As the global economy rises up, there is growing concern about the employer branding among the domestic as well as the international corporate edge regarding the attraction of potential candidates and retention of actual talents. Organisations are branding themselves as employers in a bid to attract talent employees for improving on branding outcomes through strategic recruitment, employee development, career progression, tailoring benefits packages, sustainable retention and branding messages accordingly. One of the U.S. pew research found that 43% people used mobile phone to look up jobs information while only 18% used it to submit a job application. Thus, employer branding is earning its emergent incremental acceptance worldwide day to day. By the result, there is going to be arranged World Employer Branding Day at International Summit on 26 April 2018. This award recognizes employer brand leadership excellence and the amazing work being implemented around the world.

Employer branding is the way of ensuring employees satisfaction at the work place which was first introduced by Simon Barrow and Tim Ambler in Journal of Brand Management on December 1996. The initial objective was to test the application of brand management techniques to human resource management. Later, it was defined as the package of functional, economic and psychological benefits provided by employment. Now it is one of the effective arms to impulse the optimistic image of the organisation to the potential candidates, customers, suppliers and the related stakeholders through attracting talents, engagement and retention initiatives used by modern business world.

One of the active research organisations Australian Employer Brand International had conducted wide employer branding studies on June 2013 upon 1900 organisations. The result shows that 57% were highly interested to increase its investments, 39% organisations were interested to invest in employer branding activities and only 7% intended to reduce it.

Furthermore, employer branding establishes the identity of the firm as an employer including the firm's values, systems, policies and behaviors toward the objectives of attracting, motivating, and retaining the firm's current and potential employees. It is a strategy employed by an organisation to create an Employer Value Proposition (EVP) that conveys to the desired current and prospective employees why the organisation is unique, appealing and an implausible place to work in. EVP is used to define an organisation’s employment offer. The most common employment offers are competitive salary of the employee, job security, employee fringe benefits, employee development programs, pleasant working atmosphere, good work-life balance and career progression opportunities.

Swedish Best Employer Brand Award ‘Universum’ which is the global leader of employer branding and its global talent attraction index announced that "The World's Most Attractive Employer 2017", Google has retained the top position in both categories; business and engineering. Students are attracted by Google's relaxed and creative work environment, international atmosphere and innovative products. Google offers great benefits and opportunities that are hard for other companies to match. Similarly other companies are Microsoft, Apple, General Electric (GE), BMW Group, IBM, Intel, Siemens, Sony and Samsung.

US. Forbes has listed out The World's Best Employers 2017 where Alphabet and Microsoft lead the top positions. Other employers are U.S. based: Costco Wholesale, Apple, Noble Energy, Williams and IBM.

Hence, it is the concept of both strategic marketing and branding activities of human resource management where it is believed that a strong employer brand can shape up the perceptions of potential and actual employees which will ultimately contribute to better financial results. In addition, the superlative employment branding should concentrate on the competitive hiring cost and the convenient recruitment processes along with the achievement of competitive advantage, enhanced talent pipeline, greater workforce diversity, stronger corporate culture and increased value of shareholders. To develop an employment branding strategy; organisations may need to concentrate on the followings:

Employer branding is now an emerging issue in Bangladeshi companies. At the same time, this concern creates a competitive environment among the organisations. One of the most credible awards on employer branding for the excellence in corporate governance is “Global Best Employer Brand Awards”. The purpose of this award is to find out the most competitive organisations who try to alleviate the interest of related stakeholders. It is believed here that employer banding is the reflection of its employees’ convictions toward the job. Successful businesses strive to dovetail the interest of both employees and customers in their path of profitability where happy employees lead to enhance happy customers. Organisations are looking at the intellectual capital as a corporate asset to deliver shareholder value by them. The key to retention and performance of workforce lies in effective engagement of the employees. This leads to pride and pride builds commitment, loyalty and strong sense of respect at work. Any effective engagement gets translated into reputation, which build the brand. This award is prescribed on the basis of following competitive criteria: talent management, innovative HR strategy, managing health at work, excellence in HR through technology, innovative recruitment, retention and career development strategy, and global HR & corporate strategy.

On the basis of above principles and criteria, The Best Employer Brand Award in Banglaedsh-2017 which is accredited jointly by World HRD Congress and CHRO Asia has declared the top brands in Bangladesh: Aamra Group of companies and others consecutively Arla Foods Bangladesh Ltd.; bKash Ltd.; DHL Global Forwarding Ltd; Digicon Technologies, Gweebarra Food and Bakery Industries Ltd. And Coopers Bakery, Gemcon Group, Intertek Bangladesh, SMEC, Robi Axiata Ltd, Elite Paint & Chemical Industries Ltd, Sanofi Bangladesh, Pacific A-1 Group and Unilever Bangladesh. (The Daily Star on 29th October 2017)

Since 2013, Institute of Chartered Secretaries of Bangladesh (ICSB) is rewarding the top companies on 12 different business fields who practice excellent corporate governance; Private banks, Public banks, Corporate governance, Financial services, Manufacturing, Insurance, Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), Communication and Information Technology, Public sector entities, Diversified holdings, Agriculture and Integrated reporting. Likewise, 4th ICSB National Award-2016 has already been declared in these 12 sectors with the motto of “Promoting Governing Excellence”. Similarly, since 2001 ICAB (Institute of Chartered Accountants of Bangladesh) has been declaring top organisations with the aim of “Sustainability through transparency” in the same fields like ICSB. (The Financial Express on 1st December 2017)

Moreover, an optimistic employer brand encompasses an organisation’s mission, values, culture and personality and also ascertains that the organisation is a great place to work. It also helps to gain financial benefits from socio-psychological determinants of employees’ engagement and work performance.

Thus, they can build a trust to employer and the sense of pride in belonging to the organisation. Furthermore, it is the key for competitive success in the modern knowledge-based economy and the background for suitability of effective organisational culture.

Writer is a faculty, School of Business Studies, Southeast University Email: [email protected]