HR Directors Club at The Brewery

HR Directors Club members recently gathered together at a networking event at The Brewery, London. The event, organised and hosted by the HR Directors Club and HR consultancy Hays, heard HR leaders share their experiences of becoming an employer of choice.

In his talk about attracting talent and the right people to work for your organisation, Andy McGuire, Director, HR Service Centre, Merrill Lynch said: “Brand differentiation is very important and the Web is essential - not just for applications but for emphasising our principles, as so many candidates now use the web for researching the company and there’s more evidence of self-sifting on the Web. We’re asking for candidates who are ‘exceptional without exception’. It’s saying, ‘do you think you’re hot?’ They won’t apply otherwise.”

McGuire stressed the importance of providing a positive experience for candidates: “It’s as much about selling the organisation to candidates as them selling themselves to us – managers don’t always get this. Give candidates a flavour of what the organisation is really like. It all sounds like simple stuff but it can be hard to execute.”

So what is the employer brand? “Brand is every interaction between every member of staff – you don’t forget a stroppy waitress in a restaurant,” said Angela O’Connor, Director of HR at the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).

Philomena Gray, HR Director at Clear Channel said: “If we want staff to be ambassadors for our organisations, rather than assassins, we need to accept that some people have peaked and help them out of door.”

In Angela O’Connor’s talk about becoming an employer of choice, she said: “It’s all about reputation. You need to know the truth about what people think about your organisation – it can be scary finding out but it’s worth it. If there’s a gap between