A workplace to make you love monday mornings : Internal employer brand at Jervois Finland Oy

Abstract

This thesis was commissioned by Jervois Finland Oy, a company operating in the chemical industry in Kokkola. The working life instructor of the thesis was the HR Services Manager of Jervois Finland Oy, Katriina Rekilä. The purpose of the thesis was to examine the status of the internal employer brand of the commissioner and to build an understanding of how the different elements affect the current status. Based on the findings, the objective was to give development suggestions for the internal employer branding process of the commissioner.

The theoretical framework consisted of differentiating and presenting the concepts of employer brand and employer branding, as well as examining the link between workplace wellbeing and employer brand and between organizational behavior and employer brand. The theoretical framework was built on material from human resource management, marketing, organizational behavior, and scientific research. A wide variety of current English and Finnish sources ranging from e-sources to printed materials were used. The research methods used in this thesis were quantitative questionnaire survey and qualitative semi-structured interview. The questionnaire survey was conducted for the employees of Jervois Finland Oy and the semi-structured interviews were done with the directors of Jervois Finland Oy.

The results of the employee survey showed that the most important topics for the employees when assessing an employer were professional and pleasant co-workers, safety at work and salary. On average, the respondents gave a grade of 6.4 out of 10 to Jervois Finland in terms of appeal as an employer. The average likeliness to recommend the company as an employer to friends and family was 6.7 out of 10. Improvements in salary and employee benefits were considered most influential in increasing the likeliness to recommend Jervois Finland as an employer. The response rate of the employee survey was 39.5%. The semi-structured interviews were organized via Teams with three of the four directors. No significant gaps in perception between the employees and the directors were discovered. The main development areas from the employee survey were also referred to by the directors. The main development themes for the future were identified as internal information flow, occupational development possibilities and job versatility, value recognition, salary and compensation, facilities, and diversity.