Life with ex-employees is a win-win situation

WORKPLACE: As part of an effort to create its 'employment brand' in the market, Max New York Life turns to those who have earlier worked with it.

With the war for talent continuing unabated, especially in the BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance) sector, one company in particular"" Max New York Life"" has become acutely aware of the need to build its 'employment brand'"" a process of creating an image of being a 'great place to work' in the minds of the targeted candidate pool.

In fact, MYNL is even reaching out to former employees in an initiative aimed at creating a buzz in the marketplace and regaining talent that other companies have poached.

MNYL has just launched a 'closed network' website that will help it remain in touch with its ex-employees in India. "The attempt is to create a website for 'MNYLites'"" all people who have left us and who we want to stay in touch with and share news with. There are around 300 people on the network," says Rajit Mehta, the company's executive director for HR, training and internal communication.

The company claims that there has been some 'ploughback' from the effort, in the form of some ex-employees wanting to return"" though this is still at a nascent stage.

Mehta stresses that it is vital today for companies to build a distinct 'employer brand' identity which, according to Vipul Prakash, Partner in the recruitment firm Elixir Web Solutions, improves "the perception of a company as a potential employer of choice, thereby not only reducing attrition but also increasing the pool of talent available to the organisation."

It all started in 2001 when MNYL laid down its mission values to ensure its status as 'employer of choice.' This was partly an attempt to follow the American joint venture partner's global practices, but partly also a result of the company's struggle to gain talent in the face of competition from more established players: "When we started this company, our brand-pull in the market was not strong. We invested in human capital by providing the right culture, meaningful jobs, transparency and a learning environment directed at growth, and it has worked," says Mehta.

Prakash says that while traditional branding focuses on the client, employer branding focuses on employees"" current and prospective. T Muralidharan, chairman of the executive search firm TMI First, adds that the strategy and communication for building an employer brand has to be distinct and should not be confused with corporate identity. Word-of-mouth publicity and ex-employees, he believes, play key roles in this effort.

Listed in MNYL's mission to be employer of choice are things like: clarity of purpose, a knowledge of where the company is headed, clarity on various roles and job functions and on employee deliverables, and reward and training programmes.

Employees are now encouraged to have an open dialogue with their supervisors on what their training needs are. Those who have participated in the company's learning system (named the 'training passport' programme), says Mehta, have grown from brand heads in 2001 to zonal vice-presidents in 2006.

To add to the buzz in the marketplace, MNYL has an employee referral programme where an employee referring a friend to the HR department gets a financial reward. "If the person referred stays on for a year, there is again a small reward to look forward to. So our employees have become our brand ambassadors," explains Mehta.

For campus recruitment, MNYL has decided to adopt six or seven top colleges instead of spreading itself too thin in the market. This is intended to ensure that it has a richer interaction with the chosen colleges.

MNYL has also introduced a long-term retention plan that has a two-year cycle, takes into count individual performance and covers one-third of the organisation each year.

"We give a cash incentive to people who stick on for two years and this varies between 30 per cent and 40 per cent of salary over a two-year period. This has helped in halving the attrition level. We have seen it work clearly in the last three years and it has met its target of retaining people," explains Mehta.

Clearly, for Max New York Life, employer branding appears to be working.