Abstract
Digital transformation has become a key concern for many enterprises that social media now occupy an important place more than ever in the managerial strategies. The human resources (HR) function is considered as one of the organizational dimensions that have taken advantage of these digital platforms, especially for the employer branding purposes. This chapter aims to explore the practices that enterprises in Morocco use to manage their employer brand through social media to attract potential candidates, retain recruits, and limit turnover. To achieve this research objective, a multiple case study was carried out with managers from four customer relation centers through semi-structured interviews. The findings highlight the existence of digital ambassadorship and e-reputation oversight practices. Finally, this chapter also provides some managerial recommendations and future research directions.
TopIntroduction
Human capital is a key source of competitive advantage that determines the success or failure of any enterprise (Brymer, Molloy, & Gilbert, 2014; Carpentier et al., 2017; Ha & Luan, 2018). Many industries are facing hostile competition between enterprises to attract and retain the most talented employees (Carpentier et al., 2017). In this context, to supply their needs in terms of human labor, enterprises rely mainly on the employer branding as a distinctive weapon to overcome this extremely fierce “war of talents” (Ha & Luan, 2018). Practitioners as researchers all agree that employer branding has gained in popularity as a managerial strategy (Eger, Mičík & Řehoř, 2018), combining two substantial organizational areas, branding and human resources (Gilani & Cunningham, 2017; Lievens & Slaughter, 2016). In this sense, HR professionals apply branding principals to HR management to promote their enterprise, both within and outside the organization as an outstanding and desirable employer (Backhaus, 2016; Backhaus & Tikoo, 2004; Bondarouk et al., 2014).
In parallel, social media have become an integral part of daily life for people all over the world. They cover a wide variety of platforms and services (e.g. social networking sites, Wikis, blogs, podcasts, and video-sharing sites) which facilitate interaction, creation and the sharing of content between the internet and social users (Kissel & Büttgen, 2015). According to Digital 2020 reports11, social media encompassed 3.80 billion users in January 2020, an expansion of more than 9% (321 million new users) compared to last year. At present, 60% of the world's population is online, and new projections suggest that over half of the total population of the world is about to use social media by the middle of 2020. Over the coming years, it will be noticed that the world population will be more and more involved in the use of social networks to seek national or international work opportunities.
The rapidly evolving social media are expanding the way of doing business, especially in marketing and brand management (Otken & Okan, 2016). Indeed, social media are no longer seen as a fad but a real competitive tool, organizations that are conscious of this reality are exploiting social networking sites for creating awareness and networking in terms of employer branding (Ha & Luan, 2018; Otken & Okan, 2016; Sharma & Verma, 2018). Compared to conventional media channels, social media are more effective since they are a promising new medium not only for direct communication with employees but also to interact with job seekers to advertise the brand meaning of the employer (Kissel & Büttgen, 2015; McFarland & Ployhart, 2015).
Despite the intensification of the use of social media in the employer branding, the majority of previous studies have focused more on the implication of social media use in supporting organizational employer brand attractiveness (Carpentier et al., 2017; Carpentier, Van Hoye, & Weng, 2019; Eger et al., 2019; Kashive, Khanna, & Bharthi, 2020; Kissel & Büttgen, 2015; Mičík & Mičudová, 2018; Otken & Okan, 2016; Sivertzen, Nilsen, & Olafsen, 2013; Tanwar & Kumar, 2019), beside the enhancement of the job application intention (Ha & Luan, 2018; Sivertzen et al., 2013). The literature on the relationship between employer branding and social media still fragmented and lacks studies that are interested in the whole process of employer brand management in the context of social media networks.
To fill this gap, the purpose of this chapter is to explore the way the process of employer branding occurs by using social media. The authors tried to better understand the practices undertaken by enterprises in terms of HR marketing in the digital era. Their ambition is therefore to provide clear insights about the use of digital social media by enterprises to shape their employer brand and how this latter can be beneficial in retaining current employees and attracting potential ones in the Moroccan organizational context, and more particularly in the customer relation centers. The research question of this chapter is formulated as follows: how do customer relation centers in Morocco manage their employer brand via digital social networks?
Key Terms in this Chapter
Social media: It is a group of internet-based applications that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content. They are generally very accessible and bring together very varied socio-technical configurations in terms of the dynamics of participation (by interest, by friendship) and visibility (nature and purpose of the data published online). Social media are classified into six main types: blogs, collaborative projects, content communities, social networking sites, virtual game worlds, and virtual social worlds.
Employer Brand: The image that a company reflects as an employer, it consists of all the advantages or benefits that this company can offer to its employees.
Employer Branding: The process of managing an employer brand, it is composed of three main stages, the shaping of the content of the employer brand (value proposition), the promotion of this employer brand outside the company (External HR Marketing) to attract potential candidates, retaining recruits by fulfilling the promises of the employer brand (Internal HR Marketing).
Turnover: It is usually an employee’s decision to end an employment relationship, which is one of the forms of employee turnover. Voluntary departure corresponds to an initiative by the individual to leave the organization because of his working conditions or in the case of other employment opportunities elsewhere. As for involuntary turnover, it occurs when a company terminates an employee's employment contract because of their incompatibility or underperformance. In other cases, this can happen due to the choice of the company to cease its commercial activity or to outsource one of its activities.
Work-Image: It is the perception that an individual form in his mind on a profession from his exposure to different backgrounds, and to which he refers when he wants to make a judgment regarding this profession.
Organizational Commitment: A behavior and an attitude characterized by a strong belief in the goals and values of the organization, by a will to exert significant efforts for the benefit of the latter and by a strong desire to remain one of its members.
Digital Ambassadorship: It is the act of representing or defending the interests of a brand in a spontaneous or administered way on the web and social media mainly. This role can be played by several stakeholders (employees, customers or celebrities).
Employer Attractiveness: Benefits envisaged that a potential employee, influenced by the image of the employer, sees while working for a specific organization, these benefits can be conceptualized through instrumental and symbolic characteristics.