Employer branding in Sri Lanka: Top corporates on board with Colombo Leadership Academy to develop E

In an intensely-competitive business landscape talent acquisition and management is paramount to an organisation’s success. As the saying goes, you’re only as good as the people you employ – and Colombo Leadership Academy together with People Business is here to share exactly how employers can use a clearly distinguished and positioned employer brand to retain talent and attract the best into an organisation.

Employer branding is a hot new buzzword in business circles. In much the same way a traditional corporate brand works, an employer brand projects the core values of a company’s work culture to current and prospective employees. Businesses around the world in particular have begun to hone in on building their employer brand - or as it was formally known, an Employee Value Proposition (EVP). The Economist magazine notes that effective EVP management can bring home tangible benefits; including a 20% increase in the pool of potential workers, a four-fold increase in commitment among employees and a 10% decrease in payroll costs.

Colombo Leadership Academy is bringing a comprehensive EVP development program to employers in Sri Lanka, alongside strategic partner People Business. The country’s employment landscape is rapidly changing colour, with more businesses seeking to engage better with their employees in order to retain top talent and attract the best in the business. Employers are also faced with a severe problem of ‘brain drain’ due to the emigration of highly skilled personnel. 

In this context, positioning an organisation as an employer committed to providing a rich and rewarding employee experience may prove to be a worthwhile investment. 

Colombo Leadership Academy’s program is geared towards developing this EVP and leveraging it for overall strategy execution and performance sustainability. CLA is a premier leadership development and transformation entity with a strategic partnership with People Business. 

“We have already signed up two large EVP projects with highly reputed Sri Lankan companies in the retail and manufacturing sectors,” shared Riaz Hassen, CEO and Director. “A well-defined EVP could well become the most promising competitive strategic advantage an organisation could create to achieve its edge over competition to attract, retain, motivate, develop and productively engage human resources to create desired business outcomes.” 

The employer branding process typically begins with a needs assessment and research that unravels perceptions, challenges of engagement and employee value proposition. Once key employee value propositions have been recommended, downstream activities are aligned to engage with the employees. 

Employer branding can bring a myriad of benefits to organisations, including a stronger organisational identity, better articulation of EVP both internally and externally, gap identification, better alignment of effort, employee attraction and retention and trimmed overall cost of engagement.

Mervyn Raphael of People Business commented on the scope for EVP in Sri Lanka, “Employer branding as a concept is evolving in Sri Lanka. I see two prominent trends. First, there is a paradigm shift from the situation when branding was meant only for external communication- now the focus is to enhance employee experience, reduce image reality gaps and project differently as an employer to both internal and external stakeholders. 

Secondly, organisations across the globe maintain consistency in their employer brand experience and it is reflected in Sri Lanka too.”