The Role of CEO and Top Management in Forming an HR Brand
Who Sponsors, Who Implements: Dividing Responsibility
The main confusion in most companies is the mixing of roles. The HR department tries to 'sell' the employer brand that no one in the business has approved or supported in practice. The HR brand strategy requires the involvement of several functions, and the role of each should be formally defined, not kept in mind.
| Role | Who is responsible | What It Does |
|---|---|---|
| Sponsor and Customer of the Meaning | CEO and Top Management | Endorses the EVP as part of the business strategy, personally conveys values, makes decisions that do not contradict the stated brand |
| Architect of the System | HRD, HRBP | Translates the strategy into processes: onboarding, evaluation, training, feedback system |
| Voice and Packaging | Employer branding, internal communications, marketing | Formulates messages, manages channels, ensures consistency between external and internal image |
| Daily Implementation | Line Managers | Transform declarations into concrete behavior: feedback, recognition, fair distribution of tasks |
| Measurement | HR analytics, C&B, talent management | Tracks eNPS, turnover, response to vacancies, brand recognition |
The gap usually occurs between the second and fourth levels: the strategy is written beautifully, but the line manager heard about it only once at a company meeting. Without CEO involvement in controlling this gap — it will never close, because HRD does not have administrative weight to push for behavioral changes among production directors or sales department heads.
What the leader actually does, not what he says
Employees do not read the mission on the website, but rather the behavior of the leader in specific situations. This is what actually forms the internal HR brand:
- How does the CEO react to an employee's mistake — through public humiliation or a constructive one-on-one conversation
- Does top management participate in the adaptation of new employees at least symbolically — through a welcome letter, a meeting in the first week
- Do the decisions regarding bonuses and promotions align with the stated criteria of meritocracy
- How does the company communicate layoffs — in advance and honestly, or do employees learn about them from the news
- Does leadership allocate budget and time for training, or does L&D exist only in presentations for candidates
One toxic management style of a line director cancels out the work of the entire employer branding team — 75% of candidates review employer reviews and reputation before submitting an application, and one loud negative case in social media weighs more than ten corporate posts about values.
The personal brand of the CEO is not the same as the company's HR brand
Here, these concepts are often confused. The personal brand of the CEO is recognition, expertise, public speaking, media presence. It enhances trust in the company, but does not replace systematic employer branding work.
The difference manifests in stability. If a CEO leaves or changes their rhetoric, and the HR processes are not well-structured, the employer brand collapses along with the leader's personal authority. This works in reverse as well: a strong corporate HR brand, built on real practices — transparent pay, clear career tracks, honest feedback — withstands leadership changes without losses, because it is based not on the charisma of one person, but on institutions.
The optimal combination is when the CEO's personal brand works as an amplifier, not as the sole carrier of the promise. For example, at Avito, 34% of job seekers choosing between equal offers prefer a company whose values align with their own — and this decision is made based on the entire set of signals, not just the personality of the top executive.
Case: how a change in management philosophy reduced turnover fivefold
In one manufacturing company, staff turnover remained at 42% — a figure typical for industries with harsh working conditions and weak retention systems. The turning point did not occur after launching a new slogan or a video about corporate culture, but after the CEO personally reevaluated the approach to human resources as an asset, not as an expense.
Concrete steps were practical: they established a system of mentorship for new hires during the first three months, introduced regular meetings between shift supervisors and employees, and changed the criteria for evaluating line managers — now, in addition to productivity, team retention is also taken into account. Over two years, turnover dropped to 8%.
It is telling that none of these steps constituted a communication campaign. These were management decisions made at the CEO level and communicated through the KPI system to line managers — the very linkage that is broken in most companies.
What happens when top management is not involved
The lack of involvement of leadership in HR branding does not appear as a dramatic failure — it manifests slowly, through metrics that decline unnoticed to those who do not monitor them specifically.
- The gap between the stated EVP and the actual employee experience is growing — this is reflected in the decline of eNPS and the rise of negative reviews on career sites.
- Conversion rates drop from application to offer and from offer to job start — candidates 'fall away' after interviews with real managers if their behavior does not match the promises on the website.
- Employee turnover increases in the first three to six months — a period when a new employee is most sensitive to the gap between promises and reality
- Current employees are less willing to recommend the company — a metric that directly correlates with the employer brand's recognition in the market
A contrasting example is Severstal, where launching a new HR branding strategy with genuine leadership engagement raised brand attractiveness from 22% to 50%, and willingness to respond to job vacancies — from 8% to 34%. The difference is achieved not by rewriting texts on the career site, but by changing what lies behind those texts.
How to integrate HR branding into the daily work of leaders at all levels
Strategic declarations by CEOs are useless without translating them into specific rituals at every level of management. This is especially noticeable in complex situations — reorganizations, closing departments, transitioning to remote work — where the cost of communication error is at its maximum.
- The CEO formulates a principle: for example, 'we inform employees of bad news before the market' — and sticks to it even when it is inconvenient.
- Functional directors translate the principle into procedure: who, when, and in what sequence informs people when closing a site or laying off staff.
- Line managers conduct personal conversations with each directly affected employee before a general mailing — people should not learn about their fate from a general letter.
- HR documents agreements in writing: payment timelines, assistance with employment, conditions for remaining employees — and keeps management by the hand in fulfilling promises.
- After an event, the analytics team measures the effect — through surveys of former employees, reviews on career sites, changes in response to job vacancies in the region.
Companies that closed production and did not lose their employer reputation acted exactly this way: a difficult decision was presented not as the fault of a specific person or an anonymous business necessity, but as an honest conversation about reasons and company obligations to people. The difference between 'we were all deceived' and 'it's hard, but we treated us humanely' in reviews of former employees — this is the price of management involvement in the HR brand, expressed not in slogans, but in specific managerial decisions.
Who Sponsors, Who Implements: Dividing Responsibility
The main confusion in most companies is the mixing of roles. The HR department tries to 'sell' the employer brand that no one in the business has approved or supported in practice. The HR brand strategy requires the involvement of several functions, and the role of each should be formally defined, not kept in mind.
| Role | Who is responsible | What It Does |
|---|---|---|
| Sponsor and Customer of the Meaning | CEO and Top Management | Endorses the EVP as part of the business strategy, personally conveys values, makes decisions that do not contradict the stated brand |
| Architect of the System | HRD, HRBP | Translates the strategy into processes: onboarding, evaluation, training, feedback system |
| Voice and Packaging | Employer branding, internal communications, marketing | Formulates messages, manages channels, ensures consistency between external and internal image |
| Daily Implementation | Line Managers | Transform declarations into concrete behavior: feedback, recognition, fair distribution of tasks |
| Measurement | HR analytics, C&B, talent management | Tracks eNPS, turnover, response to vacancies, brand recognition |
The gap usually occurs between the second and fourth levels: the strategy is written beautifully, but the line manager heard about it only once at a company meeting. Without CEO involvement in controlling this gap — it will never close, because HRD does not have administrative weight to push for behavioral changes among production directors or sales department heads.
What the leader actually does, not what he says
Employees do not read the mission on the website, but rather the behavior of the leader in specific situations. This is what actually forms the internal HR brand:
- How does the CEO react to an employee's mistake — through public humiliation or a constructive one-on-one conversation
- Does top management participate in the adaptation of new employees at least symbolically — through a welcome letter, a meeting in the first week
- Do the decisions regarding bonuses and promotions align with the stated criteria of meritocracy
- How does the company communicate layoffs — in advance and honestly, or do employees learn about them from the news
- Does leadership allocate budget and time for training, or does L&D exist only in presentations for candidates
One toxic management style of a line director cancels out the work of the entire employer branding team — 75% of candidates review employer reviews and reputation before submitting an application, and one loud negative case in social media weighs more than ten corporate posts about values.
The personal brand of the CEO is not the same as the company's HR brand
Here, these concepts are often confused. The personal brand of the CEO is recognition, expertise, public speaking, media presence. It enhances trust in the company, but does not replace systematic employer branding work.
The difference manifests in stability. If a CEO leaves or changes their rhetoric, and the HR processes are not well-structured, the employer brand collapses along with the leader's personal authority. This works in reverse as well: a strong corporate HR brand, built on real practices — transparent pay, clear career tracks, honest feedback — withstands leadership changes without losses, because it is based not on the charisma of one person, but on institutions.
The optimal combination is when the CEO's personal brand works as an amplifier, not as the sole carrier of the promise. For example, at Avito, 34% of job seekers choosing between equal offers prefer a company whose values align with their own — and this decision is made based on the entire set of signals, not just the personality of the top executive.
Case: how a change in management philosophy reduced turnover fivefold
In one manufacturing company, staff turnover remained at 42% — a figure typical for industries with harsh working conditions and weak retention systems. The turning point did not occur after launching a new slogan or a video about corporate culture, but after the CEO personally reevaluated the approach to human resources as an asset, not as an expense.
Concrete steps were practical: they established a system of mentorship for new hires during the first three months, introduced regular meetings between shift supervisors and employees, and changed the criteria for evaluating line managers — now, in addition to productivity, team retention is also taken into account. Over two years, turnover dropped to 8%.
It is telling that none of these steps constituted a communication campaign. These were management decisions made at the CEO level and communicated through the KPI system to line managers — the very linkage that is broken in most companies.
What happens when top management is not involved
The lack of involvement of leadership in HR branding does not appear as a dramatic failure — it manifests slowly, through metrics that decline unnoticed to those who do not monitor them specifically.
- The gap between the stated EVP and the actual employee experience is growing — this is reflected in the decline of eNPS and the rise of negative reviews on career sites.
- Conversion rates drop from application to offer and from offer to job start — candidates 'fall away' after interviews with real managers if their behavior does not match the promises on the website.
- Employee turnover increases in the first three to six months — a period when a new employee is most sensitive to the gap between promises and reality
- Current employees are less willing to recommend the company — a metric that directly correlates with the employer brand's recognition in the market
A contrasting example is Severstal, where launching a new HR branding strategy with genuine leadership engagement raised brand attractiveness from 22% to 50%, and willingness to respond to job vacancies — from 8% to 34%. The difference is achieved not by rewriting texts on the career site, but by changing what lies behind those texts.
How to integrate HR branding into the daily work of leaders at all levels
Strategic declarations by CEOs are useless without translating them into specific rituals at every level of management. This is especially noticeable in complex situations — reorganizations, closing departments, transitioning to remote work — where the cost of communication error is at its maximum.
- The CEO formulates a principle: for example, 'we inform employees of bad news before the market' — and sticks to it even when it is inconvenient.
- Functional directors translate the principle into procedure: who, when, and in what sequence informs people when closing a site or laying off staff.
- Line managers conduct personal conversations with each directly affected employee before a general mailing — people should not learn about their fate from a general letter.
- HR documents agreements in writing: payment timelines, assistance with employment, conditions for remaining employees — and keeps management by the hand in fulfilling promises.
- After an event, the analytics team measures the effect — through surveys of former employees, reviews on career sites, changes in response to job vacancies in the region.
Companies that closed production and did not lose their employer reputation acted exactly this way: a difficult decision was presented not as the fault of a specific person or an anonymous business necessity, but as an honest conversation about reasons and company obligations to people. The difference between 'we were all deceived' and 'it's hard, but we treated us humanely' in reviews of former employees — this is the price of management involvement in the HR brand, expressed not in slogans, but in specific managerial decisions.
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