Employer Branding – An ongoing Change and Translation - A qualitative article of how consultants translate their ideas of Employer Branding and act upon them in practice

Abstract

This article aims to analyse how an Employer Branding consultancy firm strategically works with identifying and implementing Employer Branding into other organisations. A case study was conducted using primarily 16 semi-structured interviews between Employer Branding Specialists, Senior Managers, and Partners, as well as document analysis, digital- and physical observations. Inspired by the Scandinavian Institutional- and Translation theory, together with research about consulting, the study discusses how ideas of Employer Branding translate into practices. The findings show how Employer Branding can practically be identified and implemented in another firm by following a certain structure. Initially Employer Branding project usually starts with the Employer Branding consultants establishing a relationship with their partners to gain their trust. Hence, the findings show that once trust is earned, the consultants focus on concretely defining and explaining Employer Branding as an abstract management fashion since it can be hard to fully understand. Thereafter, the Employer Brand consultants identify the purpose and values of the organisations (the EVP), to later on activating them by implementing activities, associations, and behaviours. Having gone through the above practices, the study highlights the importance of communicating the Employer Brand internally as well as externally. Lastly, the results indicate that the work with Employer Branding is an ongoing change and will continue to be highly relevant. This article has contributed to the research within Employer Branding, with an insight into how Employer Branding consultants translate ideas into practices and how they practically can work with identifying and implementing Employer Brands of other firms.