As Chinese firm gradually encounters shortage of talent and more seriously for coastal factory cannot recruit eligible workforce, employer branding is new hot term in Chinese corporate and academy to tacit the problem of recruiting and retention.
Indeed there is much propaganda to reveal realty of workforce shortage without probe into the root cause of the phenomenon: employee preference is changing, and gives much more weight to life and work balance; less likely to engage in firm for long time; demand highly on compensation package; and more informed about legal issue. The preference shift of employee and workforce is underline force of manpower shortage. Face with tough realty of labor market, Chinese firm began to take arsenal of employer branding.
For the purpose of recruiting and attracting candidates, employer branding from inception of introduction is misused. Much more attention is pay to design the branding, branding communication, and branding image. Without integration of the whole system, branding is empty and holds no force to retention and develop employee. Hardly any Chinese firm link employer branding to companywide strategy which makes employer branding meaningless: employer branding works like daily routine and lost the most important part of employer branding that is strategic orientation. Consequence of the delegation is that HR personal thinks that employer branding is just another management fad and treat employer branding like performance rating and ostentation when get chance of recruiting. Even worse, in order to gain advantage over compensation negotiation and bargain, some enterprises in China use employer branding as trick to play over candidates and even internal staffs. At beginning of recruiting process, candidates are given unrealistic picture about working condition and requirements, and after they get in to the organization and finding fooled by recruiter and employer. As consequence of unhappy experience, employee can never engage in organization let anole to conduct high performance.
As Chinese workforce structure changed over one baby policy, organization feel under pressure of labor market, but employer branding alone can never solve the problem. By the nature of employer branding, no matter how hot employer branding could be in China, even no matter how many forums hold on the topic, without integral understanding of employer branding and its application, employer branding movement in China is bound to fail.