Employer branding is an important aspect of a business and it works toward the goals of attracting the right talent, recruiting the right candidates, and retaining the right employees. Many employers place a huge emphasis on the first two goals of employer branding but overlook the vitality of the third one. Retaining your existing employees isn’t any less materialistically important than the rest of employer branding goals because eventually, your existing employees are responsible for making a difference for your company. In this vein, it could be recognized as the most important place where employer branding is the most important of all, so you’re not sparing the same expense for hiring multiple times. Here below are four essential elements of internal employee branding that can fortify the relationship between you and your employees and create a lasting positive legacy that they have on you, as an employer.
Management Style
The way a company handles its employees is one of the elements that reflects the company’s nature. Many corporate environments have different employee supervising protocols depending on the industry, company size, job nature, and so forth. Many Myanmar white collar workplaces have traditionally been influenced by organizational hierarchy and employees adhere to the instructions from their direct supervisors without much disagreement.
With the influx of foreign investments and the rise of tech-powered startup community, Myanmar is now incorporated by hundreds and hundreds of small and medium enterprises with more flexible working options paired with a decent pay. This emergence of fresh and adjustable working standards has been redefining Myanmar’s workplace management preferences, with some employers and managers shifting away from micromanagement practices and more toward open and adaptable ones. Nevertheless, there is still a sizeable portion of professional environments with highly structured management frameworks. The bottom line is employers always ought to take into account the vibe of the workplace (mentioned above) and adopt the management system that mostly suits the nature of the workplace.
Engagement Channel
Although a majority of corporates employ traditional employees working full time for eight hours a day, five days a week; there are still many workers in select environments who have less face time with the employers at the workplace and therefore, call for a seamless and convenient engagement channel to communicate with. Part-time workers and freelancers are a good example of such employees. As a matter of fact, an effective engagement channel is instrumental not just for peripheral workers but also for full time employees since virtual communication takes place almost all the time in any work environment today. Besides, how effectively and efficiently managers can engage with their employees can leave such a mark on the company since a disruptive or inept communication arrangement can adversely affect any business.
In Myanmar, many professional communication loops revolve around telephone and emails just as they do in many other countries but social media apps like Viber and Messenger are also prevalent in Myanmar with many people using those platforms for photo and video sharing in a professional sense, much more so than in other economies. Knowing which engagement channels to use with the employees is important especially for employers new to a particular environment since different regions have people who prefer a different digital communication route. Besides, not everyone is competent with any one communication channel so employers should always be advised to be flexible with which medium to employ with a given group of employees. Lastly, it is important in the digital age to understand where the boundary is with social and workplace communication, as the lines frequently get blurred as more and more technology moves to mobile and other connected spaces.
Affiliation Benefits
Pay scale is no longer the only determinant of choosing a workplace for many job seekers; they look at several other factors of their job offer including career progression opportunities, network, employer reputation and of course, affiliation benefits which is a generic incentive covering a whole category of monetary and non-monetary provisions catered for members of an organization. For example, Google is a perfect example of a corporate offering numerous affiliation benefits or perks for all employees working for it. Many Google offices offer free meals for their employees along with many other commodities and services like nap rooms and laundry facilities. Your company doesn’t have to fund for such costly benefits to entice your employees but it is good for them to know that their employer cares about them and provides them additional things that the employment contract does not stipulate.
In Myanmar, companies may offer annual trips, insurance coverage, product discounts, and waived online or offline courses as affiliation benefits for employees but there is no singular agreement on which one is the most employed or which one can brand the employer the best. A rule of thumb might be to always pay attention to what the employees want or need and work the best to accommodate them so they can see the added value of being a member in your company or your organization.
Internal Career Opportunities
When you first hired them, your employees had decided to apply for a role in your company because they want to invest some amount of their future in your company and work toward bigger opportunities that you might be able to offer to them. They most likely want to make more out of an eight hour a day job than just a monthly salary. Understanding the employees’ career motivations within your company is very important to a company’s workforce sustainability; without your current employees proving to be able to elevate to manager positions or other higher paying roles in your company, then you’ll have poor HR retention and turnover rates and your job opportunities may not be enticing to your employees. One way to offset employee stagnation is forming ad-hoc task forces for side projects apart from designated roles also gives the employees an opportunity to work within different teams, acquire different skills, and get themselves equipped with whatever it takes to assume other roles. Many projects can spur creativity and help develop interest in an employee to stick around your company if given the agency to build and own a project.
Many companies in Myanmar offer abundant career advancement opportunities for their employees and they do so even for their interns, thus convincing them to stay with the company beyond their initial engagement if so offered. From intern to senior career professional, JobNet’s job portal is one of the best places to browse through a massive line-up of employers most of whom offer very attractive career progression opportunities for their employees. Companies listed on JobNet also come with a showcase of all available openings within these companies, allowing job seekers to understand their possible career trajectories with Myanmar’s top players in industry.