Employer Brand Management: Practical Lessons from the World's Leading Employers

Preface – Simon Barrow

I read this book with a mixture of pride and gratitude. Pride that an idea I introduced 25 years ago remains in such good shape. Then gratitude to Richard Mosley for his scholarship and experience over the past 14 years which makes this book a masterclass. Furthermore, there are insights into human behaviour here which make it inspiring and relevant for a much wider audience.

Richard has laid down the gauntlet for executives responsible for employer brand management, since sound words need strong leaders. A good business book like this must be read and implemented by high calibre people if the standards he describes are to result in an effective employer brand. Behind any great brand you'll generally find a leader and team with the following qualities.

Confidence and self-belief. Richard describes Neil McElroy, the 26-year-old Harvard graduate in P&G who, in 1931, disobeying the ‘one page memo’ rule in the company, wrote five pages on the idea of brand management. At 44 he became P&G's CEO and later President Eisenhower's Defence Secretary at the height of the Cold War. He was a change agent and he started early.

Understanding people. I believe that an employer brand is much harder to develop and manage than the product brands I once looked after, like Colgate toothpaste and Knorr soup. People at work can be magic but they also represent mankind at its most complex and demanding. Understanding and shaping customer behaviour is a lot easier in comparison. ...