Participants of the round table "Employer branding in the post-covid world" at the Graduate School of Management of St. Petersburg University (GSOM SPbU) discussed how the employer branding strategy and employer branding programs are changing during the pandemic. The discussion took place as part of the VIII International Emerging Markets 2021 Conference.

Experts of the Business School — Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior and Personnel Management Department Dmitry Kucherov and Senior Lecturer of Marketing Department Olga Alkanova - presented the results of the study "Employer branding in companies within COVID-19 pandemic times: goals, tools, results", which consisted of two stages. The first study was a pilot survey among 24 companies — winners of the 2019 best employer rankings. The second one was a survey among 153 knowledge intensive companies from consulting and IT industries.

Dmitry Kucherov presented the results of the study of employer branding programs conducted among 24 large Russian and international companies, the best employers in Russia. The speaker emphasized: “The best employers consider employer branding as an integral part of HR strategy. It provides with an increase in the overall recognition and the higher attractiveness in the labor market."

Olga Alkanova spoke about the relationship between the degree of development of the employer's brand and the indicators of recruitment, which was confirmed by the results of the second part of the study. “Intellectually intensive companies, more focused on the employer brand, did not lay off employees and, on the contrary, increased the number of employees during the pandemic. We concluded that there is a statistically significant positive relationship between companies' focus on the employer brand, the creation of a targeted employer value proposition for different audiences, and the strategy for attracting or retaining employees. Moreover, the presence of the employer's value proposition allowed companies to reduce the negative effects of the pandemic on the dynamics of recruitment,” said Olga Alkanova.

Speakers noted that two elements of employer branding orientation — a clear employer branding strategy and a unique value proposition for different target groups of the job seekers - lead to the increase in recruitment performance.

The participants and the experts of the round table were of  by Victoria Trifonova, HR Manager at Microsoft Russia, Anna Minich, Head of Employer Brand Development at BCG, and Stanislav Sugak, Head of the Employer Brand and Human Capital Development Center at Russian Railways.