The concept of forming and developing an employer brand in Ukraine during the war

Abstract

In today's unstable environment, various asymmetric threats require employers to find resources to create a favorable image to maintain a stable position and ensure competitiveness. Such a strategic resource is the potential of the employer's brand, and therefore, its formation and development becomes an important task for business managers. The purpose of the paper is to study scientific approaches to understanding the concept of «employer brand», to consider its components and to compare it with the related concepts of «employer brand» and «HR brand» The author defines the content of the concept of «employer brand» as a set of purposefully formed characteristics of an enterprise as an employer associated with the target audience with a clearly positive and unique set of tangible and intangible incentives. The author emphasizes that the employer brand is an important aspect and component of effective HR management processes, which significantly affects the efficiency of recruitment, attraction, use and retention of qualified personnel. The main stages of work on building an employer brand are given. It is proposed to understand the concept of «employer brand management» as the process of planning, implementing and evaluating strategies and programs that help an enterprise to ensure efficient use of resources and develop its own employer potential in the labor market. According to the research results, the top ten Ukrainian companies with the best employer brand in 2022 are presented and the trends of changes are analyzed. New trends in the development of the employer brand in the conditions of a full-scale war in Ukraine are summarized, including: creating an authentic EVP, focusing on onboarding, ensuring a diverse and inclusive work environment, implementing the principles of DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) in daily activities, developing Employee visibility or «employee visibility» and supporting volunteering and social partnerships. The application of a step-by-step method of auditing a competitive employer brand is proposed, which can qualitatively improve the procedure for its formation and development.