The role of employer branding in talent attraction and talent retention in South Africa

Abstract

The primary purpose of this study is to examine the role of employer branding in talent attraction and talent retention in South Africa. This study seeks to explain and investigate the existing trends in employer branding in a South African context. It focuses mainly on the “best companies to work for” in South Africa and also looks at graduates who are unemployed in South Africa. This study tries to discover the way in which organisations in South African can attract potential talent and retain existing talent using a number of Employer Branding factors. Concerning the people working in the “best companies to work for”, this study looked at demographics such as gender, race, age, employment status and also total number of years people had been working for current employers. And for graduates, this study looked at demographics, such as gender, race, age, employment status and also total number of years being unemployed. The research was done using an online survey designed on Qualtrics, and the link was sent to employees working in the “best companies to work for” and also to graduates who are unemployed, 99 responses were received from permanent employees and 98 from graduates. The main findings of the study is that there are a number of values driving employer branding in general for both groups and these factors are identified in order of importance, for example, the first one is Economic value, second is Diversity value, third is Developmental value, followed by Reputation value, Social Value, CSR value and last, Communication media value. I split the groups into two, meaningthe findings also showed values driving graduates, particularly for Talent attraction and these values are Diversity value, CSR value, Developmental value, Economic value, Reputation value, Communication value and last, Social value. On the other side, the findings showed values driving Talent retention in order of priority like Economic value, Reputation value, Diversity Value, Developmental value, Social value, Communication value and last CSR value.