Developing our new employer brand system and the people narrative at the heart of it has been a robust and iterative process, involving external specialists to support us along the way. The process we went through reflects the critical importance of employer brand in supporting our success as an organisation. The project was a collaboration between a number of relevant functions, most notably global communications and HR.
We put employees at the centre of this work from day one. Extensive quantitative and qualitative research was conducted with a representative sample of our people across lines of business, functions, levels, roles and markets to understand how employees see HSBC today and what they want from the business in the future. We also conducted research externally to understand how HSBC is perceived as an employer from the outside, relative to its peers and other wider competitors.
Initial thinking about the HSBC employer brand was tested externally among potential candidates and alumni as part of the wide-ranging research. This helped us to identify exactly what employees look for from an employer, specifically within the context of HSBC. 88% of our external research participants agreed that our people narrative makes HSBC sound like an appealing place to work.