2020

EMPLOYER
BRANDING
STRATEGIES
A People Matters
& Indeed Study
Indeed Singapore Operations (Pte.) Ltd.
10 Collyer Quay Unit #24-01,
Ocean Financial Centre,
Singapore, 049315
www.indeed.com

People Matters Media (Pte.) Ltd.

38 Beach Road, #29-11,
South Beach Tower,
Singapore 189767
www.peoplemattersglobal.com

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reliable. People Matters and Indeed disclaim all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or
adequacy of such information. People Matters and Indeed will bear no liability for errors,
omissions or inadequacies in the information contained herein or for interpretations thereof.

The material in this publication is copyrighted. No part of this can be reproduced either on paper
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to reproduce any part of the report may be sent to People Matters Media Pte. Ltd.

© 2019 People Matters Media (Pte.) Ltd.

TABLE OF
CONTENTS

Foreword 04 - 05

Introduction 06

Key Findings 07 - 16

Conclusion 17

Expert Views 18 - 21
 FOREWORD
The Southeast Asia region offers a huge growth opportunity for companies,
yet attracting top talent is a challenge mainly due to differences in culture,
working styles and requirements. Today, job seekers want to work for
companies that have contributed to the society. Hence, it is important to
clearly call out the vision and mission of the company so that the job seeker
has a clear understanding of what to expect. And this is where the need to
create an employer brand arises.

The ability to measure the quantifiable impact of employer branding is

always a key challenge. A lot of work goes into building and growing a
company's brand which can be difficult to measure, but remains critical to
the overall outcome. Also, companies need to not only keep up with
workplace trends, but also create new ones and ensure they are creating a
unique identity and culture which is true to their values.

In this age of transparency, it is increasingly important for companies to be

open as they bid to attract the best talent in a competitive landscape and
company reviews are becoming increasingly important to job seekers.

To uncover trends in this changing context, the 2020

Employer Branding Strategies – A People Matters and
Indeed Study was launched.

The study was conducted between August and

October 2019. It included Senior HR and business
leaders including Recruiting Managers, Employer
Branding Leaders, Heads of Recruitment Operations,
Regional Human Capital Leaders, General Managers,
CEOs and CHROs from over 100 companies across
Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong, Indonesia,
and the Philippines.

4
 Of the companies that participated in the study:

81% said that there was a need to increase their investments in

technology tools for employer branding

68% of the participants pointed out that ‘Great working environment’

and ‘Compensation’ were among the most attractive workplace
attributes to attract talent.

Recruiters need to be aware that an organisation’s work values play a vital

role in a candidate’s job search process. In light of the changing attitude of
job seekers towards employers, companies must take the lead in making
sure that their current and prospective employees know that they are cared
for. By sharing the culture of their organisation with the job seeker audience,
companies can ensure that job applicants have an idea of what it is like to
work for them.

Given that employer branding plays a key role in hiring, digital tools are
allowing recruiters to transform the best of their practices and in reaching
out to the right talent for their company. We hope this report helps you
reflect on your own employer branding practices.

We would like to thank everyone

who contributed to the study.

“81% of the
companies
said there’s a
need to increase
investments in Adam
technology Lamprey
tools” Director of APAC
Recruiting,
Talent Attraction,
Indeed
5
 INTRODUCTION
With a growing working population and a shift towards technological
innovations actively shaping how jobs are structured, companies in
Southeast Asia are on the lookout for new strategies to attract and hire
the right talent, for example, redefining their employer branding
strategies to support the growth. ‘Upgrading Employer Brand’ has
become as a key talent acquisition priority, as evidenced by multiple
studies in the Southeast Asia region.

In order to make a lasting impact, companies need to examine the role

of the employer, employee and the candidate. To make sense of the
shifting priorities, the 2020 Employer Branding Strategies – A People
Matters and Indeed Study was launched. To create a robust and
effective employer brand, designing the right strategy is critical to
reach the right talent – whether it is an active job seeker or a passive
candidate.

The study is divided

into three sections

01 02
The components Mapping candidate
of the right employer perceptions
brand

03 The employer state

of branding

The study also shed light on HR’s important role in planning and
executing employer brand initiatives in tandem with communications
and marketing departments. In addition to rising interest in employer
brand, the study reveals that digital and analytical tools have enabled
HR professionals to both influence candidate preferences and drive an
impactful employer brand. As previously mentioned, 81% of recruiters
across Southeast Asia say that investments in technological tools to
build employer brand is set to rise in the coming 6 to 12 months. At the
same time, over 90% of companies report that less than a quarter of
their overall branding budget is directed towards employer branding.

6
KEY FINDINGS

Trends
in building
the right
employer
brand
Employer brand is a reflection of how companies are perceived by
prospective candidates, as well as how companies interact with
their current and potentially, future employees. But the nuances of
building a proper employer brand are often tricky and dynamic,
requiring HR professionals to be responsive to changing
preferences and to work with other departments. Across Southeast
Asian markets, the study found the following primary nine trends.

7
 Trend 1: While building an employer brand
takes time, the journey to achieving

Studying
results, in the long run, begins by
setting the right groundwork. For

employee
companies across Southeast Asia
(SEA), this starts with a clearly
defined Employee Value Proposition

perceptions (EVP). Defining EVP and studying

employee perception were two of

and aligning
the most recurring steps on the
roadmap to creating an employer

EVP are
brand, with over 78% of the
respondents identifying the process
as a crucial step. In addition, 70% of

crucial employers said that studying

employee perception is important.

There is also a clear focus on ensuring that brand efforts are properly
highlighted. Over 67% of the respondents to the study stated how
showcasing employer branding activities internally and understanding a
leader’s perception (48%) were important parts of building an employer
brand. Curiously, research on competition was not cited as highly as a vital
part of the employer branding roadmap with only 32% of respondents
marking it as a concern. This can also mean that employers and HR
professionals across the SEA region are open to experimentation and
finding out their own unique solutions to branding.

Critical steps in the

employer branding roadmap
DEFINE EMPLOYEE
VALUE PROPOSITION 0 50 100 78%
STUDY EMPLOYEE
PERCEPTION 0 50 100 70%
SHOWCASE EMPLOYER
BRAND INTERNALLY 0 50 100 67%
UNDERSTAND
LEADER’S PERCEPTION 0 50 100 48%

8
Trend 2: A multiple channel strategy is needed to
engage both current employees as well

A multiple
as prospective candidates. According to
the study, professional networking sites
and career websites are the most used

channel channels for employer branding among

companies in SEA, with over 68% of

strategy is
respondents leveraging it. Social
networking websites (57%) were the
next most preferred channel to drive an

needed to effective employer brand.

drive an
Careers pages have remained an
important part of how candidates access

effective
jobs. They continue to strengthen the
employer brand, even as social media
channels are growing in importance

employer
within the SEA region. Campus outreach
programs still remain the most preferred

brand
offline activity with over 57% of the
respondents saying they engage in
campus-related activities.

Preferred channels for

employer branding across SEA
PROFESSIONAL
NETWORKING SITES 0 50 100 68%
JOB SITES
0 50 100 68%
SOCIAL NETWORKING
SITES 0 50 100 57%
CAMPUS OUTREACH
0 50 100 57%
INTERNET/
WEB ADVERTISING 0 50 100 43%

9
 Trend 3: Employee offerings have evolved
over time, and are tuned to reflect

Career the aspirations of candidates more

accurately. The survey found that

progression career progression opportunities

remained one of the top attributes
of the EVP that HR professionals

ranks high emphasise while persuading candi-

dates.

on employee With over 46% opting for ‘career

offerings
progression’ as the key focus area,
other major factors that were
highlighted included brand
reputation (37%) and work-life
balance (30%).

Top priorities for EVP

46% 0 50 100

CAREER PROGRESSION

37%
BRAND REPUTATION
0 50 100

30% 0 50 100
WORK-LIFE BALANCE

05%
Importance of
DECREASED

employer branding
across companies 67%
INCREASED

28%
in SEA STAYED THE
SAME

10
Trend 4:
Storytelling: An important
feature of employer brand
Candidate preferences are dynamically shifting. With a rising young
population across countries in SEA, employers are finding better and
more impactful ways of connecting with candidates. To do so, they are
leveraging the benefits of both technology and storytelling.

The survey found that 51% of respondents preferred using storytelling

principles to deliver an impactful message through online channels and
offline events to enhance employer brand in SEA. Over 33% of
respondents cited the benefits of streamlining communication and
35% said creating candidate personas and targeting them improved
the effectiveness of their strategy.

On the other hand, the focus on job titles and elaborate descriptions
were not as effective. Fine-tuning purposeful communication is
necessary to build the right employer brand.

Effective strategies to
improve employer branding
51% 0 50 100

USE STORYTELLING PRINCIPLES THROUGH ONLINE AND OFFLINE EVENTS

35% 0

FOCUS ON CREATING CANDIDATE PERSONAS AND TARGET THEM

50 100

33% 0 50 100
STREAMLINE EMPLOYEE COMMUNICATION

11
 Trend 5:
‘A great working
environment’ and
‘Compensation’ rank
high on focus areas
According to recruiters across SEA, candidates value a great working
environment. Over 68% cited a great working environment as a top item
to attract the right talent while a similar percentage said high
salary/benefits still remained the most important. This was closely
followed by the presence of learning opportunities with 63% of recruiters
stating that learning opportunities were key to hire the right talent.

Lack of hierarchy was ranked at the end. It is indicative of the

socio-cultural factors in the region. When it comes to communicating with
candidates, most recruiters (over 52%) said they used the website or job
sites to update candidates with job-related information.

Top attributes
that attract candidates
100

50

0 68% 68% 63% 37%

GREAT WORK ENVIRONMENT HIGH SALARY/BENEFITS LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES WORK-LIFE BALANCE
ON OFFER

12
Trend 6:
A need for
greater investment
in employer
branding budgets
Data from the survey revealed that one of the biggest challenges
standing between companies and a successful and sustained employer
brand strategy is whether or not the finances are in place to support it.

Over 68% of the respondents reported that their current employer

branding budget remains less than 10% of the overall branding budget.

02% 06%
Percentage SAY MORE THAN
50 PERCENT SAY BETWEEN 25
TO 50 PERCENT

of overall
branding
budget 68%
24%
dedicated
SAY BETWEEN 10
TO 25 PERCENT
SAY LESS THAN

to employer
10 PERCENT

branding

13
 Trend 7: HR is in charge of employer brand but
decision-making is split. Final decision

HR is in
maker on employer branding budgets
Parties responsible for executing

charge of
employer.

When it comes to making decisions

employer related to employer branding, HR

departments play a critical role.

brand but
According to 41% of the respondents,
the employer branding budget was a

decision-
part of their annual HR budget. 44% of
respondents say that the HR
department creates and executes the
making budget for employer branding. This was
followed by the CEO's office (17%) and

is split Corporate communications department

(14%). Although execution is a key
component of employer branding,
discretionary powers remain with CEOs
according to 41% of respondents.

Parties responsible for

executing employer branding

44%
THE HR DEPARTMENT
17%
THE CEO’S OFFICE
14%
CORPORATE
COMMUNICATIONS

Final decision maker on

employer branding budgets

41%
CEO
29%
CHRO
11%
COUNTRY MANAGER/
REGIONAL HEAD

14
 Trend 8:
‘Quality of applications’
cited as a top metric
to measure employer
branding
Over 68% of the respondents agreed that getting better quality of
applicants is the number one way to ascertain and measure the impact of
one’s employer brand, with ‘quality of applications’ cited as the top
metric to measure employer branding. The second most important way
of measuring impact was employee retention with over 59% saying it is
a critical metric.

Top ways to measure

the impact of employer brand
RANK RANK RANK

1 2 3

HIGHER
QUALITY OF
APPLICATIONS

EMPLOYEE
RETENTION

REDUCTION
IN TIME TO
HIRE

15
 Trend 9: While 81% of respondents across
the SEA region reported a need to

Technology
increase investments in
technological tools in the next 6-12
months, the survey found that such

investments an increase in investment was

based on better performance. Of

set to rise in
those surveyed, over 69% of
respondents were satisfied with
analytical tools available to

the next accelerate employer brand while

65% were satisfied with other

6-12 months
digital tools available to strengthen
employer brand across SEA.

On analytical On digital
tools tools
08%
EXTREMELY
06%
EXTREMELY
SATISFIED
14%
EXTREMELY
SATISFIED
14%
EXTREMELY
DISSATISFIED DISSATISFIED

17% 21%
HIGHLY HIGHLY
SATISFIED
17%
DISSATISFIED
SATISFIED
21%
DISSATISFIED

44%
SATISFIED
38%
SATISFIED

16
Conclusion
The People Matters-Indeed Study on assessing the state of employer
branding across the Southeast Asian region reflected upon
certain important considerations when creating a robust brand.
The study revealed that although HR professionals are in charge of
planning and executing branding initiatives that defined the employer
to the outside world, most do it with little budgetary allocation.
With the scope of employer branding rising within countries in
Southeast Asia, HR professionals are also optimistic about the rising
use of technology and the application of digital and analytical
tools in creating a robust employer brand.

Highlights of the
report – Action plan

01 02
Top imperatives The top three
for creating employer attributes of EVP
brand for SEA region

Define employee value Career progression

proposition
Brand reputation
Study employee perception
Work-life balance
Showcase employer
brand internally

03 Important ways to
create employer brand

Using storytelling through online and offline events

Streamlining in-house communication

Creating candidate personas

17
 Expert
Views
1. Ubisoft

2. Alterra

3. Akamai

18
Expert Views, Ubisoft

Easing Employers are focussed on bringing awareness

about their organisation. As part of their strategy,
candidate & companies are moving into the digital space by
leveraging social media apps and professional
employee networks. Today, employers are showing a keen

experience interest in workplace engagement. Companies

are not just talking about a product or people,
is critical they are talking about empowerment. And they
are talking about physical and mental well-being.

In our company’s context, employer branding is

about the candidate experience - how can you
treat your candidates as VIPs, how do you ease
the hiring process, how do you get things up to
speed and help your candidates to better
understand what to expect?

Another strategy that companies are focussed on

is engagement – whether that’s through career
development programs, personal development or
by simply exhibiting care. A workplace culture
makes a lot of difference. Does the company
Alex Lim respond to real world issues? Does the company
engage in recycling efforts, power saving? Are
APAC LEAD - TALENT ACQUISITION,
UBISOFT there healthy catering and food options? By
ensuring that the employees are engaged and
their needs are met, companies can engage their
employees to become ambassadors.

The role of technology

More companies are looking at screening applications using AI based tools. And
it is a win-win only when both the candidates as well as the employers’ needs are
met. For candidates, AI tools keep them updated and from an employer’s
standpoint, they help tackle volumes of applications.

When you find a prospective candidate, how do you get a candidate interested
enough to start the interview process? That needs concern and care. Even as
video interviews are on the rise, there are a number of new innovations coming
up that are designed to improve the experience of prospective candidates. HR
professionals should not be afraid to try new things.

19
 EXTREMELY DISSATISFIED SATISFIED HIGHLY SATISFIED EXTREMELY SATISFIED
DISSATISFIED

Expert Views, Alterra

Employer We are in an era where there is a war for

talent, and it is the candidate who most
branding often picks the company. So, there’s a

should focus
need to shift the hiring process and the
employer branding approach. And we
on internal & need to enable recruiters to sell the
company to attract the best talent to
external work with us. If a technology recruiter has
work background in the field, they can
factors weave a great story and differentiate the
brand in the recruitment process.

In the context of the technology industry,

hiring is a top priority. And we hire talent
across the region. While previously there
was a tendency within the industry to
focus on the perks and benefits by
replicating what large digital companies
had to offer, it was not a sustainable
choice. Since our talent search is
throughout the region, we engage with
local agencies to bring us to the new
Puspa M markets, and learning from them as to
CHIEF OF HAPPINESS RESOURCES how the talent market operates.
ALTERRA

Making the right impact

There are three ways that one can influence employer branding to make it
stronger using technology. Firstly, technology can help enrich the prospective
candidate’s experience by leveraging automation and integration tools.
Secondly, technology now enables us to make our presence felt on social media.
Often, the first touch point to reach our talent is through social media. Thirdly, by
using analytics about people, we can make much more impactful decisions. AI
can significantly improve our candidate engagement through seamless
communication in a real-time situation. The key to success with technology tools
is to test them and follow up on actions based on results.

Employee branding should be based on both, the external and internal factors
of the company. It means having a strong social media presence and having your
employee work as your brand ambassador at the same time. As ambassadors,
they can speak about the life they have in the company.
20
Expert Views, Akamai

Align the The focus on branding among organisations has

shifted to purpose and intent. Increasingly,
expectations employer branding strategies are focussing on

of a new
articulating purpose to prospective candidates.
Strategies are also being designed to cater to the
generation younger generation joining the workforce. This
means increased focus on a diverse work
of workers environment,
experience.
well-being and workplace

Accounting for differences

A diverse work culture is increasingly making its
way into employer branding strategies. Research
shows that diversity means better business results.
In the context of recruitment, data shows different
experiences when candidates are interviewed by a
diverse panel of recruiters. This is an important
point to consider when assembling together the
interview panel.

Serena Truong The younger workforce is keen to learn and

SENIOR DIRECTOR - experience new things. As an employer, it is
HUMAN RESOURCES, necessary to create opportunities for our young
AKAMAI TECHNOLOGIES
professionals to try different things.

Increasingly, we need to think about employer branding strategies from a

marketing perspective. This means collaborating with the marketing and
communications teams to ensure that there is a consistent message across the
company.

At Akamai, while there is an overarching strategy in the region, there are country
specific initiatives that are context based. For example, in Japan, the employer
branding strategy needs to account for scarce resources, cultural differences and
an aging population.

21
 About People Matters
People Matters is a new-age, niche media organisation with a vision to
be a pivotal thought leader in the arena of people and work. We focus on
providing the world of talent and work with a plethora of insights that
enable talent professionals to have an intellectual point of view and the
ability to make decisions that create a big impact. We bring the talent
fraternity abreast with new ideas, trends, technological innovations,
expert viewpoints and new pathways that raise its collective
consciousness and help in finding all the answers pertinent to people and
work. And, we believe, that when talent professionals have all the
answers, they themselves become the answer to the questions and
challenges the world of talent faces from time to time.

About Indeed
More people find jobs on Indeed than anywhere else. Indeed is the #1
job site in the world and allows job seekers to search millions of jobs on
the web or mobile in over 60 countries and 29 languages. More than 250
million people each month search for jobs, post resumes, and research
companies on Indeed. For more information, visit indeed.com.

22
A People Matters & Indeed Study