Living in Charlotte, I can't help but be engrossed in the banking crisis. Afterall, we are the second largest financial center to NYC in the country and my property values are directly tied to these firms making it and not going under!

The recent conversations have been about "stress testing" each bank. Here's how McKinsey describes what that means;

to identify, proactively, the bad assets on bank balance sheets, using financial models to project future loan values and loss rates under different economic scenarios.

Using this methodology, couldn't a company determine if their employment brand was set up to credate future "values" vs. future "losses" in human capital? Yes, it might sound far fetched but let me run with it for the moment. Here are some steps to take to Stress Test your employer Brand:

Step 1: Know what it is.

*Seems simple but many companies have no idea what their employer brand Actually is.    They might know what they WANT it to be, but testing reality takes courage AND tenacity.
*Survey new hires "what brought you to XYZ Co.?", survey at first year anniversary and each year after "what keeps you here at XYZ Co.?"

Step 2: Distill the brand message to values instead of losses.

*Now take those answers and cross reference them with performance reviews. What do you find?
*Are your low performers are telling you they love free soft drinks in the break rooms and the 40 hour work weeks. Is your brand mistaking this for "work/life balance" in your message and therefore attracting low performers?
*Are your top performers telling you they love the challenging work and opportunity for advancement? Is your brand messaging inclusive of these aspects of your culture or are you afriad this message will scare people off?
*Adjust your employer brand message attract the top 1/3 of your performers (based on what they are telling you), not the masses.

Step 3: Get it out there.

*Once you are confident your brand message is targeted at the TOP performers in your company you are ready to get the word out.
*Many people confuse "branding" with "advertising" and they are not the same. Your brand is a living thing, your company's DNA and you can't create an advertising campaign to get the word out, your employees need to be getting it out.
*Corporate blogs, The Vault, Facebook, Linkedin etc. It's a social networking world and if your top performers are getting the viral word out that your company is a great place to grow and expand yourself the message is more believable than if your marketing department puts it out.
*What do you think? Have we Stress Tested our employment brand via the McKinsey description?

"to identify, proactively, the employer brand messages in use by our company, using competency models and employee feedback to project future human capital attraction rates with a focus on quality under different messaging scenarios."

Hey it's Friday, what else do you have to think about this weekend?

Cheers!