Employee Branding = HR's work ?

It;s always nice to meet and discuss opinions on varied subjects and one of the persons i ran into at the ISTD/SHRM Conference was Vinod from Carpediem who looked as much to learn from others and share as much as spread information about his organization and it was wonderful learning many things from him. One of the key things on which we started chatting up was the story of Zappos.com and how Jeff Bezos ratified his buy by saying "He had bought a culture and not a company" but later we went on to a crucial topic of Employer branding about which everyone seems to talk about so much. the craze of a Google or HCL and what creates it.

There is a subtle way in which the organization promotes itself about being a good employer and that is not by excessive promotion but more through word of mouth and through the right meetings like Summits. The most essential fact i realized is that the concept of HR people trying to create a brand is pure falsehood and the fact is it can only facilitate the process but for the process to take off it needs immense support from the Top Management and from all the departments involved

Take the example of HCL

*They have a system of an internal Social media which needs support from IT
*The manager can decide the increase to be given to each employee instead of rating and Blaming HR which needs support from Finance
*People performing skills they are good in like Music and Dance which needs support from the various teams

With all these people involved in as Stakeholders can we pinpoint HR for creating a brand ? HR needs to be involved as a partner and driver of implementation but not as the only one.

There are examples of organization who take great pride in creating Seminars sponsoring and promoting about it which acts as a salesman and its a simple Mantra "Organization wants to show its the best the, commitment must come from the rest"

Cheers

Arvind !!