Personal Blogs

The influential perspective that is Employer Branding is perhaps best defined as a very innovative collection of ideas and strategies that aim to position an employer favourably with respect to its target candidates. However, Employer Branding, and by extension the Employer Value Proposition (EVP), in and itself, are not a part of HR, they are part of Marketing.

It's true, and I’ll even tell you why I think this. Roughly about a year ago, whilst navigating an important ESG project, I came across an interesting document. It related to diversity, equity and inclusion in the fast-paced world of infrastructure (data centres to be exact). I could not tell you how many times and how many ESG reports I had read that had woefully omitted an effective diversity, equity and inclusion segment, but off the top of my head, it was the majority. Now, there was a specific issue I had with one particular ESG report from last year reported by Digital Realty Trust, Inc., a leading provider of data centre solutions. In the report, Digital Realty had a focus that happened to be on DEI stats. Now, the company’s workforce planning ambitions are somewhat measured. Its workforce currently consists of 75% (2,288) male employees, the remaining 25% (747) are female employees. The first thing I noticed was that the report failed to disclose any other gender class, which was a big red flag. By the same ratio, its U.S. workforce by racial group included 66% White, 11% Asian and only 9% Black employees. So, I started to think…

What if Google or Microsoft had released this report? It would have been front-page news. That took me to the next question. What are the best methods of readily presenting information produced by an organisation without encroaching on the company’s EVP? Interesting question, right? Well, a report of this magnitude – Digital Realty Trust, Inc. employs over 3,000+ workers – can readily testify to having tried the most obvious method, percentages and charts. I challenged myself as a DEI leader to come up with some alternative ways of communicating information such as this.

I am a strong believer that academia is not necessarily activism but that data can inform business strategy.

I became convinced that the lesson here was embedded in the fact that Employer Branding is not HR. That is to say, unless the DEI statistics from a report are up to the job, it is counter-productive to the company's ambition to publish them so opaquely. Employer Branding thus needs Marketing as much as Marketing needs it. Yes, critics will say it is wise and healthy to have companies produce such reports, regardless of the contents, but it is also wise to consider how internal leaders must coordinate their own strategies.

There is a strong argument that CEOs must define EVP as a separate, budgeted function, accountable to Marketing and not Recruitment or HR. This goes right back to James Ellis’ post on Substack which succinctly describes a situation whereby Employer Branding as a business function is continuously misunderstood by all types of professionals he speaks to and surveys regularly.

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This post was written by Alfred Anate Mayaki, a student on the MSc in HRM, and was inspired by the work of Lizz Pellet (2009) in a Society for Human Resource Management article entitled, “The Cultural Fit Factor: See Ch. 6 - The Mad Hatter – Human Resources as Marketer"

Earlier in the week, I was preparing to write something for Medium, before discovering this Open University online blog space. While I was still drafting the blog, I ran into an old friend of mine who shared an interesting read by Michael O'Dwyer from the Financial Times. I was somewhat concerned, as concerned as she was. Not only about the findings of the survey but about the decision-making processes that must have been taken to arrive at this clearly egregious course of action. What course of action am I referring to? 

I am referring to a preference to hire those with senior-level experience over candidates with diverse backgrounds. This is something I will refer to as an anti-diversity challenge.

An anti-diversity challenge, in my view, is any unfortunate course of action that contradicts the commitment an organisation has previously made towards promoting diversity (in this case, we are speaking of anti-diversity within boards).

Observing the rationale for greater board effectiveness through the lens of diversity

As per the article by Michael O’Dwyer, Spencer Stuart, the executive search firm conducting the study, noted in the firm’s 2023 UK Board Index that in the last 12 months and for the first time, the number of ethnically diverse and female directors in publicly-listed firms had fallen. Why was this the case? Indeed, Spencer Stuart reports that this phenomenon is owed to the fact that boards are seemingly self-perpetuating entities, preferring to hire candidates who have previous experience spearheading publicly listed companies.

We know that to their detriment UK Boards are lacking (somewhat severely) in HR expertise, according to recent CIPD research. But in order to combat this dilemma highlighted in the FT, what approach to board search is needed by listed companies in order to achieve the objective of greater board effectiveness?

Well, we all believe effective boards are competent boards. Right? Effective boards are able to execute their duties with maximum impact and without unnecessary hindrance. As such, the optimal search process should ideally attribute its resources impartially.

According to the FT’s columnist, Michael O’Dwyer, there is a caveat to the underlying findings of the Spencer Stuart Board Index. That caveat is that, despite the disappointing findings of the annual survey, there was an increase in women becoming senior independent directors. A role that is often a “good stepping stone” to the position of board chair.

A worthy caveat. However, this cannot possibly be the kind of workplace we want to work towards in our respective journeys or to promote on behalf of our organisations. Can it?

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This post was written by Alfred Anate Mayaki, a student on the MSc in HRM, and was inspired by the work of Stephanie J. Creary (2023) in an MIT Sloan Management Review article entitled, “How Diversity Can Boost Board Effectiveness”.