Employer brand experience development in a crisis situation

COVID-19 has been timewise one of the longest crises in service industry’s history and it has dramatically decreased service companies’ business operations. Companies are facing difficult decisions of how they can secure their business operations and find savings at the same time. These decisions affect to their employer brand image in employees’ eyes. This research is exploring the effects of a global pandemic crisis situation on the case company X’s employer brand experience. It was conducted based on the company’s personnel survey that highlighted dissatisfaction towards the employer functions in communication and management actions in a crisis situation. The aim is to get a deeper understanding of how employees experience the challenges in internal communication and management during the COVID-19 pandemic. The goal is to get improvement and development ideas from employees to the employer. The theoretical framework of this thesis is covering the base factors for good employer experience and employer brand management. It gives an overview of the importance of employee appreciation and demonstrates the employee value proposition as a tool. In addition, the theory base is introducing the crisis management and the significance of crisis communication in detail. This research is a qualitative case study of service company X’s perceived employer brand image. The research was conducted by interviewing twelve company’s employees from operational department. The results show that the employees are mostly dissatisfied to the employer’s crisis management actions and internal crisis communication. They see the company’s economic financing actions in a good light but highly disagree with rewarding any employees in a crisis situation. Interviews show the difficulty with the use of multiple internal communication channels and the results underline transparent, open and interactive communication style. The respondents understand the difficult situation and in conclusion see that the employer brand image cannot be improved during the COVID-19 crisis situation. As a conclusion this pandemic brings to surface the challenges of leadership and management and the necessity of good communication in a crisis situation