The sample included senior and mid-level human resources managers worldwide, and centered on determining a baseline for future development of the client's HR brand.

You have a brand already. Internally, employees at every level have their perceptions of the HR department. Never confuse a slogan with a brand. In some ways, HR branding can be more challenging than branding a commercial product or service, where the customer has limited opportunities for interacting with the manufacturer. Employees, however, "experience" the HR department's ability to live up to its brand promise on a daily and intimate basis.

Your brand must be relevant. Marketing 101: your brand must relate directly to the needs of the customer. Your HR/Employer Brand must be relevant to the needs and motivations of your current and future employees.

Keep your brand goals practical. Since you have to "live" your brand it makes sense to set goals for your brand that you can live with.

A strong brand will make your job easier. Yes, it takes work to develop an HR brand, but over the long haul it more than pays for itself. A brand is a promise, and a promise kept is repaid with trust. Branding, on the other hand, is about establishing long-term relationships and defining what values your product, service, company...or department... represents.

HR Branding - Observations From a Marketing Perspective

;HISTORY OF BRANDING;

The word brand comes from the word "brandr", a word used by early Norse tribesmen meaning ‘to burn', as in branding livestock to declare ownership. In the Chicago meat market, buyers recognized quality beef through the brand mark on the cattle.

In the earliest form, a brand mark defined quality, a mark which differentiated a quality product from other similar products.