Employer Branding and Diversity in Organizations: Reality or Discourse?

Abstract

The aim of the work was to analyse the perception of employees regarding organizational performance regarding the management of the employer brand and the issue of diversity, especially to identify the real effectiveness of the actions disclosed. The theoretical framework encompassed discussions about employer brand management and the issue of diversity, as well as false discourse aimed at the social cause (bluewashing) and diversity (diversity washing). With a qualitative approach, two focus groups were carried out, the first focused on internship employment (composed of seven young university students) and the second focused on permanent employment, under the CLT regime (with eight participants). The general perception was the importance of employer brand management practices and the issue of diversity, both for employees and organizations. Despite this, there is a general distrust in relation to these disclosures, given the little effective support, resulting in the practices of bluewashing and diversity washing. The study contributes by intertwining hitherto unrelated themes, doing so especially from the perspective of the main interested party and target audience for the actions in question: the employees themselves.