EMPLOYER BRANDING I ETT KONSULTBOLAG - En kvalitativ studie av hur chefers och konsulters uppfattningar skiljer sig åt angående faktorer som gör en arbetsgivare attraktiv

Abstract

The labourmaket of today has since the beginning of the 1990’s changed in several ways due to globalization and technical development. This has affected the employment type and consultancy is more common today (Arbetsmiljöverket, 2011). The employees have become important assets for knowledge companies to compete with other companies. This means that companies must succeed in attracting and recruiting the right staff (Zhu, Wang, Yu, Hu, Wen & Liu, 2014). A concept that includes the actions that a company is committed to attracting new staff and retaining existing staff is employer branding (Ambler och Barrow, 1996). According to Moroko och Uncles (2008) it’s important that values created around a company are consistent with the values that the company delivers to the employees, which is called the term psychological contract. The aim of this study is to illustrate how a consultancy works with employer branding and if the managers’ perceptions of their efforts in the area differ from consulted perceptions. To examine this, we have created our own theoretical framework using previous research. The themes selected were career opportunities, pay and benefits, appreciation, social activities and attractive employers. The study was conducted through a qualitative analysis of eight semistructured interviews split into two selection groups with four managers and four consultants. Based on their response, a deductive thematic analysis was conducted. The main result indicates that the managers and consultants have a similar view of the issues under the different themes and respond fairly to most of the questions. Regarding career opportunities and pay, they are united. Regarding the company´s benefits, the managers had a slightly more positive view of 3 what they offer than the consultants. Regarding appreciation, both managers and consultants felt that it was important. It was the managers who didn’t interpret the word appreciation alike. Under the theme of social activities the perception was equal between the managers and the consultants as regards the possibility of exchanging each other, but in the number of social activities that are to be organized by the company, the views differ between the consultants. The main reason why the company is an attractive employer was, according to the views of the managers, the close and family atmosphere and, secondly, the company´s assignments. According to the consultants it was in the opposite order. The conclusion of this study shows that the managers have succeeded in creating and maintaining a correct image of the company. The image that the company sends out is perceived correctly by the consultants. This indicates that the psychological contract appears to be intact and may explain that the company seems to have succeeded well with its employer branding.