Welcome to the March edition of Thinkr.

Contents:
Relocation and Immigration news
Upcoming events
Editorial
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More interesting nuggets for everyone
involved with recruitment and relocation:

Global Integrity Index 2007
Source: Global Integrity

Anolt City Brands Index
Source: The Vancouver Sun

Best Employers for New Canadians
Source: MediaCorp Canada

Think About it

Visa-exempt: Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Lithuania

Keeping up with continuing changes in the European Union, CIC announced that citizens of the Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and Lithuania no longer require temporary resident visas to travel to Canada. These citizens, like all other visa-exempt citizens, with proper documentation have the option to apply for work permits at the port of entry.

BC Provincial Nominee Program Expansion: Entry-Level and Semi-Skilled Workers

The BC PNP introduced a new pilot program aimed at occupations in the hospitality/tourism industry and long-haul trucking. The criteria for this two year program varies from the regular program.

Immigration admits record number of permanent and temporary residents

The preliminary numbers from CIC show that almost 430,000 people entered Canada last year as permanent residents, temporary workers or foreign students. The number of temporary workers increased by 12% and accounts for most of the increase.

BC's Tech Talent

Brent Holliday's article gives a snapshot of BC's current talent market and they key recruitment issues. Take advantage of innovative immigration programs (such as BC PNP, NAFTA, or IT Workers), hire and grow your young talent, and invest in training and other resources are amongst Brent's tips.

Grad Students: the key to remaining competitive in the knowledge-based economy

The global race for talent and innovation includes the recruitment and growth of grad students. Countries compete for these students to not only attract them to their universities, but also to retain them. This article suggests that Canada is lagging behind and needs to increase our focus on this special segment.

Europe: fingerprinting of visitors under discussion

This article looks at the discussions within the European Union to fingerprint visitors and store information in a database, following the U.S. example. The heated debate has supporters on both sides of the argument, with further discussions to be held.

Revisiting your Relocation Policy

This article in the GMAC newsletter suggests steps and strategies for updating your global relocation policy. Take a look at the big picture, involve all stakeholders, and have a sound implementation plan.

Relocation agreements: Repayment clauses

This articlel in the Prudential newsletter provides insights into repayment clauses and their uses to help and hinder relocation assignments.

Relocation: Don't forget the family

Relocation assignments can be made or broken by the accompanying spouse and family. The role of the family should not be underestimated and relocation assignments must take into account their unique needs. Their role in the assignment has evolved, just as the workplace has changed.

These exciting learning and sharing events started off 2008:

Sharing

We delivered another edition of our workshop series: Immigration Basics and Relocation Basics on snowy, rainy and sunny days.

Learning

We kept our immigration knowledge fresh by attending the CAPIC annual general meeting and professional development seminar. We got an inside peek into new Immigration programs and saw some of the faces developing the policies in our nation's capital.

Think Ahead

Annual Conference: Building Business Results

The focus of this year's BC HRMA conference is leadership and will take place once again at the Vancouver Exhibition and Convention Centre.

Canadian Employee Relocation Council Annual Conference

This year's CERC conference will take place at Vancouver's Westin Bayshore and include participants from across Canada. Think Relocation Consulting is looking forward to co-facilitating the "Global Recruitment in Practice: Success Stories" panel of seasoned recruiters who will provide their insights into this unique and competitive area of recruitment.

Get all the latest Immigration and Relocation Events on our website.

Our guest editor is Phaedra Burke is from Joule Consulting.

Joule Consulting draws from over fifteen years of human resources and marketing experience. To any project Joule brings strategic thinking, relationship building skills, vision, passion and strong leadership. To accomplish what we do well we thrive on creativity and thinking outside the box raising individuals and organizations to new levels.

Phaedra’s background ranges from training to retention to marketing. Her career has exposed her to private, public and not for profit organizations while implementing programs involving employees and leaders alike. She has specialized in the identification of retention strategies as well as researched and developed programs to address those strategies. As a ‘soft skills’ HR Professional she constantly used marketing to obtain buy-in. She has a Master’s in Leadership and Training through Royal Roads University.

Think Tank

Employer Branding as a Recruitment and Retention Tool

When someone is walking down the street and you see them wearing clothing that has the lululemon or Nike logo you know what that company is from the brand identity. You know what products they sell, what their values are, what their image is and whether or not you would shop for their products. Two questions: do you know what it is like to work there? Wouldn’t it be cool if people saw the employer brand for your company and automatically knew what it is like to work there?

What is Employer Branding?

Why do organizations brand themselves? The reasons include creating a recognizable look in their marketing, distinguishing themselves amongst their competitors in the marketplace, identifying their uniqueness, and communicating an idea that represents the organizations’ philosophy towards their customers.

According to Christine Johnson, Director of Employee Communications from Shaker “…an employer brand is about capturing the essence of a company in a way that engages employees. It is who you are as an employer. It conveys your “value proposition” – the totality of your culture, systems, attitudes, and employee relationship. And it encourages your people to embrace and further shared goals – success, productivity and satisfaction – on personal and professional levels.”

A brand is a promise that captures and engages the intended customer. When it comes to attracting and retaining employees, the candidates/employees are your customer. So, why would a company go through all the work to create a brand only to do it again for recruitment and retention?

Why do We Need It?

“Employers must first examine their corporate identity and culture. Employees want to be part of organizations that embrace the same core values as them,” says Lisa Mattam of management and consulting firm The Mattam Group.

Let’s consider the workforce. Either you are, you know of someone who is or you have read about industries that are experiencing an employee attraction and retention dilemma. That means that employers have to mentally shift from candidates seeking them out to a sales approach where companies are seeking out candidates. On the customer side we are selling services or products, on the employee side we are selling a career in our organization. Is your customer and employee target market the same? Of course your employees have to buy into your overall philosophy but they don’t necessarily have to buy your product or service. The needs that a customer is coming to your organization to fulfill are different from those of an employee. That requires a different assessment and messaging.

Beyond recruitment, employer brands also influences employee retention. If your employer brand truly reflects your culture, work environment and employee connection then those that work for you will reflect those characteristics amongst their peer group. If there is truly a talent shortage then the recruitment team cannot necessarily source every possible candidate. Mobilizing your workforce to engage perspective candidates is a great advantage but only possible if they experience what your brand describes. This requires your employer brand to be communicated internally as well as externally both in your employee materials and events you hold for employees. Most importantly your brand has to reflect the retention initiatives/culture you have in your organization so that when a new employee comes on board they see the connection between what they were sold and what exists.

How Does It Work?

In his book, Living Brands, Raymond A. Nadeau identifies the secret to brand success as “Becoming a legitimate part of people’s lives is the new minimum price of brand entry and is the only method for a brand’s sustained longevity.”

The process for building a brand includes assessing the culture, identifying your target market, incorporating the vision and values of your organization, creating the brand itself and the materials that go with that and deciding how to implement and assess the brand. Building a brand is something that organizations can do in house provided they have the time and expertise. Some organizations choose to use template designs that are available online. The challenge with this option is that when trying to establish an organizations’ uniqueness there could be an inconsistency when using the same design as others. Finally there are organizations that specialize in assessing, establishing and creating a brand for an organization to use in their recruitment and employee communication strategies. Depending on the approach an organization takes will determine the process they choose.

by Phaedra Burke, Joule Consulting