Employer Branding & Onboarding Manager (Talent & Culture) - Midrand

Dis-Chem Pharmacies are looking for an experienced Employer Branding & Onboarding Manager who has two main accountabilities:

Firstly, this role is accountable for shaping, articulating, and activating the organisation's employer value proposition (EVP) to position the company as the employer of choice in South Africa. This role exists to ensure that the organisation attracts, engages, and inspires talent by consistently communicating who we are, what we stand for, and what it truly means to build a career within the business. The role bridges marketing, people strategy, and talent attraction - translating organisational purpose, culture, and opportunity into compelling narratives across all channels.

Secondly, this role accountable for designing, governing, and continuously improving the end-to-end onboarding experience for all new employees across the organisation. This role exists to ensure that every new hire - regardless of role, level, or location - experiences a consistent, efficient, and human centred transition into the business, enabling them to become productive, engaged, and culturally aligned as quickly as possible. The role owns the entire onboarding lifecycle, from pre employment administration through to a structured six month induction journey, ensuring operational readiness, compliance, cultural integration, and early performance enablement.

Strategic Context In a highly competitive talent market, employer brand and onboarding are strategic business differentiators. This role ensures the organization's employment proposition is authentic, differentiated, and consistently experienced across all touchpoints, from initial attraction to full integration. Simultaneously, without a robust, well governed onboarding function, new employees can experience inconsistency, delays, and disengagement, leading to slower productivity, higher early attrition, and reputational risk. This combined role exists to eliminate these risks by transforming both employer branding and onboarding into strategic capabilities that mutually strengthen reputation.

Essential

• Grade 12 / Matric
• Degree in HRM or Similar or Degree in Marketing
• Minimum of 10 HRM Experience (HR Ops or Recruitment) or minimum of 10 years marketing experience within a corporate environment (not agency).

Advantageous

• Minimum of 3 years' experience in Employer Branding. Minimum of 3 years experience managing a corporate employee onboarding programme.

Key Accountabilities Employer Branding

1. Employer Brand Strategy & Positioning

• Own the organisation's employer brand strategy in alignment with overall brand, culture, and people strategy.
• Articulate a clear, differentiated Employer Value Proposition (EVP) that resonates across diverse talent segments.
• Ensure alignment between internal employee experience and external employer brand messaging.

1. Brand Activation & Campaign Management

• Lead the development and execution of employer branding campaigns across digital, print, and physical environments.
• Partner with Marketing and external agencies to ensure consistent messaging, tone, and visual identity.
• Translate strategic brand narratives into compelling, practical recruitment and engagement campaigns.

1. Digital & Content Ownership

• Own employer brand presence across all digital channels, including career sites, job platforms, social media, and internal storytelling platforms.
• Oversee content creation that reflects authentic employee experiences, career opportunities, and organisational culture.
• Ensure brand consistency while tailoring messaging to different talent segments (retail, distribution, head office, early careers, etc.).

1. Community, Education & Outreach Engagement

• Build and manage relationships with universities, colleges, community organisations, and other talent pipelines.
• Lead outreach initiatives that position the organisation as a long term employer of choice within local communities.
• Support early talent programmes and future workforce initiatives.

1. Cross Functional Collaboration

• Partner closely with Talent Acquisition, HR, Marketing, Communications, and Operations.
• Ensure employer branding is embedded throughout the recruitment lifecycle and onboarding journey.
• Support leaders and hiring managers with messaging and brand aligned communication tools.

1. Measurement, Insight & Continuous Improvement

• Define success metrics for employer branding initiatives (e.g. attraction metrics, engagement, brand perception).
• Analyse market trends, competitor positioning, and candidate feedback.
• Continuously refine employer brand strategy based on insight and performance data.

Onboarding

1. End to End Onboarding Governance

• Own and govern the full onboarding lifecycle from immediately after offer acceptance through the first six months of employment.
• Ensure consistent onboarding standards, processes, and experiences across all business units and locations.
• Establish clear onboarding ownership, timelines, and service level expectations.

1. Pre Employment and Day One Readiness

• Ensure all pre employment administration is completed accurately and time sously, including:
  • Payroll setup
  • Medical aid and benefit enrolment
  • System access, hardware provisioning, and security clearance
  • Compliance documentation
• Partner with HR, IT, Security, Payroll, and Operations to eliminate delays and duplication.
• Ensure new employees arrive on Day One fully enabled to work.

1. Orientation Day Experience Design

• Maintain and continuously improve a structured, engaging orientation day experience.
• Ensure orientation reflects organisational values, culture, expectations, and ways of working.
• Adapt orientation formats to suit different employee groups (retail, distribution, head office).
• Ensure consistency while allowing for operational realities across sites.

1. Six Month Induction Framework

• Maintain and continuously improve a structured six month induction journey focused on:
  • Cultural integration and behavioural alignment
  • Role clarity and capability building
  • Performance expectations and early feedback
• Partner with line managers to ensure accountability for induction activities.
• Track progress, engagement, and early performance indicators.

1. Stakeholder Management & Enablement

• Act as the central point of coordination between HR, Operations, IT, Payroll, Learning, and Line Management.
• Enable leaders and managers with tools, guidance, and expectations to support effective onboarding.
• Build strong working relationships across all levels of the organisation.

1. Continuous Improvement & Insight

• Monitor onboarding effectiveness through data, feedback, and early attrition trends.
• Identify bottlenecks, risks, and improvement opportunities.
• Use insights to continuously refine processes, content, and experiences.
• Contribute to employer brand and employee experience initiatives through onboarding excellence.

Key Measures of Success Employer Branding

• Strength and clarity of employer brand perception in the market
• Quality and volume of talent attraction aligned to business needs
• Engagement with employer brand content across channels
• Positive sentiment and recognition as an employer of choice
• Strong collaboration with recruitment and marketing functions

Onboarding

• Time to productivity for new hires
• New hire engagement and satisfaction scores
• First 6 month retention rates
• On time completion of onboarding milestones
• Reduction in onboarding related errors and rework
• Manager and stakeholder satisfaction with onboarding support

Capabilities & Experience Essential Capabilities

• Strong brand strategy and storytelling capability.
• Deep understanding of employer branding, talent attraction, and candidate experience.
• Strong operational and process design capability for complex, large scale initiatives.
• Ability to translate organizational culture into compelling external narratives and seamless internal experiences.
• Strong stakeholder management and cross functional coordination skills.
• High attention to detail with the ability to manage complexity at scale.
• Commercial mindset with creative execution capability.
• Ability to translate strategy into structured, repeatable processes.
• Comfortable working across diverse environments and employee groups.

Experience

• Proven experience in employer branding, brand management, talent marketing, HR operations, talent operations, or employee experience roles.
• Experience working with agencies and cross functional teams in large, complex, multi site, or high volume organisations.
• Exposure to change management, process optimisation, or transformation initiatives is advantageous.

Personal Attributes

• Strategic yet hands on.
• Highly organised, structured, and delivery focused.
• Creative . click apply for full job details