The value of best company to work for surveys in employer branding, applicant attraction, employee engagement, and talent retention

Abstract

'Best Company To Work For’ surveys (BCTWF) promise to promote winners’ status as an “Employer of Choice” (Conradie, 2007) leading to increased employer branding, easier talent attraction and retention, improved employee engagement, and ultimately to improved financial results – all of which could be benchmarked against competitors through the survey results. Recent attempts to merge concepts from traditional marketing and HR practices led to the exciting new realm of employer and employee branding, however there was very little empirical evidence of how this could be achieved (Boyd&Sutherland, 2006). BCTWF surveys purport to be a common tool with which a company could address both the aspects of marketing and human resources, with a view toward improved business performance. This research investigated the value of BCTWF surveys through quantitative analysis of the data collected from a survey questionnaire (n=449). Factor analysis was employed to validate the structure and internal reliability of the instrument. ANOVA, post-hoc Scheffé test, chi-square test, tests of meaningfulness, and stub-and-banner tables were used to investigate the relation between ‘Best Company’ ranking and the independent variables. Of the four constructs, employer branding and employee engagement showed a positive relation to BCTWF ranking; while applicant attraction and employee retention did not show any relation. A BCTWF Value Model (Figure 10) was developed in response to the findings and current literature to assist managers with their decisionmaking related to BCTWF and strategic human resource management in the future.