Join the navy or not? Employer branding in the navy and students' attraction to a Navy career.

AuthorDavey, Janet
PositionReport
  1. INTRODUCTION

    Despite the recent global financial conditions and uncertain economic forecasts, the need to attract, retain and motivate staff remains a fundamental strategic function for organizations. Candidates who can genuinely add value to an organization are arguably more valuable in times of significant change. However, in order to acquire, keep and engage highly desired applicants many organizations actively market themselves as desirable employers to prospective and existing employees. Microsoft, L'Oreal, Deloitte, Procter &Gamble, Phillips, DeutscheBank AG, Red Cross and the US Army are some of the diverse businesses actively using employer branding as a useful framework for their strategic marketing and human resource management (HRM)practice (CIPD, 2009; Martin, Beaumont, Doig and Pate, 2005, Moroko and Uncles, 2009). Effective employer branding is even more important in the current financial conditions particularly as brand identities and corporate images have fluctuated significantly since the global financial crisis.

    The 'product' that is being branded however is multi-faceted with no clear demarcation between corporate identity, associations, employment experience, and prospective employees' perception of a firm. For example, what are the antecedents of organizational attractiveness? What happens when the employer branding campaign does not align with what individuals believe about the organization? The many issues of corporate identity have been researched from multiple disciplinary perspectives and only recently has there been work towards a unifying framework and terminology(Brown, Dacin, Pratt and Whetten, 2006).It is time to integrate marketing and HRM concepts. Marketers have long held that by grouping consumers into segments, for example, based on demographics, lifestyle or psychographic profiles, product offerings can be tailored to better meet consumer needs and wants (Assael, Pope, Brennan and Voges, 2007; Hooley, Piercy and Nicouland, 2008). The ways in which markets can be segmented have been numerous but are typically based on the target consumer. Such segmentation is now being adopted by HRM as being applicable and strategically useful in employer branding (Martin and Hetrick, 2006).

    The employment brand challenge for the Royal New Zealand Navy (RNZN) is to ensure the New Zealand public views their Navy as relevant with inclusive value associations and that potential recruits have relevant and representative associations (Royal New Zealand Navy, 2007b, p. 134). This research investigates the resonance of the recruitment themes and values within a particular recruitment segment.

    The RNZN is one of three military forces that serve and protect Aotearoa New Zealand. Its mission is "to provide fully trained, supported and effective Naval Forces to Team Defence Force for the protection of New Zealand and its widest interests" (RNZN, 2007a, p. 5) and to achieve every position staffed with the right person by 2011 (RNZN, 2007b). However, the RNZN has not met the recruiting targets in recent years for a number of reasons, including low unemployment which puts increasing demand on the pool of potential recruits, changing career expectations of young people and an outdated and inaccurate perception of the Navy by potential recruits and those within their social network (Research Solutions, 2006).In order to improve recruitment marketing campaign efforts the Navy recognized the importance of capitalizing on under-utilized markets and one of the segments having unexploited value for the organization was the tertiary candidate segment (RNZN, 2007b).The consumer oriented approach requires defining the segment by their needs and values and the benefits they desire in the product, in this case the organization (Assael et al., 2007).An organization will be valued differently by different segments. Lack of segmentation is potentially leads to marketing efforts under-delivering to those an organization wants to attract and keep. Armed Forces worldwide are experiencing difficulties in attracting and retaining the required type and number of new recruits exacerbated in some countries by the change to voluntary military service (Bachman, Segal, Freedman-Doan and O'Malley, 2000; Lievens, Van Hoye, and Schreurs, 2004). This research holds that market segmentation and organization positioning must be aligned if the employer brand of the Navy is to be effective.

    The RNZN has three core values: Courage, Commitment and Comradeship. It is imperative that all personnel hold these values(RNZN, 2008). Therefore, the RNZN is seeking those recruits who value these aspects and these are the values they would like the public to identify with the Navy. Since 2007, four strategies have been used by the RNZN in directing efforts towards achieving recruiting targets: 1. Create effective use of online space for recruitment marketing 2. Improve recruitment marketing campaigning efforts 3. Improve recruitment marketing employment branding efforts 4. Improve the capability to position the Navy for future recruiting success (RNZN, 2007b, p. 13). Capitalising on under utilised markets, one of which has been identified as "tertiary centric potential candidates" and the need to improve employment branding efforts (RNZN, 2007b, p. 143) led to the RNZN developing the "Employment Marketing Values". These marketing values or themes are the themes that the RNZN wants to use to attract the right caliber of potential recruits to a career in the RNZN.

    It is thought that the following themes will attract potential employees who will best fit with the RNZN values and culture(RNZN, 2007b, p. 133):

    "PEOPLE--The Navy provides a human and personable environment that looks after its people through rewards and recognition and provides a positive working balance.

    CONTRIBUTION--The Navy contributes to individuals personal and career development through training in order to create an organization that ensures the success and prosperity of New Zealand.

    EXCELLENCE--The Navy strives for excellence at an individual and organizational level and communicates this excellence to create a reflective reputation.

    INNOVATION--The Navy rewards unique and innovative ideas, actions and stories and uses cutting edge technology to achieve excellent results".

    These themes support RNZN values of courage, commitment and comradeship.

    In 2009 a single recruiting advertising contract was signed for all three Defence Force services in New Zealand (RNZN, 2010). This joint approach for recruiting advertising was intended to enhance the consistency of the advertising approach and to improve familiarity with the Defence brands. However it also recognised that each of the three Services has unique cultures which will resonate differently with potential recruits. This investigation was designed to assist the RNZN to assess how a target market, university students, perceive their employment brand and how Navy values are communicated. By responding to those values that resonate with the target segment and which reconcile with the employer brand, marketing recruitment efforts can be effective.

  2. LITERATURE REVIEW

    Employer branding has moved from relative insignificance a decade or so ago to being a significant element in the coherence of the corporate brand (Maxwell and Knox, 2009; Mosley, 2007). As employers explicitly brand themselves, the area attracts the attention of both marketing and human resource management (HRM) academics and practitioners (for example, Backhaus and Tikoo, 2004; Davies, 2008; Edwards, 2010).Employer branding is arguably then an important framework for strategic HRM (Barrow and Mosley, 2005; CIPD, 2007; Edwards, 2010; Martin et al., 2005).Much of the work on employer branding focuses on recruitment although it has wider implications for reputation management, loyalty, job satisfaction, retention and motivation of current and potential employees, so that there is effective delivery of the company's brand promise (Karaosmanoglu and Melewar, 2006; Martin, 2008). Establishing a strong employer brand is more than just developing a consistent recruitment identity describing a business as innovative with publicity material of 'up and coming yuppies'. There must be transparent alignment between employment experience, company culture and values, how the organization identity is communicated externally to potential candidates, and how the image is perceived by current and prospective employees. It is not a straightforward concept or activity as every touch point of the organization must be aligned with the brand ethos of that business and must be an integral part of strategy (Backhaus and Tikoo, 2004; Davies and Chun, 2002; Ewing, Pitt, Debussy and Berthon, 2002; Melewar and Karaosmanoglu, 2006; Moroko and Uncles, 2005).

    The employer brand has been defined as "the package of functional, economic and psychological benefits provided by employment, and identified with the employing company"(Ambler and Barrow, 1996, p. 187) encompassing those values and qualities that define the identity of the firm (CIPD 2007; Dell and Ainspan, 2001).Therefore it is intuitively logical that marketing and HRM need to coincide in order that people who are in accord with the employer brand and can deliver on the company's promise are those that are recruited and retained (Collins and Han, 2004; Collins and Stevens, 2002; Maxwell and Knox, 2009).Prospective employees make choices about their employment prospects based on a multitude of factors and with reference to how they perceive both the organization as well their perceptions of personnel in that organization (Moroko and Uncles, 2009). Some authors refer to the employer brand as a value proposition (Martin, 2008) or the employer/employee value proposition (Barrow and Mosley, 2005) as it must incorporate the tangible and intangible features that characterize that organization.

    In order to achieve a coherent strategic...

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