of-mouth works very differently. Van Hoye and Lievens (2009)

provided four dimensions of word-of-mouth on which can have varied effects on the how a brand

can be communicated. Word-of-mouth typically refers to communicating face-to-face which can be

facilitated by all sorts of media sources such as telephone services and the internet (Dellarocas,

2003). Secondly, all social actors including friends, family, acquaintances and strangers can be an

independent source of word-of-mouth communication (Brown & Reingen, 1987). Thirdly, word-of-

mouth can be related to different employee motives such as dissatisfaction or advice seeking

(Mangold et al., 1999). Finally some sources do not have an explicit purpose of highlighting the

organization and the information may therefore be positive or negative (Bone, 1995). It’s important

to consider word-of-mouth communication as a source of brand awareness because negative word

of mouth, which is defined as interpersonal communication that denigrates the organizational image,

has a more powerful influence on targeted audience behaviour than the print media (Herr et al.,

1991). This is where brand equity becomes crucial as prior marketing research demonstrates that

brand equity can act as a buffer against the detrimental effects of negative word-of-mouth. (Laczniak

et al., 2001).

Fig 1.3 Adapted from Rosenbaum-Elliott, R., Percy, L. & Pervan, S. (2011) Strategic Brand

Management. (2nd Edition) Oxford University Press.

Corporate culture

employees

Media and

word-of-mouth

Corporate reputation

stakeholders

Corporate image

stakeholders

Corporate vision

managers

Employer Branding

The diagram above explains that how corporate vision and culture is connected and the corporate

image shared with the power of media & word-of-mouth lays the foundation of corporate reputation.

Sparrow & Braun (2008) believes that in Multinational companies context the notion of

organizational culture is complicated and especially because of the acute differences between

headquarters and subsidiaries. Moreover he mentions that the national culture and the institutions

influence the HRM practices among MNC’s in a subtle and uncertain ways. The cultural imperatives

and institutional influence has an effect on the relationship between organizational culture and how

employees and managers perceive HRM practices (Stiles et al., 2006). This means that the culture

could have implication on the employer brand image. The national culture influences the sense-

making of employees and can put limitations of national cultures over their organizational culture

and HR practices (Weick, 1988).

In the modern era the use of technology in the recruitment process has completely revolutionized

how employers can generate organizational attractiveness in the minds of potential applicants. E-

recruitment can be defined as “the use of any technology to attract, select or manage the

recruitment process (Parry and Tyson, 2008) (pg. 5). Career websites helped the companies to

improve their website visitors’ knowledge and promote their image to generate further job

applications (Cober et al., 2004). Whereas job boards could be used to address large public or

specialized target market for job offers (Fondeur, 2006). The group experiment of Bondarouk et al.

(2012) concerning potential applicants showed that corporate websites actually moderate the

relationship between employer branding and organizational attractiveness. Moreover these websites

are important tools for the provision of information about the employer brand to the external world.

According to Girard and Fallery (2009) the advent of social networks has empowered the applicants

as well who can now obtain more information about the company and the job. The most

representative web 2.0 includes blogs (created by applicants, employers and head-hunters) and

LinkedIn where employers can even head hunt passive applicants. Girard and Fallery (2009) also

argued that Nowadays RSS (Real Simple Syndication) is also used where information about job

offers are automatically updated in the search engines. These tools not only help an organization to

increase their social capital but also help employers to identify the right type of applicant. Applicants

nowadays can electronically establish a direct relation with the employer using these networks

Though the research of Girard and Fallery (2009) showed a lot of links between social networking

sites and employer branding however, the later study of Bondarouk et al. (2012) did not find any

significant relationship between the two.

Attracting applicants is not the only thing that should be a part of an effective employer branding

campaign but also to consider that the right candidates get attracted. Various employer branding

techniques could have distinctive effect on the market. Anderson (2007) argued that the direct

Employer Branding

communication through recruitment fairs and advertisements can have a less impact on the

employer brand image than using more interactive methods like endorsing students and hosting

placements in companies. Livens and Highhouse (2003) studied the impact of symbolic attributes of

employer brand image and according to their findings symbolic attributes are more important than

the instrumental attributes (organizational and job) in helping recruiters to differentiate between

themselves among competition. Though this study provided a key insight still its findings were

contrary to the thought established by Trank et al. (2002) who stated that students who are

attracted to employees during the stage of recruitment can also be most disconnected shortly after

hiring this is usually because of the mismatch between the motivational profile and the

organizational experience. So we could infer that even if the symbolic attributes of a brand is used

as an image to attract talent, soon the talent will be difficult to retain if the values are not symbolized

through instrumental attributes. Moreover it’s crucial to understand that the student applicants tend

to be attract more towards the organizations that have personality traits similar to their own

(Slaughter et al, 2004). These studies present an important concept that whichever attributes you

will try to map on the mind of applicants should match with the job attributes as well otherwise the

whole point of effective recruitment will fail. It’s very important to note that high ability applicants opt

for such job roles that are challenging in nature and create interest (Trank et al.,2002). Now if we

look at the previous trend , the managers actually resisted in providing new graduates with tasks

that require challenge and responsibility (Ratan, 1993). Such practices should be changed now

because in the current scenario its crucial to find ways to boost challenge and provide good

succession planning in order to attract potential applicant (Trank et al , 2002). As previously

mentioned the only study that I found regarding employer branding and recruitment with Pakistani

perspective was done by Baloch and Awan (2012) and the recruitment practices that he talked

about was mainly through traditional channels. So this gap leads to my last research question that

studies the effect of recruitment on employer branding to impact the talent acquisition. Discussing

not only some effect of modern recruitment channels but its impact on employees at different

hierarchical level that prior literature lacked. So my last research question would be How do various

recruitment practices shape employer branding to impact talent acquisition?

Research Questions

1. How does image created through employer branding shape the employee expectations in Standard

Chartered?

2. How a mismatch between job expectations and organizational reality is created and what are its

repercussions?

3. How do various recruitment practices shape employer branding to impact talent acquisition?

Employer Branding

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

In this chapter I will elaborate the methodological foundation for the dissertation. I will discuss about

my research philosophy and the research design as well as various data analysis techniques that I

used. Moreover at the end of the chapter I will provide some reflection on the limitation and the

importance of the thesis.

3.1 Summary of method

My research would be exploratory in nature for the reason that exploratory research provides

greater understanding of a concept or focuses on problem rather than providing precise

quantification Zikmund (2003). This is because through my research I want to provide a better

understanding regarding the impact of employer branding on talent acquisition in Pakistani setting.

According to (Bryman and Bell, 2003) the popular type of research integration is done using

qualitative and qualitative approach. Quantitative approach is outlined as the collection of numerical

data that exhibit a relationship between the theory and research on the other side qualitative

research is collection of data driven through interviews and participants observation (Bryman and

Bell , 2003). As my dissertation titled is subjected towards various interpretations so I will be using

qualitative method to comprehend those interpretations. Strauss and Corbin (1990) state that

Qualitative research is very common is social sciences where the practitioners who want to

understand different human behaviour and functions. It is quite suitable to study not only

organizations but also groups and individuals. Moreover Denzin and Lincoln (1994) stressed that

qualitative research focuses on interpretation of phenomena in their natural settings to make sense

in terms of the meanings people bring to these settings.

3.2 Methodology and approach of research

In this research I have taken an interpretative view that respects the differences among people and

the objects and there is a need to grasp subjective meanings dependent upon social actions

(Bryman and Bell , 2003). My research philosophy would be constructed using phenomenology

which as implied by Finlay (2010) is the exploration of relationship between people and the

situations. The research approach which I have chosen is inductive as opposed to deductive. The

reason being that, unlike deduction approach the induction approach doesn’t construct a rigid

methodology which provides an alternative explanation to what is going on (Saunders et al, 2009).

Employer Branding

3.3 Research Design

For the dissertation I have chosen a case study design which will enable an in-depth analysis of a

particular case. In such research design a single organization could be taken and studied the case

from that perspective. Case study design often favours qualitative methods such as participant

observation and interviews and these methods allows you to develop intensive, detailed examination

of a case (Bryman and Bell, 2003). The organization I have opted to study is Standard Chartered

Bank Pakistan. The case deals with the Employer branding strategies practiced around Standard

Chartered. In short the research design represents an interpretive inductive qualitative research

using interviews as a primary source of data. The prime reason for choosing case study design was

to deal with the time constraint problem and secondly I had only one organization at my disposal

which I will be studying from various perspectives. However I referenced some other organization

from banking industry to highlight upon some differences in practices of Standard Chartered. The

qualitative method will allow me to ask more about the employee’s individual experience with the

bank and hence get a better view of the situation through multi-layered question.

3.4 Data Collection

There are two practical method of data collection being used. One is the semi structured interviews

and the one is through secondary data.

I choose five employees that had diversified areas of working and at different hierarchical level. As

previously discussed the reason for choosing Standard Chartered was that it has been operating in

Pakistan since decades and survived the rough economic situations of Pakistan. Employer branding

is a subject that affects employee’s at all hierarchical level so it was made sure that the range of

interviews is wide to develop as much comprehensive study as possible.

I conducted semi-structured interviews to derive my findings. The reason for choosing semi-

structured interview is that besides obtaining information, such type of interviews allow greater

flexibility in obtaining person oriented information. So there was a pre-set of questions which was

made and additional follow-up questions were asked according to the designation and job area of

the employee. As employer branding is a topic that concerns employees at almost all hierarchical

levels so it posed a great challenge to select few employees having different job titles. For this I

contacted various employees at different positions to have an interview with me. Standard Chartered

had some limits, which was taken into consideration while asking for the interviews. Taking

interviews at lower hierarchical level were much accessible then having time with the higher-ups

because of their strict corporate schedule.

Employer Branding

The first interview was conducted during the mid of August 2013 while the rest of the interviews

were taken in the last week of August 2013. The first interview was with Floor Relationship Manager

which lasted about 45min. Through the relationship manager I got contacted with an International

Graduate who just joined the organization. Interview with him was about 20min.

The third Interview I took was with a person who initially started working in Standard Chartered

Pakistan as international graduate and after two years was moved to Standard Chartered London.

He provided me with a good cross-analysis about how practices differ in the same organization

based in different regions. The fourth interview I got was from Senior manager regulatory reporting

unit who had worked in Standard Chartered for a long period of time and seen the shifting practices

with the passage of time. Fifth one was another interesting interview I got from Assistant manager

cost and performance who left the Standard Chartered Pakistan an year back and joined another

bank. He provided me with the insights about why did he made the switch and areas that HR of

Standard Chartered needs development. These three interview varied from 30-40min.

The names of the respondents are not used in the analysis and they are labelled from A-E. Their

name along with the designation is provided in the appendix. Each respondent were asked core

questions with some tailored questions according to their knowledge of HR and experience. Here

are some example of questions that were asked. The detailed questionnaire is attached in the

appendix.

1. How will you describe the culture and formally identified values of Standard Chartered?

2. How did you get to know about the job at Standard Chartered?

3. Did you see any conflicting behaviour, where employee did not get what he expected?

4. What associations do you make with the brand Standard Chartered?

I also used secondary data which was acquired from the website of Standard Chartered.

3.5 Data analysis and generalisation

In my data analysis I have compared the prior literature with what the respondents said. There were

connections developed regarding various themes of the data collected with the models presented in

the literature review. My contribution to the knowledge is quite specific to Pakistani market and

especially in the banking sector. According to Saunders et al. (2009) there are three main types of

qualitative data analysis process. For my primary data it will be better to summarise (condensation)

the meaning of key concepts. However for secondary data I would prefer the technique which

involves categorisation (grouping) of meaning. Lastly I will structure the data and try to integrate it

with the empirical material I collected. The coding will also be used to label chunks of data and draw

different comparisons between the related themes. This is because when you collect hefty amount

Employer Branding

of data then the coding becomes handy and it helps you to identify categories (Strauss and Corbin,

2008). So this will help me to build principal categories to develop an exploratory research. The data

I have used is mainly about the working experience of employees in Standard Chartered and their

understanding of employer branding and recruitment practices.

3.6 Limitations

As interviews were conducted on Skype/phone so I was not able to observe the physical cues in

some of the interviews. However it had a very less impact on my findings. Another limitation was

that the respondents were non-HR employees so they had a limited knowledge in some areas. Apart

from that the study was conducted in restricted time and resources. The respondents who answered

the questions had English as there second/third language.

3.7 Ethics

The ethical form was signed and submitted while handing over the proposal. Each respondent was

told that the recordings of their interview are being made and it’s strictly for educational purposes.

Employer Branding

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS

This chapter will present the key findings highlighted during the interviewing process with Standard

Chartered employees. It will start with a discussion on the culture of the case study organization and

how it effects the perception of employees both inside and outside the organization through

employer branding. The study of three important questions will be presented and the interview data

will be critically analysed against the backdrop of existing literature. This section is divided into three

parts. The first part will present how employer branding shapes expectations and the second part

concerns with what happens if any conflict arises between these expectations and organizational

reality. The last part will analyse how recruitment practices shape up employer branding to impact

talent acquisition.

4.1 Employee expectations formed through Employer branding process in Standard

Chartered

In this section I will be examining the employer branding process and determine how it links with HR

practices in Standard Chartered in order to create desired expectations in potential and existing

employees. Throughout the analysis I will be discussing two models (figure 1.1 and figure 1.3)

presented in the literature review and check validity of these models against my data.

Figure 1.3 highlights the key point that corporate vision shapes the corporate culture in the employer

branding process. Standard Charterer’s vision as stated by the group chief executive is to be the

catalyst for change.

“We have a key role to play in stimulating economic and social development through the services we

provide and by being a force for good. The success of our business depends on this”. [Peter Sands,

2007]

This vision statement of Standard Chartered holds certain deviations from other banks’ vision.

Beside economic development the mention of being socially responsible also sends a strong

message across to the employees about not just caring for the bank but for the environment as well.

From this we can derive that right from the start employees are given a message as to how they

have to act and be. The recent visit of CEO Peter Sands to Standard Chartered Pakistan showed

that they want the vision to be communicated from the top management to all hierarchical level.

Employer Branding

“Standard chartered has a bright future. Couple of weeks ago Peter Sands group CEO was here

and he had a lot good things to say about the bank and people of Pakistan. He was very optimistic.

We have a lot of scope of growth.” [Employee A]

This discussion of the organisational vision is important because the model proposed Rosenbaum-

Elliott et al. (2011) talks about how corporate vision leads to the development of a corporate culture

which in turn affects the corporate image and is communicated outwards as a source of corporate

reputation. As vision and mission statements are important parts of representing an organization so

Standard Chartered has a well-crafted mission statement that mentions the provision of exceptional

values to their staff.

“To create exceptional value for our clients, investors and staff; through market leadership in

providing innovative Leasing Products & Solutions, and by adopting and living our core values.”

[Standard Chartered Bank, 2013]

It was interesting to note that the mention of core values in the mission statement was highlighted

by every respondent. This signifies that the mission statement was communicated well to employees

at almost every level. Now let us examine if there is a connection between the value purposed and

the organizational culture.

“As you know that are bank is here for good. So everything revolves around this brand promise.

Here for good, prosperity, long run and for people. This brand promise reflects in each of our

services. Basically around this brand promise there are five values which are unique to our culture

and these five values which need to be basically obliged by every employee is courageous,

responsive, international, creative and trust-worthy. So basically these are the five values of the

Standard Chartered bank for it employees which every employee need to follow these values”

[Employee B]

As previously argued by Sullivan(2002) the value proposition is created on the foundations of

organisational culture. Another respondent when asked about the culture of the organization

particularly mentioned the strong use of values in the development of the culture in Standard

Chartered.

“Well the organizational culture of chartered was pretty good. It was friendly, it was open, I mean

you can challenge anything; virtually you can challenge your boss and colleagues. The courageous

value it stands to know what is not right and anything equivalent. If there is something that you think

and your belief is not in accordance with rules and regulations and policies of the bank which is your

responsibility being courageous and notify” [Employee E]

Employer Branding

For these values to be the part of the organisational culture is of utmost important to internal

branding, which has a deep impact on the developmental stages of expectations. Standard

Chartered here provides its employees with the power of voice and in doing so express the

importance of their employees regardless of their hierarchical position. Another respondent

mentioned that there is a constant check if assess whether these values are being followed by the

employees.

“We have a very strong culture in that way, in fact these values are constituted as a part of our rating

system as well” [Employee C]

However it is important to investigate that if these values are communicated outwards in order to

have impact on the perception of potential graduates. This is important because if the values are not

transferred outside the workplace , it won’t impact the external audience.

“It is definitely portrayed the way the organization is from inside through the career office, through

their international graduate program that is run every year and there is complete three months

campaigning that HR guys run”. [Employee E]

From this we could see a pattern whereby the vision and mission statements results in the creation

of values which are further inculcated deep into the culture that is strongly communicated outwards

through different recruitment tools. The campaigns Standard Chartered does for recruitment have a

strong agenda for spreading those values outside the boundaries of organization. This is very

important in Pakistani context as people are very conscious about where they and how strong is the

companies name in the labour market. In Pakistani social setting there is a huge psychological

pressure applied by the family members and peers to work in a place which is well recognized.

Recognition is often attributed as respectful. If these values are communicated outside then it will

result into a stronger brand image and a more desirable place to work. The interesting relation was

that instead of organizational culture laying the foundations for the brand image, interviewees

highlighted some other factors that contributed in building brand image for Standard Chartered Bank.

For example, most of the respondents mentioned the strong brand image of Standard Chartered is

associated with its ability to withstand tough economic situations and not stop hunting for talent. The

troublesome banking industry in Pakistan is marked by the perception of not a stable place to work

in. So standard chartered wants to provide this secure feeling to override the negatives associated

with the banking sector which is explained by the quotes below

“Standard Chartered brand was (the) most attractive brand to all the students completing their

education in banking, finance or economics that has not changed and what I felt is that bank has

been involved in putting up a very strong brand image that Standard Chartered never closes its

Employer Branding

doors and it has the aptitude to look for talent even in the worst of times that what a brand needs to

be.” [Employee D]

Another respondent replied when he was asked about the driving factor to apply for the job,

“Every foreign bank left but this bank is here to stay. That’s what instilled a though into my mind”

[Employee A]

Till now we are assertive that not only corporate vision but also mission has an impact on value

creation. These values lay the foundation for the organizational culture in the employer branding

process. The model proposed in existing literature which highlights that culture shapes the brand

image did not hold true in the case of Standard Chartered. However, there were some arguments

that indirectly supported culture leading to brand image and image differentiation such as

“Organizational culture is very fast, technological, competitive and much digitalized. Things happen

in minutes and seconds because everything is computerized. This is an advantage SC has over

other local banks because they are not as adaptive to technology as we are”.

Here we are looking at both the external and internal context of Employer branding. The relation of

organizational culture remained important to the existing employees rather than impacting the

external environment of Pakistani job market. It was clear that the major factor that affected the

image was the job security Standard Chartered has provided for its employees over time that ‘we

are here to stay’. At this stage my data slightly deviated from the previously proposed model that

highlighted the direct impact of culture in shaping the brand image. While studying this employer

branding process a key finding was that values had a significant impact on the external audience as

compared to culture. This means the organizational values which are propagated have a significant

impact on the expectations created in the minds of potential employees. Though in Pakistan the

technology has been receiving a lot of attention and other local banks are not as advanced still the

economic conditions has made people to expect better from the safer organizations. This shows that

though Standard Chartered Culture is technologically advanced still its primarily getting benefited

due to a secure place to work. Furthermore this research project discovered that the next step in

the model which is brand reputation was more linked to the culture, as highlighted by the quote

below,

“In local economy it has a very good reputation and people basically in terms of choices. Standard

Chartered comes at the top among all the local banks and international banks which are currently

operating in Pakistan. First choice for any person who wants to work in banking in Pakistan, his first

choice would be Standard Chartered because of the overall culture of the bank” [Employee B]

Employer Branding

It is interesting to note that besides corporate reputation, brand image in the minds of employees

can lead to very different associations. This provides us with a thought-provoking comparison

between the two previously proposed models - whereby one talks about how brand image leads to

corporate reputation and the second one talks about the corporate reputation leading to employer

associations. In Standard Chartered employees expressed the direct relation of brand image with

the employee association rather than employer association. There was no link developed of

reputation leading to employer association.

“I associate with the brand standard chartered is self-promotion and attitude of people working with,

it’s a very cordial working relationship that I associate with the brand image it’s a marriage of

basically a lot of professionalism and own career aspiration. So I associate the flexibility which

allows you to venture and be what you want to be.” [Employee D]

This also supports the contention proposed in the prior model that brand associations create

different employee beliefs in relation to a brand. For example, one of the interviewees association of

flexibility with Standard Chartered led him to believe that he can explore with Standard Chartered

and develop himself along with the organization. So this becomes the integral part in employer

branding where you are converting what employees are thinking about the brand to what now they

believe a certain brand can do to them.

When a respondent was asked what he associates with Standard Chartered he stressed upon the

association of values with the brand.

“We employees at Standard Chartered really believe in that brand and the values associated with it.

The values are preached every day”. [Employee C]

In employer branding process it’s important that this culture is communicated outwards in order to

establish a link between brand image and employee association.

“Yes when like our presentations and our advisements and when we go to different universities and

event we organize in these universities they are different compared to local banks. We try to portray

our culture and how our bank is different from other banks and what is our approach. We present

these things to our prospective graduates that is what is different about and this is what is unique

about us. Yes we do portray these values and culture outside of the bank.” [Employee B]

On the basis of these two observations a connection can be made that by communicating the

culture outwards, Standard Chartered tries to shapes the perception of potential employees which

leads to the development of expectations. Eshoj (2012) argued about how brand message can lead

to different associations and formation of beliefs in the mind which finally leads to expectations. It is

worth mentioning that associations with a particular brand are not the only thing that leads to

Employer Branding

expectation but also how the particular sector of industry is performing as well. For example, the

relatively recent boom and fall of the banking sector also shapes what potential employee would

expect from Standard Chartered.

‘A lot of times it happens in the banks especially when banking industry is full of bonuses and

compensation’ [Employee D]

Longsdon and wood, (2002) mention the effect of social-political factors on consumer expectations

but in banking industry the economic situation was effecting the potential applicants expectations as

well. This was another important contribution made to the concept of employer branding that the

macro-economic variables also have implications for employer branding. In Pakistan the banking

industry has not been performing well since the last decade that has forced the banks to opt ‘pay for

performance’ strategy. This also raises the expectation of applicants sitting outside that would get

high compensations if worked hard.

By examining the empirical evidence, there was connection developed about how brand

associations are developed through culture and values which becomes a part of your brand image

and reputation. Trends regarding previous literature were also seen to be true for Standard

Chartered apart from a key deviation that instead of brand image leading to employer association its

leads to employee associations. Moreover, values had more of an impact on affecting external

audience than the internal culture. It was also found that beside social-political factors, the external

economic situation of the business sector also played a part in developing expectations.

4.2 Mismatch between job expectations and organizational reality and its repercussions.

In this section I will take the concepts of the previous section further and address how a lack of

alignment between what employees expect from the job and the organizational reality is created. I

will also discuss how Standard Chartered handles such situations. Moreover, I will look at the results

of this conflicting behaviour and try to address the existing literature gap on post-employment

dissonance.

As was previously argued that through employer branding organizations develop expectations in the

mind of their employees. In the process of developing expectations organizations are faced with the

risk of not being able to fulfil the brand promise. One of the respondents mentioned that the brand

promise made by Standard Chartered revolves around the five core values which are the ‘roots’ of

the organizational culture.

“The brand promise reflects in each and every presentation, our advertisements, our products,

services and everywhere. Basically around this brand promise there are five values which are

unique to our culture” [Employee B]

Employer Branding

The interesting finding was that though every respondent stressed the importance of a set of core

values, some of the respondents could not remember the name of these exact values. A respondent

who could not identify these values had also developed some negative associations about the

organization. Moreover, this situation resonated with what Trank et al. (2002) argued that students

who are attracted to employers during the stage of recruitment can also be most disconnected

shortly after hiring. This is usually because of the mismatch between the motivational profile and the

organizational experience.

An interview with an ex-employee of Standard Chartered highlighted that,

“I think they claim here for good which to a certain extent is proved. Honestly speaking all these

organizations in the end want to make profit. So is the case with the Standard Chartered.”

It is worth mentioning that this mismatch does not only depend upon the negative association but

also on the sense-making of the employees. Weick (1988) while giving an international perspective

on MNCs argued that the national culture influences the sensemaking of employees and can get

precedence over the organizational culture. However, my data showed that the culture of Standard

Chartered was maintained across borders but the working style of employees can differ significantly

if they are working in separate countries. There is a possibility that the working style of employees is

not very adaptive to the culture of the organization . This can also result in conflicting behaviours

that can lead employees to not work at their optimum performance levels,

“One thing that really strikes me is the culture of the company remains the same whether you are in

Pakistan or you are in UK. That shows the company is transferring their values across the borders

the policies, the framework, the way of working is quite similar across geography. The only

difference I would say about working in Pakistan and working in UK is the level of professionalism

we see in a lot of individuals. In Pakistan we see a lot of laid back attitude and what I have noticed in

London that people here are more driven and more motivated and that is something more on

Individual basis” [Employee D].

This respondent had previously studied in London and then returned to Pakistan post-study. It is

important to note that his experience in a foreign university and subsequent working experience in

Pakistan would have been a radical shift compared to people who studied in Pakistan and working

there as well. Despite the organizational culture remaining the same Pakistan was perceived as

having a more laid back working style which posed problems for him. Till now we have established

that wrong associations and a mismatch of culture and working style could lead to conflicting

behaviours but the important part is to highlight what happens as a result of this mismatch. When

employee expectations about the brand image do not match the reality it creates frustration and

motivational issues.

Employer Branding

“When I joined chartered initially I was really frustrated the way things were preceded” [Employee E]

“Yes if it (Organization) does not meet your expectation you will have performance and motivation

issues” [Employee C]

One respondent mentioned the shift of expectations is always there when you are moving from an

academic environment to a professional working one.

“When you’re just a student and starting out your professional life it’s never actually what you

expected to be it is different and in some cases expectations falls sort in some expectations it

exceeds”

In case of Standard Chartered some respondents mentioned that they never expected the working

environment to be so stressful. That was something which created problems for certain employees.

As previously discussed that international banking sector in Pakistan is downsizing which is

continuously chopping the jobs. This makes the banks apply more pressure on their employees. It’s

apparent that the strong brand image of Standard chartered ignores the fact of stress associated

with it which will cause conflict of expectations.

“I didn’t think that the sales pressure and all of those things would be so high and my line manager

would be on my case all the time to do sales” [Employee A]

“I think at times it is very aggressive and tough. Specially the people in the operation areas they

have a very tough working environment. I would be very happy is Standard Chartered show more

compassion to its people. At times you have to relax a bit, its good thing to drive people but you

can’t continuously stretch them for long period of time.” [Employee C]

The intentions to quit are generally a repercussion of job stress and lack of commitment to the

employer (Mellor et al., 2004). If Standard Chartered is unable to solve this conflict between the

amounts of work employees expect to do with what they actually face up with this could result in loss

of talent. Even though Standard Chartered does provide initial training in its induction and

international graduate program but if a certain employee struggles with his expectations during the

course of his/her work , then Standard Chartered was perceived as unlikely to do anything about it.

“They stretch their employee to work hard and one thing that is associated with Standard Chartered

is the extra pressure for no reason. That is the biggest negative thing of Standard Chartered. That is

the reason why I left Standard Chartered”. [Employee E]

“It’s necessary that you get maturity as well that this world is not a fairy-tale, you don’t get always

what you expect.” [Employee C]

Employer Branding

This can also be due to the implication of Pakistani mind-set that from very early age we are told

that when we will start doing our post study work, it is going to be tough. As it was said by the

respondent as well that you don’t always get what you expect. It means that we enter the

organization with a pre-set mind that something wrong is going to happen. This also can result into

conflicting behaviour even if the things are right in the organization.

According to a respondent Standard Chartered has a very professional procedure to go about if a

certain employee is treated unfairly at a workplace. The respondent claimed that employees are

given the power to voice conflicts in Standard Chartered and actually the concerned manager’s

performance is dependent upon how well they address these employee issues.

“If people who speak to their line managers are not happy, they have an option to speak with the

HR as well (…) Conflicting opinions coming throughout the year and its not that its strikes you and

its left high and dry and there is ample opportunity to speak about your grievances and basically

people try to sort it out, if you don’t sort it out they will leave the bank.” [Employee D]

Another respondent mentioned that though he pretty much got what he expected from Standard

Chartered still he mentioned about an incident that took place with his co-worker that changed how

he previously expected things to be. Despite being a top performer, his co-worker was treated very

harshly when she slightly breached a small compliance issue.

“It was very demotivating for her of course but then at the same time it’s a lesson learned for all of

us to be extra conscious and vigilant about things that usually (one) does’t really pay much heed to”.

[Employee A]

A mismatch between expectations and reality can be beneficial for an organization despite having

its negatives. From the employer perspective sometimes people do not pay attention to how they

are expected to work and behave in a working environment. The above example was a classic

illustration of how, if employees forget what was expected from them can be a lesson learned for the

other employees. Though Standard Chartered mentions its value for people still if something goes

against their policy they are less likely to address employee needs. This was the most crucial finding

and contributes to the literature in the sense that previously negative connotations were attached to

conflicting behaviour but my data showed also the positive impacts of it. A respondent who moved

from working in Standard Chartered Pakistan to Standard Chartered London argued that the conflict

of expectations is dependent upon individuals and there are some people who could even get

motivated as a result of that the conflict. This was due to the increase in responsibility you feel to

address your conflicting expectations and develop yourself as an individual. Ratan (1993) also

exclaimed that not providing new graduates with responsibility and challenge can pose problems.

Employer Branding

“Initially when I joined the office in Pakistan directly after studying from London, to be honest in the

first initial years or so you are a bit lost you do feel that the high inspiration what you thought about

yourself has not been materialised and this is a problem and this happens. But the thing is that the

key to this is patience (…) I felt after four years in the bank that I have learned much more and really

grown as an individual and so now I don’t have any complains” [Employee D]

If these conflicting expectations are met with patience, Standard Chartered believes in boosting the

responsibility of an employee by making him climb up the hierarchy level. The same employee when

was asked about this career opportunity, he said

“I would describe it as immense career opportunities. Because starting from Pakistan and moving in

two years to London and that on an expatriate package and sort of a perks and advantages”

This practice was also considered crucial by (Trank et al , 2002) that good succession planning

helps in attracting and retaining and attracting the talent.

The key finding of this section was that the lack of alignment of expectations and reality despite

having palpable negatives may also result in positive developments. However, apart from

complaining to the line manager or HR , the Standard Chartered employee were not given any post

training to align their expectations to the organizational needs. Moreover, the initial trainings they get

about values and culture has to be followed and anything that contradicts with their belief was dealt

with patience by the respondents until they climb up the hierarchy level.

4.3. Various recruitment practices that shape employer branding to impact talent acquisition.

In previous sections we established the concepts of employer branding and its impact on

expectations. However, this section will highlight the application of recruitment practices in order to

enable employer branding impact the talent residing inside and outside of the organization. There is

a very little literature present that tests the recruitment practices in the Pakistani banking sector. So

this section contributes to the knowledge in a way that in order to engage the right candidate, one

needs to know the effectiveness of different recruitment channels a company uses. Standard

Chartered Bank Pakistan uses various recruitment methods which are a mix of both traditional and

contemporary channels.

“I found about how you apply to the organization via a newspaper. I saw HR email address where I

started corresponding with the person who is responsible for hiring first stage of screening”

[Employee A]

“Well I got to know about this job actually is through a career fair of my university” [Employee D]

Employer Branding

“Well in my case personally one of my professors referred me for this job who has this network in

this banking sector. Usually we as university fresh graduates we use this electronic media websites

and all online job portals” [Employee E]

Every respondent exclaimed that they knew about Standard Chartered and it was a well reputed

bank. They only differed on how they got idea to apply for a job at Standard Chartered. In prior

research Bucalo (1983) talked about newspapers being an ineffective method for attracting desired

talent. This was the case with Standard Chartered as well. The respondent whose first step to the

application was via newspaper did not remember much about the ad apart from some sketchy

details.

“The most important thing about the ad was the mention of the email address with which you can

apply. As far as I remember the newspaper ad wasn’t for only new recruits it was also a general ad

for the bank” [Employee A]

Though newspaper might not seem an effective way of modern recruitment still it had an impact on

employer branding of Standard Chartered. As argued previously by Hatch and Schults (2000)

corporate identity is symbolized through logo. The newspaper ad of Standard Chartered had created

the same impact on the respondent. While discussing about the importance of logo a participant

explained

“So when you talk about Standard Chartered what I presume that the first thing which come to

people mind is C-L-A-S-S , its safety , security and good secure feeling that something is here to say.

On newspaper ad there was something on those lines so the image is instilled further in the minds of

the reader”

However, as the ad was not specifically designed for recruitment, so this point supports the view of

Wells (1997) that in well-established organizations attracting talent using newspaper is low.

Two respondents, one from Pakistan and the other from London provided the same opinion about

the exposure they got about applying to Standard Chartered was through a career fair in their

university. The career fair at Standard Chartered is aimed at selecting candidates through their

International Graduate Program.

“So I used to meet that team and they educated about this program and created awareness about

and I also get to meet different international graduate alumni which were from my university and this

was another motivating factor to apply for this program” [Employee B]

It is important to note that the prior study of Baloch and Awan (2012) rejected the hypothesis that

“publicity as a component of employer brand equity is positively associated with the decision making

Employer Branding

about the employer, amongst the fresh graduates of Pakistan”. However, in my case study a

respondent clearly mentioned that his motivation to join the bank was due to the awareness created

through the publicity of this program.

“When start to work in Standard Chartered for the first time he does get some weeks of training and

our training camps all around Pakistan. We basically educate and brief them about our culture, what

are our values and how important these values are for Standard Chartered. How employee work to

basically fulfil and abide by these values” [Employee B]

In order to make their recruitment effective at this stage they make the successful candidate go

through set of training periods which affects their understanding about the employer brand. This

understanding is created by inculcating the values at that stage. This supports the point of view of

Stevens (2002) that publicity will shape the general perception of the firm and there would be a

greater effect on the employee attitudes. This form of recruitment programs is actually targeted at

formation of employer branding at very initial stages where you try to profile the attitudes of

employees through the brand development.

While discussing the effectiveness of these programs a respondent exclaimed that,

“A job posting will be very limited to a particular division or a department but these programs attract

very wide variety of people who want to be associated with the bank” [Employee D]

This also highlights the weakness of job postings through newspaper. As previously argued the

brand associations are an integral part of employer branding, so these targeted programs are an

effective way to make potential employees relate with the bank and thus affect their understanding

of the brand. Anderson (2007) argued that direct communication though recruitment fairs can have

a lower impact on brand image than using interactive methods like hosting placements in companies.

However, Standard Chartered has their presence in recruitment fair due to the fact that they want

new applicants to join their placements. So a greater effect could be generated if these recruitment

fairs are held in order to the make the placements at company visible. Beside the graduate program,

the data proved that participants have been engaged to the company through the visit to these

career events and has led to certain employee associations.

“A particular job opening is something which might not even attract that much of an attention a

program which has a complete package to offer actually gets more attention of the applicant”

[Employee D]

If we compare this statement of the respondent with model given by CIPD (2010) we could safely

assume that if these programs garner greater attention then more awareness should be created and

Employer Branding

as a result better communication and psychological alignment is made. Both these factors again

have a high impact on employer branding, thus increasing its effect on talent acquisition.

“Yes fresh graduates in International Graduate program and internship are a good way to recruit. As

far as senior positions are concerned with certain level of experience, those are filled using different

portals, through linked in, through rozi.pk and so on so forth.” [Employee E]

It is interesting to note that recruitment practices have a different impact on employees at different

levels. So the varying effect of employer branding at different levels will produce unique effects

depending on the hierarchical position of the employee. We previously considered the criticism

about job postings as compared to recruitment fairs and graduate programs. But this relation does

not hold true for hiring at a very senior level in Standard Chartered. The respondent E who initially

said that job portals were used by the freshly graduated applicant denied its effectiveness later in

the interview. While this statement supports the argument made by Fondeur (2006) that job boards

could be used to address the larger public but the empirical data showed that it is not a very

effective idea for applicants applying for different positions. However, if we compare it with the study

of Bondarouk et al (2012) who said corporate websites actually moderate the relationship between

employer branding and organizational attractiveness, we could hypothesise that this relationship

exists for hiring at senior positions. In short the recruitment practices through job portals and

websites positively affects the employer branding and impacts the talent at senior levels.

However another participant did not believe in any form of external hiring for senior positions in

Standard Chartered. He exclaimed

“When I said that they discourage external hiring, I meant was that they discourage hiring for a very

senior position. What they try to do is to promote people within the bank in order to assume

responsibility and reward for the fact that they have been in the bank for longer time”. [Employee D]

If we consider internal hiring as a recruitment practice for senior positions then it does have an

impact on employer branding as it builds loyalty (Davies, 2007). This strategy of employer branding

retains the talent through good succession planning (Trank et al , 2002). With the passage of time

the brand loyalty is created which enables emotional attachments (Davies , 2007) this again

contributes positively in terms of employer branding.

However, the external hiring for talent acquisition will have a different impact altogether on employer

branding which might lead to conflicting situations as explained by the quote below.

“If we hire a person who is coming from let’s say city bank , HSBC or Morgan Stanley where the

culture the attitude , the degree of risk-preference for that sort of individual is conditioned in

completely different setting would be a little different of what we go through”. .” [Employee D]

Employer Branding

Now as proven earlier that disharmony between your expectations and the conditions you are

provided with can lead to a conflict so it is more likely that the employees who are conditioned in

different organizations can be a victim of this conflict. This conflict can be a source of negative word

of mouth which degenerates the organizational image and has a powerful influence on the targeted

audience (Herr et al., 1991). So external hiring has an implication that it can result in conflicting

behaviour which as a repercussion can affect the employer reputation through negative word of

mouth which in turn impacts potential talent residing inside and outside the organization.

One participant also mentioned about informal channel of recruitment which was through using

personal contacts.

“I was introduced to Standard Chartered by my neighbour who was working in Standard Chartered

he told me about the opening and gave him my resume”. [Employee C]

A respondent who was recruited that way believed less in the mission and vision of the company

and actually said that

“These statements sound pretty on paper” [Employee C]

It was quite evident that employer branding had a very small impact on his decision making in that

case. While answering the value creation process he also did not mention the set of values being

practiced in Standard Chartered. This clearly shows that the informal recruitment methods had a

relatively smaller impact on the formation of employer branding and even if he gets hired, he works

because of the pressure of survival rather than associating with the brand.

“Even if we are stressed out we need to work more on more to survive” [Employee C]

Another respondent who was hired through a professor recommending him to join Standard

Chartered left the organization after a couple of years. Therefore, it shows that people hired through

these informal channels are affected less by the employer brand and if leaving the organization is

not an option, they work under stress.

Overall after I compared my findings with the previous literature review, it was observed that some

concepts were in harmony while other slightly deviated in the Pakistani context. While studying the

expectation developmental processes through employer branding I figured out that values impacted

more on the external audience then the culture. This finding had a slight deviation from what from

Rosenbaum-Elliott et al. (2011) studied who concluded that culture has more significance on brand

image. Another major deviation was that brand image led to employee association rather than

employer association (Eshøj, 2012). In addition to previous literature which showed the impact of

social-political factor on expectation (Longsdon & wood, 2002) I also found out that macro-economic

Employer Branding

conditions of Pakistani banking industry also shape up the employee expectations. The argument by

(Sullivan, 2002) was supported by the organizational culture of Pakistan that culture lays the

foundations for the value proposition. This value proposition leads in the further development of

expectations in Pakistani job market. In the second research question a big gap of post-

employment dissonance was filled in which I found out that work-expectation conflict can lead to

performance issues and can be source of stress. This conflict can be due to many several reasons

such as wrong associations developed due to miss communication of values that leads to mismatch

between motivational profile and the organizational experience (Trank et al., 2002). Conflict can also

happen because of the difference in the organizational culture and the working style of the country

in which organization is operating. Moreover conflict can also be a result of organization applying

high pressure due to macro-economic reasons. Despite of the palpable negative, its worth to

mention that conflict can result into something positive as well. I found out that these conflicting

expectations can actually challenge and individual to develop himself according to the organizational

parameters. It can also motivate him to perform better so that s/he can climb up the hierarchical

level and address his issues. In third question I studied different recruitment practices we figured

out that every channel affected employer branding differently so it generated a unique impact on

talent. The key finding was that the international graduate program was the most effective employer

branding technique. Moreover, it was interesting to observe that employer branding had a varying

impact on employees at different hierarchical level.

Employer Branding

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION

This chapter summarises all the key points about the research gaps and contributions made in that

regard. Moreover some recommendations about the company as well as future research is provided

with its cost implications.

My dissertation investigated the impact of Employer branding strategies on Talent acquisition in the

banking sector of Pakistan. The Relationship of employer branding and talent acquisition was not

taken in isolation and in fact the variables that affect employer branding was studied too. This was

primarily because the variable that surrounds employer branding enables it to have a distinguishing

effect on talent acquisition. In order to provide the study with practical grounds I conducted a case

study of Standard Chartered branches spread across Pakistan.

The main reason for studying employer branding done in Standard Chartered was that banking

industry is suffering from big blow in Pakistan due to fluctuating economic conditions. In such

situations banks find it hard to not even attract and motivate the talent but also retain that. Tough

banking conditions not only can stress the employees but make them leave the organizations. This

strengthens my case to study that how employer branding is practised around standard chartered

and what are the misalignments within the bank. The analysis of employer branding implication on

standard chartered allowed me to study the effect of branding inside and outside of the organization

and hence contribute to the established theory.

A deep understanding of the employer branding concept was created while studying the prior

literature. The literature review part of the dissertation talks about how the whole process of

employer branding works. From advertising values to shaping culture and then developing brand

reputation , all the steps were thoroughly studied that formed the foundation of research analysis

and the findings. While studying the literature, several key gaps were identified which include. The

need to study about post-employment dissonance which happens when certain expectations are

created as a result of employer branding and the organization fails to meet them. Secondly the

relationship between employer branding and how it leads to expectation wasn’t developed before

with a Pakistani context. Lastly the only study I found on employer branding and recruitment with

Pakistani perspective studied traditional form of recruitment channels only.

So for filling these research gaps I arranged five semi-structured interviews from the employees of

Standard Chartered who were not only different in their Job areas but in hierarchical level as well.

This gave us an interesting point of view that how employer branding is perceived by a fresh

employee as compared to someone who is working in organization for years. The crux of research

lied between three key questions. First two allowed us to study how employer branding shape up the

expectation and the misalignment of expectation and reality. The last one was concerned about the

Employer Branding

recruitment practices in Standard charted and how it shapes the employer branding to impact talent

acquisition. Researching on these lines was important because as mentioned in literature review

there exist a gap between our understanding of expectations created through employer branding

and its repercussions if those are not translated into reality. Moreover the concept of employer

branding is not very well present among the organizations of Pakistan and this was something I

observed during the interview process that the respondents were a little confused about its concept.

So this study also provides an interesting perspective to the organizations who want to study the

effectiveness of their recruitment practices inside Pakistan.

During the first research question I compared my empirical findings against existing models. During

the analysis key findings were identified in which the most crucial was the relationship of

organizational values and the impact on external audience. In this comparison of external vs.

internal labour pool it was determined that organizational values had more impact on external

applicant as compared to organizational culture. On the contrary brand reputation was more linked

with the culture. Moreover another key finding was that brand image has a direct impact on

employee association rather than employer association. This finding slightly deviated from the prior

literature.

The most crucial contribution to existing literature was made in the question two where a big gap in

literature was studied regarding the conflict of expectations with the organizational reality. I found

out that despite of some major negatives of this conflicting behaviour, it can also have certain

positive implications as well. Some respondents mentioned that this conflicting behaviour leads to

performance issues and a lot of stress. Whereas some other respondents mentioned lived

experiences that showed this conflict can have two implications; it can make the task challenging

and instead of letting you down it can motivate you.

While answering the last research question I studied the synergy of recruitment practices and

employer branding in order to impact talent acquisition. It was clear in the start that Standard

Chartered uses various recruitment practices and its effect upon employer reputation was different.

This reputation resulted in affecting the talent market in a different manner. First the traditional form

of recruitment channel (newspaper) was studied and found out that though this form of recruitment

is not that effective still it creates certain association that relates to employer branding and acquiring

talent. However the most popular method to acquire fresh talent was through International Graduate

Program which affected the employer branding of Standard Charted through value creation and

awareness. Through this awareness Standard Chartered was shaping up the attitude of external

applicants.

Though this form of employer branding affected the fresh talent outside but still it wasn’t seen to be

very effective when it came to hire for senior positions. In that regard I demonstrated the effect of

Employer Branding

both Internal and External hiring practices and their implication on employer branding. Through this

intricate analysis we found out that internal hiring led to strengthen brand loyalty among the existing

employees and external hiring can lead to conflicting opinions subjected to different conditioning

which can lead towards the degeneration of brand image. I also noticed the impact of informal

methods of recruitment on Employer branding. These sorts of practices have a very less impact on

the employer brand and such employees find it difficult to either adjust or work in the organization.

This establishes another connection that greater the positive effect of employer branding, the easier

it is for the organization to retain the talent. However the key finding was that various recruitment

practices have different implications on the employees at different hierarchical level. So while

employer branding is being practiced it should be kept in mind that which hierarchical positions are

concerned with it.

5.2 Recommendations

One thing I observed while taking the interviews was that there is a sheer communicational lapse

between the HR of Standard Chartered and it branches. It was primarily because the HR operations

are only controlled through one city which is Karachi. Branches in other cities have no dedicated HR

department or a person who is there on permanent basis. There are few visits made by HR heads

such as Head Talent Acquisition but primarily the line manager is expected to deal with HR related

issues. As line manager is quite busy controlling the performance measures so the human

management gets neglected. So I strongly recommend an HR specialist to be present in at least in

some major cities so the HR control is a bit decentralised.

The training structure of Standard Chartered was moderate and there are lot of improvements that

can be made. For example every candidate is passed through the initial induction program, either

fast track or international graduate training but there are no trainings provided to lower the stress

level of the employees. Some respondents reported their expectations to be tarnished due the high

influx of pressure applied. This is something very critical as the social and economic situation of

Pakistan is not impressive and that has psychological implication on the employees. Employees who

are already socially stressed should not be pressurised at workplace beyond any reason. Though

sometimes Standard Chartered Pakistan holds a refreshment party annualy still they need to have

networking parties where potential applicants can meet the existing employees. This will not only

help Standard Chartered to build more awareness about their organization among future applicants

but will also provide the existing employees to have some recreation outside their stressful routines.

All the respondents I interviewed couldn’t tell me even slightly about their vision and mission of the

company. However all of them mentioned about the values which are tried to preach around

Employer Branding

Standard Chartered. If they don’t have clear vision and mission in their minds then there will be a

lack of understanding why certain values are practiced and adhered to. When I asked about the

goals of Standard Chartered, nearly everyone mentioned that it wants to be the best international

bank. Respondents only highlighted the financial related goals and there was no mention about how

the company wants to create value for their staff and their future. Moreover the image that bank

portrays about security is generally focused at the customers rather than employees. These intricate

details might appear small but when they are collectively applied can make huge difference in the

mind sets of employees. So I strongly recommend the top management of Standard chartered to

send a strong brand message across employees that they value their staff. This should be a part of

their routine. The framed pictures on the walls of standard chartered mentions certain types of

accounts and how much interests customers can earn. However in addition to that standard

chartered can use some pictures to show about how much they care about their staff and what is

expected from them.

The corporate website of Standard Chartered Pakistan has no tab for electronic application process,

this makes them miss out one of the most effective recruitment method and employer branding

technique. I would very much recommend not only having online application process but also telling

more about the people working there and how they feel about working in Standard Chartered.

5.3 Future Research

I interviewed the existing employees during my research. It would be insightful if a study is

constructed using the comparison of both views; employees and applicants sitting outside. The

scope of study further limits the research findings of impact of employer branding in order to shape

expectations among employees working in Pakistan. There could be a cross-analysis of how this

formation of expectation can differ between employees from Pakistan and some other countries.

The research puts more emphasis in acquiring talent and study their expectations pre and post-work.

There could a future study which can build more knowledge about the talent retention and how this

formation of expectations can benefit organizations from not losing the talent. Lastly this research

was deemed using the opinions of professionals working inside the organization whereas a future

research could present different approach by studying the thought process of fresh graduates or

students studying in universities of Pakistan.

Employer Branding

5.4 Recommendations and implementations (CIPD)

Cost Implications

Website PKR 30,000 £185

Onetime expense

with maintenance

Pictures on walls PKR 650,000 £4,012

Onetime expense

with maintenance

Stress management training program PKR 2,600,000 £16,049

Annually

Hiring of Hr. staff (wages) PKR 7,680,000 £47,407

Monthly

Networking Party PKR 1,000,000 £6,173

Annually

Total PKR 11,960,000 £73,827

The following table presents the cost implications of the recommendations present in the conclusion

part. Website and the branding pictures on the wall will be a single time expenditure which will

require some maintenance on annual basis. Stress management program and networking party will

be held annually in different parts of the year. The estimated cost of these figures is based on the

fact that the branches of Standard Chartered are in 29 cities of Pakistan with over 130 branches.

The numbers of employees are estimated to be just below 1000. According to the plan the Hiring of

Hr. specialist will be done only in the 8 major cities of Pakistan which will be liable to control the

operations of nearby branches. In this way HR in Karachi would be more decentralised. The

estimated cost of hiring is calculated as a yearly wages of eight HR professionals. However this

figure can fluctuate as some already hired HR professionals from Karachi can move into these areas

and can save Standard Chartered some hiring cost. The networking party cost is calculated on the

basis of head count which includes the transportation and food.

Personal Statement

From this project I have learned implications of very important concept in Human Resource

Management know as Employer branding. This topic has enabled me to integrate different

disciplines within human resources such as organizational behaviour, talent recruitment, reward

management and leadership. This project has not only contributed in my academic pool but also

made me analyse some real life situation that you have to deal as an HR professional. Moreover it

has also contributed in my people’s skill as I had to talk with number of employees and dig deeper

Employer Branding

using semi-structured interviews. In short this project has enabled me to bridge the gap between

academic and practical understanding of human resources and how their synergy can lead to better

results. However I encountered number of difficulties in getting access for the interviews with

employees. This was mainly because of their strict corporate schedule and I could have taken some

more interviews if I had excess time.

Employer Branding

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Employer Branding

Appendix A

Names

Labelled as

Designation

Mr. Wajih Zafar

Employee A

Floor Relationship Manager

Mr. Adam Zia

Employee B

International Graduate

Trainee

Mr. Farrukh Rasheed

Employee C

Senior manager regulatory

reporting unit

Mr. Saliq Sadiqqi

Employee D

Manager Finance

Mr. Bilal Ahmad

Employee E

Assistant manager cost and

performance

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Appendix B

Questionnaire for Employees

1. Briefly discuss about your main responsibilities here at the company?

2. What are the formally identified key company goals/values? To what extent do you agree

with them?

3. Who is involved in formulating the company’s goals, mission and vision statements?

a. Are these goals linked with the formal strategic goals?

b. To what extent?

4. Does your organization have a distinct organizational culture?

a. How would you describe it?

5. How did you get to know about this job?

6. What actually drove you to apply for this job?

7. In what way employer brand effect your decision making?

8. Did you brand image matched your job profile?

9. Did you see any conflicting behaviour, where employee did not get what he expected?

10. What happens when your expectation doesn’t meet the job task and requirements?

11. Do you think that employer branding leads to attract talent?

12. Do you think that the organizational culture is communicated outwards?

a. Through Job fairs? Job postings? Electronic media? Head Hunters? Recruitment

agencies?

13. How do you think your organization is perceived as an employer in a Job market?

14. Do you think that stronger employer brand has been beneficial for the company in terms

15. How do you visualize your company?

a. What are the things they associate with the brand?

b. What expectations do they form about the brand?

16. Do you think that the understanding of the company as an employer differs between existing

employees and potential employees?

i. If so, Why?

17. What do you offer to your staff to enable them to remain with the company?

18. Do you keep in touch with the alumni?

19. How do you describe your career opportunities?

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20. How important is that the potential employees share the values and the opinions that you

organizations try to communicate?

a. How is the evaluation done if potential employees share these values and opinions

during the recruitment and selection stage?

b. Do you get training into thinking the ‘company’ way? How?

Employer Branding



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