Branding campaigns primarily focus on getting their products and services out into the world. They build a brand around it and present it as the image they want the people to see. But an image isn’t just about what the company sells. In a modern connected world, the competitive market tells that a strong employer brand can be just as valuable.
Branding experts design Employer Branding to present your business as a leading establishment for job satisfaction and career opportunities. Competition and the discourse about employers today present a challenge to rising business owners, but it doesn’t have to be. With this guide, we will tell you the things we do to show your employer value proposition and image in a positive way that boosts your business growth.
Let’s have a look, shall we?
What is Employer Branding?
Employer reputation will always exist, whether you work on it or not. If left untouched, negative perception can permeate your company's reputation and image, even if unintended. This is where employer branding comes in - a set of strategies designed to highlight those that best represent you as a good employer. It communicates how a business’s culture, values, mission, and goals align with those seeking employment. Moreover, effective employer branding also affects how current and future employees perceive their company.
For example, one of the most sought-after jobs for computer scientists, software engineers, and other tech workers is working under Google. Google’s working environment in ‘Googleplex’ is a place of comfort in which luxuries like food, amenities, and other employee benefits are available to those who work in Google. The 2013 movie “Internship” can be considered the company’s branding campaign to attract top talent in the tech industry.
Why is Employer Branding Important?
It helps you stand out from the crowd. Highly skilled job seekers have more comprehensive options and often want something more than just a job—a great experience. An effective and powerful employer brand gives them something to look forward to if they come to work for you by highlighting the best aspects of working at your company.
What are the benefits of Employer Branding
Employer branding has several benefits for businesses. Here are just a few:
Top-tier Talent Acquisition
Picture this: a veteran tech expert in a high-demand field decides to quit her job and turns to her laptop to find the next step for her career. She then searches for the ‘top’ and ‘best’ companies to work with. Then, she saw the reviews and how people talked about you as an employer on how you treat your employees well. Since she knows that her field of expertise is in high demand, so she has more options.
When you have top quality applicants and a strong employer brand, your name will be at the top of her list. You can earn the trust of skilled and highly demanded job seekers when they know that they’ll be taken care of in the workplace and you embody the company values and principles that they believe in.
Boost Employee Satisfaction
An strong employer brand doesn’t just work for top talent acquisition; it also convinces them to stay working with you. If your skilled employees recognize that your company is an excellent place as a learning and working environment, their reviews can show potential candidates that working with you is a privilege. Moreover, a better workplace atmosphere and satisfied employees translates to better productivity, further boosting your company's growth in a competitive market.
Better Company reputation
The current discourse on employer-employee relationships should tell you that your own reputation, as an employer is a more significant investment than ever. With better access to information, clients don’t just prospect for the companies' services but also for how employees are treated. This is apparent to clients with particular advocacy who only want to associate themselves with companies that best embody their values and principles.
Effective corporate communications
Employer branding strategies create trust from existing employees, clients, and job seekers, thus making them more perceptive to corporate communications and company news, thus having a stronger brand's reach. A positive employer brand image ensures that the message you say to people is genuine and consistent with the values you believe in as an employer.
Brand Savings
Seeking top talents for your company is a pretty hefty investment. It can involve investment in job campaigns, marketing costs, competitive salaries, and other benefits. But with a strong employer brand, you can bypass some of these requirements when people know you offer more than just better pay. Skilled job seekers can forgo higher salaries when they know your company provides a workplace they can be proud of. Things like creative environment, learning opportunities, and career and professional development are the other things that job seekers look for, and the employer branding process will experts take note of these factors.
Better Brand Perception
Employer branding can also affect the brand health and the company as a whole. Customers look highly to those brands known to care for their employees properly. People prefer to choose the things that best represent themselves as a person, and that also includes buying products and services.
Referral Advantage
Strong employer brand can also help businesses get better referrals and recommendations from their current employees. When people are happy with their workplace, they are more likely to recommend it to their friends and family, which can help businesses attract more top talent, thus saving hiring coo.
Diverse Workspace
Finally, building employer branding helps businesses create a diverse workplace. Job candidates are more willing to work in an inclusive workplace with all backgrounds and identities and know they are valued in what they can do, not in what they are. A diverse workplace also offers a positive brand image, and more people, clients, and job seekers would like to be associated with it.
How to Build Your Employer Branding
A strong employer branding strategy will help you attract the best talents and build a positive reputation as an employer in the competitive market. Here are some tips on how to create an effective employer branding strategy:
Define and Develop Your Employer Value Proposition
The first thing to do is define your target audience. Ask yourself: what are the things a job seeker is looking for? Take note not just of the obvious things like a high salary, good working conditions, and employee benefits but also of other things like learning opportunities, career development, inclusivity, and strong company culture. Wages and the workplace can be taken care of by your experts, but the things you should work for as a business owner are your employer value proposition. What are the values that you can commit to the company? What statement can you present to the market as something that only you can offer as a company? Do you think strongly about a particular advocacy? Do you seek to revolutionize an aspect of the working environment or company culture? Do you want to lead a closer employer-employee relationship in the corporate world? The choice is yours, but when you do so, you must commit to it and be consistent. You also have to ensure that your positioning is attainable and not fail the expectation of other people.
Conduct an Employer Brand Audit
After you have built your value proposition, do an audit for the company. This can be done in three ways:
- Surveys from your Employees
- Reviews from Job Listing Sites
- Social Media
Having multiple approaches to your employee feedback audit can create more compelling results, as you have something to compare with. Also, encourage your employees to be honest, even if they see your company's workplace negatively. Remember, a key consideration to this is to evaluate the value proposition that you just made if it is consistent with the actual environment that your employees are working in. Ask questions like: What would you see yourself after a year? Would you recommend this company to a relative or a friend? Does the company hold to its values?
Build Engagement with Current Employees
The employer-employee relationship shouldn’t have to be just a transactional relationship; it's a way for you to build a community within your company. To produce engagement with your employees, you must first earn their trust. The first thing to do is to refine your employer's brand messaging. Keep the language clear and simple; people with different backgrounds can understand it. Keep it consistent when you spread it in multiple channels. The second is to take pride in the team you have built. Encourage your employees to update their online professional profiles and define their own employee value proposition. Have them speak in events, panels, and forums about their work experience and their expertise in their field. And if your employees don’t feel skilled enough, implement learning opportunities to further their careers. You can save hiring costs of looking for a job seeker to fill a slot when you can encourage someone within your team to do it instead.
Employ blogs, videos, and photos, to tell your company story
For employer branding experts, another way to showcase your company story is through multiple channels online. Leverage your experience and story through forms like a group photo of your company in a team-building event, a blog told from an employee’s perspective when the company went public in the stock exchange, or a video of a person who wants to tell the story of their own perspective about the company culture. It doesn’t have to be dramatic, but it has to be genuine. And you don’t have to tell the story yourself because people trust your employer’s account more if it is said by the people that work with you.
Cultivate a strong onboarding process
The first 90 days for new hires will give a lasting impression of how you run your company. The process must be smooth, and your latest employees must be adequately trained and oriented to many aspects of your company. It shouldn’t be about their responsibility, but it has to be a holistic approach - the corporate culture, community introductions, employee engagement, and the company's goals.
Create strong diversity and inclusion initiatives
Finally, a strong employer branding strategy depends on the diversity of its workforce. Community-building is critical, and building your company's values and inclusive initiatives opens up a more comprehensive range of opportunities, opinions, and perspectives on how to grow your business effectively. Many job seekers are keen to apply for jobs at companies committed to diversity and inclusion, and you can hire highly skilled top talents from just any background. You have to open your doors and welcome them.
Final Thoughts
Employer branding is a critical part of any successful business that should not be overlooked. A strong employer brand will allow you to build credibility in the job market, attract top talent, motivate your new employees well, reduce hiring costs, and have a low turnover rate. It will also help create an environment where morale among quality employees is high, and everyone cooperates more coherently towards common goals.
Start your employer branding strategy today and reap its rewards! Employer branding is where the future of business lies – invest in it now and be ready for what comes next. With creativity and dedication, you can develop a powerful image of yourself as an employer that will yield great success! You can visit our website for more information on skyrocketing your employer branding efforts and strategy.
