What is employer branding?
The process of managing and influencing your employer brand among job seekers, employees, and key stakeholders is known as employer branding. It includes everything you do to make your company a desirable place to work. Simply put, its what potential employees and current employees think about you. When youre not around, its what they tell their friends and relatives.
Your employer brand is a valuable asset that must be nurtured regularly.
To look at it another way, employer branding is how you market your organization to potential employees and current employees. The stronger your employer branding is, the more top talent youll be able to attract. A good employer brand might also assist you in retaining top staff.
Similar to how a corporate brand works, an employer brand encompasses the markets perception of the company as an employer and also represents your promise (or employee value proposition) to employees in exchange for their knowledge, skills, and abilities, as well as connections (which offers a value proposition to customers, defining products or services in the marketplace).
The brand must be visible to candidates throughout the recruitment process, but it must also inform the organizations people management approach to be effective. It can, for example, affect how you approach a situation.
Its vital that the employer brand restates the companys ideals and reflects employees actual experiences to deliver benefits.
The difference between employer branding and EVP
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Simply put, your EVP is the promise you make to your staff in exchange for their loyalty. It is the combination of all advantages and prizes received by employees from the company.
Your employer brand, on the other side, is the public face of your organization as a possible employer. Whenever anyone asks what its like to work for Company X or Y, its the sum of all the various things people think. The EVP is sometimes referred to as an organizations "Why," while your employer brand is referred to as the "How" and "What."
The Importance of Employer Branding
Its impossible to overestimate the significance of employer branding. A strong employer brand conveys that the company is a good employer and a fantastic place to work. The employer brand impacts new employee recruitment, current employee retention and engagement, and the organizations overall market perception.
When the first internet job boards were developed in the mid-1990s, employees had access to millions of prospects around the country almost instantly. The workforce became more fluid than it had ever been, and the days of remaining with one employer for the long haul were long gone.
Employers who were proactive in their approach to recruiting and maintaining top talent adapted to this transition (some faster than others) and began to take proactive efforts toward attracting and retaining top talent. Still, thousands of businesses continue to miss out on the benefits of employer branding.
And the advantages are substantial.
The following are some statistics on the impact of employer branding:
- A good employer brand can reduce turnover rates by 28% and cut your costs-per-hire by half. Additionally, 75% of active job seekers are likely to apply to a job if the employer actively manages its employer brand.
- When looking for new job prospects, 95% of candidates believe a companys reputation to be important. (source).
- 66% of job applicants want to learn about your companys culture and principles. (source).
- Even if they were unemployed, 69 percent of applicants would reject an offer from a company with a terrible employer brand. (source).
- To attract top personnel, companies with a poor employer brand must offer a minimum of a 10% wage rise. (source).
- f a company has a good employer brand, 40% of passive candidates would accept a new position without a pay increase. (source).
- Up to 23% of the 18-34-year-old workforce would accept a pay decrease in exchange for the chance to work for a company with a positive employer brand. (source).
- Only 49% of employees would recommend their employer to a friend(source).
How to Build an Employer Brand
Step 1: Conduct an Employer Brand Audit
First and foremost, examine everything you say to candidates and employees that may impact their perception of the company.
The next step is to gather feedback from candidates and employees. Remember that the goal is to learn how they truly feel about the company, so ask questions that will yield useful information.
Step 2: Craft Your Employee Value Proposition
Youre ready to craft your employee value proposition using the information gathered during the employer brand audit (EVP).
The EVP is the \"people contract\" between a company, its employees, and the talent it seeks to hire. It provides answers to two key questions:
- What an individual employee or candidate can expect from the company; and
- What the company expects of the individual employee or candidate.
Step 3: Implement Your Employer Branding Strategy
You should now be prepared to deliver your message to the public. But which channels are the most crucial? Employer branding allows you to control and positively change the conversation about your company, resulting in increased talent acquisition and retention. Employer branding is, at its most basic level, how you market your organization to job seekers and what workers say about it as a place to work. There are many ways to market your employer brand, but we recommend starting with the easiest to implement.
- Job Descriptions - While job descriptions may not appear to be the best location to show off your personality, they are generally the first point of contact for job seekers, so make sure they represent your intended employer brand.
- Career Page - One of the most significant touchpoints with potential applicants is your career page, which serves as the cornerstone of your employer branding materials. Spend some time dialing in compelling images or video, staff testimonials, your fundamental principles, and more to persuade prospects that youre the place to be.
- Online Reviews - Almost every job seeker reads employer evaluations before applying for a position, and finding a poor review can put them off. While you cant control anonymous reviews, you can respond to them, which can significantly impact how people perceive you. Pay attention to what others are saying about you, and dont be afraid to reply. 62 percent of job seekers say their opinion of a firm improved after seeing it respond to a negative review, so pay attention and dont be afraid to respond.
- Candidate Experience - If youre lucky enough to get a terrific applicant to apply, youll meet them offline at some time. Whether its an initial phone interview or an in-person interview, the candidates experience must align with your employer brand, or youll almost certainly lose them.
Step 4: Leverage current employees
When job seekers want to learn more about your companys employer brand, theyll want to hear from and see actual employees. Use your employees to your advantage by conducting staff interviews or testimonials to post on your website.
You might also invite employees to post on their social media accounts when your company holds a fun giveaway or goes on a company outing. For example, you could organize a Women in Tech event with a panel discussion. After that, all you have to do is ask your employees to post a photo on Instagram or Facebook using the hashtag youve created. This is a fun but effective way for your employees to spread the word about your companys culture to their networks.
Step 5: Cultivate a strong onboarding process
Onboarding is a new hires first experience, and a poor first impression can have serious consequences. Those who have had a bad onboarding experience are twice as likely to look for another job.
Finally, a good onboarding process is a key to establishing a great corporate brand image. Its vital to get people motivated and enthusiastic about their jobs and teams right away. You can ensure a smooth transition, lower attrition rates, and more productive teams by providing new employees with the instructions and resources they need to succeed in their roles.
Step 6: Offer learning and development opportunities
People quit their employment for various reasons in 2018, the most common of which was boredom and a desire for a new challenge. This should be a relatively simple fix in the end.
Allowing employees to pursue learning opportunities and gain proficiency in new skills demonstrates your companys commitment to continuous improvement and learning. Furthermore, by challenging your employees, you ensure that they wont become bored in their jobs, leading to higher employee retention.
Furthermore, as they gain new skills, they become more valuable employees for your business.
Step 7: Use video, blog posts, photos, and slideshows to tell your company story
You don't just communicate your message through one channel when you're implementing a strategy to improve the markets perception of your product or service. Instead, you use movies, images, slideshows, blogs, and other kinds of communication to guarantee that your message reaches the widest possible audience on whatever platform they prefer.
Similarly, you must tell your company's story with high-quality videos, photos, and text. Consider including employee interviews on your employment website, as well as a Slideshare made by your CEO on the About Us page. Plus, when crafting your social media channel branding like banners on YouTube, ensure it's visually appealing and engaging to capture the attention of your audience.
Examples of companies with good employer branding
1. Starbucks
Starbucks does a superb job of fostering a strong sense of community among its employees. They refer to present employees as partners, for example, instilling pride in each person. Starbucks also established @StarbucksJobs Instagram and Twitter accounts, which they utilize to promote their employer brand and communicate with job searchers.
Starbucks uses its social media pages to share its company mission, congratulate staff on college graduations, and share personal employee tales rather than talking about their drinks. The corporation also uses the platforms to show its commitment to diversity and inclusion.
2. Google
Its perhaps not surprising to see Google on a list like this, given that its frequently cited as having the worlds strongest Employer Brand.
The tech behemoth has nailed talent attraction, with over 3 million high-quality applications received each year! Only 7000 people are hired, giving applicants a 0.2 percent chance of being hired.
3. Heineken
The Heineken brewing companys founders did not attain success overnight, and they are well aware that they must work hard to maintain their international reputation.
Thats why, in 2016, they launched their now-famous \"Go Places\" campaign, which was refreshed in 2019 with \"Go Places 2.0.\" It consists of a series of videos that tell the stories of contemporary Heineken employees in various roles and locations. The campaigns goal and effect were to demonstrate that their brand centers on their employees personalities and ambitions.
The outcomes demonstrate that this employer branding strategy was more than just a catchy title. According to Marketing Week, Heineken saw a 56% increase in applications during its 2016 campaign.
4. LOREAL
This case study shows how a corporation used social proof to its advantage. LOreal didnt simply rejoice in reaching 300,000 followers; they converted it into a significant social media recruiting opportunity. LOreal capitalized on this watershed event (becoming one of the worlds most engaging employment channels) and launched the \"Are You IN\" campaign, recognizing that 70% of their LinkedIn page followers were interested in job prospects. They selected their brand advocates during the campaign and asked them to share their LOreal stories. As a result, they developed a long-term social media marketing approach focusing on engaging its most ardent fans.
Their YouTube channel is filled with several short videos that paint the picture of being a LOreal employee using real employees.
5. IBM
Another purportedly old tech giant, IBM, has reinvented itself for employees seeking a more relaxed, informal work environment. Their career pages not only address workers at all stages of their employment, but they also include interesting, often exciting films about the work they do.
6. GE
General Electric (GE) is one of the worlds oldest corporations (they were one of the 12 companies listed when the Dow Jones was formed in 1896). They're certainly not the first corporation that comes to mind when making a funny series of advertisements to promote their Employer Brand.
Summary
Crafting a successful employer brand, like any branding, is all about effective storytelling. Its all about how you want your company to be regarded in the marketplace and how you may use a precise message to attract the right prospects. But its also about living that tale out. In a world of social media and user-generated feedback, where employers arent always in full control of their reputation, satisfied employees are your loudest cheerleaders.
The good thing is that organizations can improve their employer branding strategy to attract, recruit, and retain the best individuals by making even minor changes.