Employment branding is the process of positioning an organization as an employer’s choice in the labor market. Employment branding is essential to analyze because employers can understand what motivates individuals to work for and continue working for particular organizations. Some employers such as Google, Apple, Sony, etc. have created images that are universal icons which remain competitive in the labor market. Employers can analyze their own employment branding simply by seeing into their strategies employed.

Employment strategies cover several components which often influence retention. Some strategies encompass:

• Creating positive, compelling images of the organization that convey social responsibility and industry impacts.
• Providing clear and consistent messages about what it is like to work at the organization through viral phrases such as “commitment to innovation”,” teamwork”, etc.
• Encouraging the best potential candidates to apply for jobs with advertisements using media.
• Decreasing the time-to-fill and cost-per-hire ratios.
• Lowering turnover by offering competitive packages and enjoyable work environment.
• Linking the employment brand with the company’s product brands by reinforcing the public’s image of the organization.
• Giving employees a sense of pride in their company by knowing they are working for an employer that has a competitive edge and/or positive contribution to society.

To help build and/or improve on a brand, it is vital to consider the channel of how employment branding is marketed upon others. Some popular channels are the company’s website, media ads (on television, radio, print), collateral materials such as brochures, having appearances at job fairs, campuses, or at other types of sponsored or non-sponsored events.

In today’s job market, employment branding is becoming important as the demand for skilled and talented workers increases. With the latest reliance on technology, the job searching and recruiting process has also impacted who is and who is not applying with particular organizations. The need for employment branding cannot be overlooked since it implies that hiring and retention rates may be stabilized. The goal is to make sure employees are satisfied, ensuring business goals are met, while being competitive and unique to one’s own core values.

Many of our new customers these days are escapees from (ahem) another network ...er, payroll service.  Of course, we always ask them to tell us about the issues that are motivating them to change up ...and these are the Top Four answers we get:

4.  They keep messing up our payroll, and my employees don’t appreciate it.  Oh, and since I’m the one spending my time on fixes and re-runs... neither do I.
3.  The system they make me use is just plain clunky.  It’s not truly Web-based, not real-time at all ...and just fuggedabout being user-friendly.
2.  I can’t predict what I’ll be charged from run to run.  $25.00 for this, $1.25 for that;  it’s worse than our phone bill.  Every time I turn around, I discover the meter’s been running and there’s yet another fee category.  I’m sure you can imagine how much our CFO enjoys that.

(insert tympani roll here...)  And the Number One reason to hate your payroll service...

1.  I can never get the right person on the phone to get my issue resolved.  I get passed around from department to department.  No one ever gets assigned to our account ...so even after 5 years, they still don’t understand the quirks of our business.

But once those mistreated customers make the switch to MyPayrollHR’s online payroll service, all of those problems simply melt away... 

• Since they get to preview payroll runs online beforehand, there are virtually no reasons for messing up a run. 
• Our system gives you a foolproof, very user-friendly dashboard interface;  and it’s Web-based – and real-time – by design, from the ground up. 
• MyPayrollHR charges an all-inclusive flat rate ...no nickel-&-diming.  And we even throw in value-added services, like a resource center and HR consulting ...which those escapee customers could only dream about before. 
• You get a choice of support modes with MyPayrollHR:  Web, email, phone.  And we’ll assign you a permanent single point of contact, who will come to know your business.

If you’re one of those mistreated, unhappy clients of a sub-par service, don’t put up with those “Top 4 reasons” another day!

OK, so you did your homework and chose not to go with a traditional, batch-oriented payroll service.  And you resisted the siren song of your IT group, realizing that it’s just not likely that they could build a competitively-featured application in any reasonable sort of timeframe.

So instead, you went with an online payroll service.  But soon after signing on, you began having a severe case of buyer’s remorse:  not the generic, nameless sort of dread that attacks home buyers, but the very specific sort that arises from experiencing a number of very real problems.  For instance... 

• Just the other day, yet another employee just found a mistake with their W-2;  that makes 23 in just the first month that you used the system.
• You find several bugs in the system;  the vendor admits them, but it’s clear they have no intention of getting them fixed. 
• You’ve received your third tax notice concerning the very same issue.  Now, on your list of folks you really don’t want to have trouble with, the IRS ranks pretty close to the top. 
• When you call your vendor’s customer support line, you get an automated attendant ...and then (after holding for what seems like eternity) voicemail.
• You just got an invoice for making too many calls to their support line.  “Excuse me?! ...these are your service’s problems that I’m having to call about;  I don’t do this for the pure enjoyment of it.  And now you want to charge me?!  Sorry... not happening in this lifetime.”

It may seem like a made-up list, but these are actually real experiences we’ve heard about from real customers who finally called us to escape from their initial online payroll service.  Somewhere in a parallel universe, we’re so hoping that everyone simply calls MyPayrollHR to begin with;  everyone would be so much better off, all the way around!  Don’t make the same mistake these clients did;  call the pros at MyPayrollHR first:  (866) 697-2947.

Businesses which sometimes overlook procedures (especially if written) may sometimes face a U.S. and / or state Department of Labor (DOL) notification for an audit. Is this a time to panic?  No. It is a time stay calm and be organized.

If managed effectively, DOL audits provide a productive opportunity for employers to review and analyze past practices and improve on future practices. Audits involve financial operations, employment law compliance, and evaluation of operational efficiencies. In fact, periodic (internal or external) audits are integral to the needs of management and it's the company's business processes.

To best prepare, consider the following items:

1. Determine which division of the U.S. or state DOL is investigating your business.
2. Contact an HR professional or attorney specializing in employment law to discuss the audit and to get information about your rights and responsibilities.
3. Contact the DOL to confirm or reschedule the appointment.
4. Determine which member(s) of your management team will participate in the initial meeting with the auditor.
5. If the notification letter requests documents, be sure to make copies for your records, since the auditor may take the original records off-site.
6. Meet with the auditor in a confidential, quiet area.
7. If the auditor requests to interview employees, be prepared to provide a private room for such interviews.
8. Respond only to questions that the auditor directly asks. Do not offer additional information unless requested to do so.
9. Stick closely to any follow-up requests and / or deadlines required by the auditor.

While maintaining respect and cooperation with the auditor, you may discover important resolutions critical to the continued success of your business.

When I talk to potential customers, at some point in the conversation I will be asked to answer the question “What’s in it for us?” ... or, more formally, characterize the benefits of an online payroll service to the inquirer.

I've actually found that the best answers to this question come from our own customers.  So here are some of the most frequent answers I've heard over the years;  you might call it a “Top Nine” list of the benefits of an internet payroll solution ...

1. I get to do things when I want, through a user-friendly payroll dashboard;  I don't have to conform to someone else's schedule or batch of rigid forms.
2. I can access my information (and therefore pay my people) anywhere there is an Internet connection.  The world doesn’t have to come to an end just because I’m on vacation or away on a business trip.
3. Because the system is truly online, I can preview my entire payroll before I actually run it.  This goes a long way toward eliminating embarrassing (and costly) errors.
4. I’ve set up our account so that our employees can access their own information (to the extent I’ve authorized).  Now I’m no longer indispensable to getting the answer to every routine question that comes up.
5. I control our firm’s payroll/HR information.  If a mistake occurs, there’s no need to search around for who’s responsible;  I can just focus on getting it fixed.
6. I can print my own checks locally, saving the cost of overnight shipping and the possibility of delay.
7. Knowing that the system is totally secure and frequently backed up gives me tremendous peace of mind, especially since I didn’t have to hire a whole IT department to achieve this.
8. According to our pre-purchase analysis, this approach was more cost-effective than either a traditional “black box” payroll service provider or acquiring application software and the expensive IT people to manage it.
9. It’s allowed us to “go green” by greatly reducing our reliance on paper.

A lot of growing companies are rethinking payroll performance, especially in consideration of today's economic environment. When you consider the control and convenience you gain with an online payroll service with built-in HR support, it's definitely worth looking into. If you’re thinking of doing your own comparison, you might want to check out the side-by-side comparison on our website.