Why and how to build an employer brand?
In the modern world where businesses are so competitive and the labour market is so tight, it’s imperative that companies build their employer brand. Becoming an “employer of choice” not only helps attract high-performing candidates but also strengthens employee retention. Consequently, if the company attracts more suitable candidates it reduces recruiting costs and saves time.
There can be cases when employers work hard, try to take care of their people when and where they can, and generally, have good intentions to keep their staff more or less happy at work but miss expressing their goodwill and building their employer brand. If a company’s values, culture, purpose, and intentions are not well-communicated people would simply not know all this, or would just have assumptions. If this communication is clear and various channels are used to facilitate it, the company’s staff and the wider audience would receive a clear image of the company and would be more open to collaborating or being part of this organisation.
A strong employer brand can empower employee engagement – it can help create a positive work environment that fosters collaboration, innovation, and high performance. Improving employer brand must be applied in all people practices starting with advertising jobs, induction process, performance management, reward, and up until exit meetings.
Employer brand is all about companies reputation as an employer. This reputation arises from different employee experiences, from what they feel about the company’s values, culture, and work environment. It also comes from outside the company, for example, what potential candidates may think about this organisation or how the company is seen among its competitors in the industry. Occasionally, throughout my HR career, I had to experience recruitment difficulties when recruiting staff and I wished that the company’s employer brand and reputation were better to prevent it.
It's important that management clearly defines what its employer brand should look like, observe its current state and determine relevant practices and activities to implement for achieving it.
Employer branding is a strategic process that involves building a positive image of the organisation as an employer. There could be examples when a company has good people practices in place but it may not be visible from outside the company because the “employer of choice” image hasn’t been highlighted. Promoting this image can be reached through various channels, such as job postings, career websites, social media, and employee referral programs. The purpose here is to create a compelling and authentic brand that resonates with potential candidates and current employees, and that accurately represents the organisation's values, culture, and mission. It’s important to understand the current trends, and current people’s values and to understand what would each age generation group be attracted by.
So what activities or people practices can an employer implement to build its employer value proposition and improve its employer brand? Here is a little guidance on the activities that can be implemented for building an employer brand (these actions would differ from company to company and please focus on quality, not quantity here):
1. Start by defining the company’s employer brand
What makes this company unique and why people would want to work here? Consider the company's values, culture, and mission, and how these factors contribute to the employee experience.
2. Create a strong and positive company culture
Company culture is a vital element of an employer brand. Create a positive work environment that fosters collaboration, creativity, and innovation. This can help you attract and retain top talent who share your company values and are passionate about what you do. Remember to communicate the company’s culture, values and mission in various ways such as including them in policies, guidelines, staff newsletters, induction packs, staff meetings, posters, the company’s website, social media, job adverts, etc.
3. Collaborate with other departments
The HR should collaborate with the company’s marketing department to gain some brand development ideas and strategies. Such departments as public relations and IT communication can also be approached to set up the implementation of actions.
4. Continuously monitor, measure and improve the company’s employer brand perception
This can help identify areas where the company needs to improve and what actions to take to strengthen its employer brand over time.
To be able to measure the employer brand perception the company should gather feedback from employees and job candidates through employee surveys, online reviews, and other feedback channels. Also, the company can track the number of likes, shares, followers and the number of positive and negative comments to see the dynamic of how the employer brand improves through social media and online review platforms such as Glassdoor, Indeed, etc. Another way of tracking employer reputation is counting the number of job applications received – it would serve as a progress indicator.
5. Develop the company’s careers page
If the company hasn’t done it yet, it must consider developing the career page on its official website. If there are specialists who recognise the company very well and are willing to apply for a job or express their interest they would go straight to the company’s website to search for vacancies. There they can find information about the company’s great culture and values and get more attracted to apply.
6. Use storytelling and encourage employee advocacy
Some employers use real employee stories and examples to bring the brand to life. It shows what it's like to work for the company and gives candidates a glimpse into the employee experience and it's more likely that it gives them good feelings about working there. Employers usually highlight the stories on their official websites in the career section or on their social media.
The company may decide to write blog articles about positive people practices they value and carry out at the company, for example, work-life balance, women in leadership, embracing diversity to stimulate innovation or implementing early talent programmes such as apprenticeships, internships and work experience placements.
Companies also encourage their employees to become brand advocates by sharing their positive experiences working for the company on personal social media and other channels using relevant hashtags.
7. Monitor and respond to negative reviews
Once the company has been exposed online there is always a chance to receive negative comments from unhappy individuals so always monitor the online reviews. A good thing is that this is an opportunity to detect the company’s flaws, investigate and correct them and also an opportunity to express empathy or apologise (depending on the case) and reply in a diplomatic way that the company is willing to learn from the mistake and is working hard to improve the issue.
8. Create a positive candidate experience
It’s important to mention that not only members of staff but also all companies' candidates potentially play a big part in the employer's brand. The candidates must be given a positive candidate experience from the moment a candidate applies for a job to the moment they are hired or regretted. This can help build a positive reputation and encourage candidates to refer others to the company.
9. Use partnerships and collaborations
To reach a wider audience the companies can choose to collaborate with other organisations, influencers, and industry leaders to help spread the word about the company’s great reputation.
10. Invest in employee development
When companies invest in their employees by providing opportunities for learning and development they create a culture of growth and development, where employees feel valued and invested in. Not only it’s beneficial for current members of staff, but it also helps attract top talent who are looking for opportunities to grow and advance their careers.
11. Improve and promote diversity and inclusion
If employers make diversity and inclusion a priority in their companies’ culture and hiring practices they get more chances to attract and retain top talent from diverse backgrounds and create a more inclusive and welcoming work environment.
Once the company’s purpose, values and culture have been identified, clearly communicated and implemented into people practices, and once positive actions have been taken to improve the employer branding the employer would want to measure the input/effort that’s been made. What to look for to see the ROI (return on investment) and to check whether the employer branding has evolved in the right direction? The employer may decide to look at the following metrics:
- employee engagement and retention rate
- the number of people that have viewed the employer branding content on online platforms (Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Glassdoor, Indeed, Google, YouTube, etc.)
- the number of online positive feedback, especially on the websites such as Glassdoor, Indeed, Google reviews, etc.
- the number of job applications and cost per hire
- check the company’s popularity through the Google Trends tool which also can provide a comparison between competitors
To summarise, building and maintaining a strong employer brand is essential for companies that want to attract and retain top talent, build a positive reputation, and differentiate themselves from their competitors. In essence, all employers’ good intentions have to be identified, articulated and constantly well-communicated to build trust, loyalty, collaboration, and successful relationships within the organisation and outside it. Good luck!
Yours
Tanya from PeopleMindedHR
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