Employee brand effect is a process that values the management of human resources in organizations and contributes to a real and concrete diagnosis of the relational environment inside organizations by promoting internal marketing in people management. This process results from the increase of actions in the domain of interpersonal relationships, which result from the informality of social exchanges in the organization. The present study covered 30 Portuguese organizations from the center region of Portugal in the services and industry areas that responded to a questionnaire survey measuring the process. The results show that in the industry sector there is a greater variation in the employee branding process through mentoring and helping relationships and also a greater variation in the organizational integration domain through the dynamics of interpersonal relationships, which consequently leads to the perception that employee branding effect is more positive in industry employees.
TopIntroduction
In recent years there has been increasing strategic complexity at the organizational level, which forces organizations to adopt and innovate through other perspectives that could lead them to success (Bali & Dixit, 2016; Cantu, Montagnini, Paiola, & Sebastiani, 2008).
In the current economic context, organizations are facing two major challenges: a constant modeling of market change in one hand and the consequent internal structural and procedural adaptation to make their decision-making faster on the other (Bali & Dixit, 2016; Cantu et al., 2008).
Reinforcing and orienting the culture of the organization towards valuing and developing the skills of employees willing to build and do their utmost for the organization should be a concern of the leadership of organizations.
According to Stuss & Herdan (2017, p. 201), an organization's Employer Branding (EB) is “determined by the following factors: industry attractiveness, organizational reputation, quality of products and services, location, work environment, salaries, status benefits for the employee, people and culture, and work-life balance”. The purpose of these factors is to condition the image of the organization internally and externally. All these factors make EB one of the main long-term organizational strategies (Stuss & Herdan, 2017). Organizations try to develop an image of “Best Place To Work”, thus creating competitive advantage over others in the market (Carlota & Espírito, 2016).
Stuss & Herdan (2017, p.201) also consider that “organizations cannot succeed if they do not attract relevant types of employees”. This idea is especially relevant because the scarcity of talent makes organizations vulnerable to the market.
From a skills management perspective, it is up to the leadership who manages the relationship between the way employees are treated, to implement programs that develop social relations among their employees. In this way, interpersonal relationships are strengthened, which, due to their dynamics, influence employees' behaviors and, consequently, organizational results. (Blake, 2001; Herington, Johnson e Scott, 2006).
The emotional state of the internal customer, that is, the employee, influences customer loyalty and the maintenance of organizational reputation, which in turn reinforces the employee brand image, whether or not contributing through their actions, to overall organizational efficiency. (Lishan e Yaoqi, 2011; Miles e Mangold, 2004; 2005).
Enhancing the skills management strategy allows its leaders to informally influence decisively the culture, citizenship behaviors of peers and mutual support among members, retaining human capital and their competencies and skills. (Thomaz, 2005).
The complicity, when talking about the articulation of management and marketing programs that aggregate and consider people's knowledge and learning, is a strong competitive advantage, achieved through the development of employees to the organization's interests. This allows the increase of organizational loyalty and consequently, the value of the brand that the organization represents assuring the loyalty of external clients.
This brand valuation can be measured through the diagnosis of Employee Brand Effect (EBE) and it is in this sense that this study evaluates the perception of EBE in the service and industry sectors, identifying which of the two values more the dynamics of interpersonal relationships in the organization.