Building Your Employer Brand | Why it matters & where to begin
Gone are the days where the reputation of your business lies in the experience and service that you provide to your clients. For your company to remain competitive, it is more important than ever to have a holistic brand.
“A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another.” – Seth Godin
What is an employer brand?
An employer brand is what your business is known for as an employer. The process of employer branding involves every activity that you do to position your business as an employer of choice throughout the employee lifecycle.
Here is a quick checklist of where your candidates might interact with your employer brand:
- Job advertisements
- Website ‘Careers’ page
- Company LinkedIn profile
- Social media channels
- Employer reviews (Glassdoor, Seek, Indeed)
- Internal HR team and hiring managers
- Current and past team members (for example: this could be via LinkedIn or in-person at events)
- Recruitment process
Don’t forget! When it comes to your current and past team members, they too have received an understanding of your employer brand at a deeper level through:
- How well expectations were managed and delivered beyond the recruitment process (continuing through their onboarding process)
- How they have experienced your company culture
- The benefits provided within their role (e.g. flexibility, opportunities for growth)
- Internal initiatives (e.g. social and cultural events, company clubs, corporate social responsibility activities)
- The way your organisation responds to change and challenge
- Your internal communications (e.g company-wide emails, internal/external newsletters)
- Company social channels
As your business grows, your employer brand will evolve. To better understand where your company EVP currently stands, a great question to ask your current team is; “How would you describe what is it like working at this company?”
Employer branding checklist:
- Find out where your candidates and team members learn more about your business (e.g. Website, LinkedIn, Instagram, Glassdoor)
- Ensure your Careers page is up to date and accurately reflects the culture of your business
- Send out a survey after your new starter complete’s their first week to seek feedback on their candidate experience, their onboarding experience and whether or not their expectations have been met so far (and to find out if they have any questions)
- Have a content plan in mind for social media where you can consistently showcase elements of what your existing team members enjoy at work and what your candidates will be interested in (everyone love’s a fun workplace)
Bringing your Employee Value Proposition (newly named, EVP! for those that love an acronym) to life with employer branding is the key to increasing your brand presence and brand awareness by connecting with your talent audience.
What is an Employer Value Proposition (EVP)?
Whilst an Employer Brand acts as a calling card that candidates and team members can view and share with their peers. An EVP can act as a north star that guides your employer branding activities.
The role that an EVP and employer brand plays across your employee lifecycle is pivotal. Note: Often, your EVP is why your prospective candidates are interested in working with your company. It is also why current team members choose to continue growing their careers with you.
In fact, in a study conducted by LinkedIn, it has been determined that employer branding activities make both recruitment and retention easier (and cheaper) including:
- 28% reduction in an organisation’s turnover
- 50% reduction in cost per hire
- 50% more qualified applicants
- 1-2x faster time to hire
Whilst similar to how your Executive Team might determine your products/services unique selling points (USP), at its core an EVP highlights ‘Why work with us’ to your talent pipeline at every stage of their journey.
An EVP is built around three key areas: attraction, engagement and retention.
When designing or revising your EVP, it’s important to consider these five things:
- What is it like to work with you? Why do people stay? (e.g. opportunities for growth, great team structure and environment). You can find this data by reviewing key trends in culture pulse or employee engagement surveys, hosting focus groups as well as entry and exit interviews.
- What initiatives will raise employee engagement and bring out the best from your team?
- How do these initiatives impact your team members at different points in their career journey (graduates, professionals, seniors)?
- How does our current team member live out our cultural values?
- How do our team members play a role in achieving our mission and vision as a business?
According to research gathered by Link Humans, a well-executed EVP can increase the likelihood of employees acting as sponsors from an average of 24% to 47%. Advocacy is essential as your current and former team members will be the ones flying the flag for your employer brand.
Defining your EVP will solidify what distinguishes your business from competitors. It is an opportunity to further highlight to the market why your business is a great workplace and will create increased pathways to attract new candidates aligned with your brand’s cultural values.
Well, with that all said, it’s now time to create or refresh your employer brand by design rather than by default.
Download our full guide to Building Your Employer Brand here.
If you’re interested in chatting further about how you can attract, retain and engage top digital talent, get in touch with the team at Hunt & Co.
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