Savita Mane is a 40-something employee at a cellular phone company. Attending a market research seminar and in the midst of a discussion, she pulled out her phone to place a call. The phone was made by one of her employer's competitors. Asked why she did not use her company's products, she replied: “Our phones are too unreliable.”

Did the employee realise that the people who overheard her comment would refrain from buying one of her company's phones too? More importantly, did the corporate realise that it did not have a brand loyalist among its workers?

Though corporate brands are common, companies are focusing branding efforts more and more on employees.

An organisation's brand is one of its most valuable assets. The brand promise that a corporate makes to its consumers is not only delivered through products and services, but also through the behaviour of its employees, who represent the brand with their speech and with their actions.

“As the economy begins its climb upward, recruiting and retaining top talent is fast becoming a top priority for most brands. Not surprisingly, corporate citizenship and employee branding is quickly becoming a big part of the equation,” notes Manish Kedia of Optimus Consulting Solutions, a human resource firm.

While employers are waking up to the fact that they have a unique opportunity to create comprehensive strategies that not only improve the firm’s reputation and credibility, Kedia adds that it is also acting as a powerful lever to retain and attract top talent.

Organisations have come to realise that in today’s constantly changing business scenario, the most valuable resource that needs to be leveraged is human resource. While this means attracting the crème de la crème and retaining them, keeping them motivated and committed is also a high priority.

Take the case of information technology major Infosys, which is constantly innovating to come up with initiatives to keep their employees engaged with their enterprise.

India’s first corporate radio station InfyRadio was launched in 2011, and is targeted exclusively at company employees. An internal radio station for Infoscions across all locations in India, the radio station receives 8,000-10,000 hits a day, on an average. The radio station is a mix of music - Hindi, English and regional, and Infosys-related content, with campaigns on values and sustainability, events for employees and interactive contests, among others.

The radio station runs interviews with leaders at Infosys and also features popular celebrities. On N. R. Narayana Murthy's last day at work when he retired a few years ago, his interview was aired on InfyRadio. While Murthy spoke about his personal life with anecdotes, he is said to have ‘requested’ retro Hindi film songs.

Employees are regularly put on air to express their views on varied topics. The idea is to give them a ‘voice’.

It is not just IT firms that are into employee branding. Given the tight talent market, organisations appear to be waking up to the fact that it is their employees who are increasingly vouching for the company's brand.

Employee engagement initiatives have come to play a pivotal role in motivating performance levels. As has been the norm at pharma major Novartis India, where employees have been involved in the Novartis Community Partnership Day Activity, every year.

The Novartis Community Partnership Day is an annual initiative that provides an opportunity for employees to make a difference to their local communities. Activities have included accompanying children with disabilities on trips, working at food donation banks, and using business skills to help local organisations improve their efficiency.

Employees at the Mumbai office recently planned an entertainment programme for around 100 children of the Tata Memorial Cancer and Research Hospital. During such sessions, Novartis employees tend to visit old age homes or help in the supply of groceries to senior citizens or schedule entertainment programmes and distribution of snacks and stationery to destitute and street children, or distribute essential medicines to rural school children, who also get notebooks, caps and tee shirts. While this opens up a whole new world for the employees, it is also a sure-fire way of branding the company's ideals and philosophy into each employee's psyche.

More companies appear to be turning to strategies which use aspects of corporate identity and reputation to achieve multiple objectives of human resources management. Corporates are increasingly engaging employees so that they understand the brand and act as advocates on its behalf.

As Mahindra Somathane, vice-president with Etrust, a placement company, said, “Successful branding is a complex thing. Identifying the brand and determining how to position it in the marketplace is only one part of the solution. The rest of the answer lies in ensuring that employees are demonstrating the value of the brand on a regular basis, both inside and outside the company.”

While brands are made real to us through a company’s products, services, people, environment, and communication, “they work on a level that is largely intangible. Speaking the language of hearts gives us access to the fundamental needs driving people. The staff embodies the brand to consumers,” added Somathane.

Infosys went a step ahead and also created an interactive social networking portal to keep its employees networked, called Infosys Bubble. It is Infosys’ own enterprise networking platform, and was launched with the objective of making people feel they are more than just a number on a payroll. Currently there are 122,160 employees registered on InfyBubble, which has over 600 communities and is helping like-minded people gather on the cloud to discuss whatever their interests are, says an official.

The social networking platform is said to be on the lines of Facebook and Twitter and caters exclusively to Infosys employees. Launched in May 2011, the site does not allow employees to post any personal comments, though ranting against the boss is an exception.

The platform has provided new avenues for sharing views, knowledge and opinions, and has provided a face to each employee and brought Infoscions closer to each other based on common interest and skills.

The platform also has Updates and Share options. A key factor that drives innovation among the young is now crowd-sourced, rather than being done using traditional methods. There is a large amount of confidence that users have in collective intelligence rather than on corporate-driven information, says the official. Blogs are also encouraged.

Even as companies are realising that employees can serve as brand champions, increasing visibility within the industry and building important relationships with customers and industry influencers, the shared brand equity has a multiplier effect both on the employer and the employee.

No market is more competitive than the market for employees. With employees as the frontline, companies are realising that building trust and advocacy is set to have a positive impact on customer behaviour and their purchase decisions.

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