Employer Branding Explained…

Your product, brand, and company may bring all the customers to the yard, but if you consistently are searching for top talent and coming up empty-handed, there may be something missing from your milkshake. The missing ingredient that will attract the best of the best is employer branding.

What do your current and former employees say about working for your company? Fundamentally, employer branding is just that: your reputation in the workforce as well as among your employees.

These days flexibility, perks, and culture are as important or more important than salary for job applicants. How do candidates perceive your company as a place to work? You can produce all the revenue in the world but if you don’t have the right team behind you, you’ll never be able to scale.

Think employer branding isn’t important to your business? Think again, studies show that employer branding drives your bottom-line. LinkedIn’s Ultimate List of Employer Brand Statistics uncovered a 28% reduction in turnover and a 50% cut in hiring costs for companies with outstanding employer brands. Further, 75% of candidates are likely to apply for a job where the employing company cultivates its employer brand.

As you can see cultivating admirable employee culture and community will save you money, time, hassle, in addition to fostering a sense of purpose amongst your staff. If you haven’t thought of how your company is perceived from an employee perspective, it’s time to start thinking about your Employer Brand strategy. Read on to learn how.

How to Create a Talent Attracting Employer Brand

1. Know Thy Self

In order to cultivate a strong community amongst your team, make your company mission, core values, and purpose very clear. At Uplift, we live by our core values – honesty, transparency, and integrity – and all of our employees do as well because they were filtered by these values before they were hired. Our point of difference is to provide the compassion and human interaction elements of the recruitment process, which our experience indicates is missing from the recruitment industry in general. Establishing compassion and understanding as a core focus for our employees allows us to focus on each individual and support them not only on their career journey but on their life journey.

You should make what your company is all about crystal clear to candidates, including:

• Sharing your company mission,
• Showing your commitment to your core values
• Highlighting company purpose (giving back, charity involvement, etc).

2. Know What People Are Saying About Your Company

Do some detective work to find out how exactly your company is perceived as a place to work by job candidates. Your research should track the good, the bad, and the ugly about your company. Cherrypick the good stuff to use to help build content for your Employer Brand and address the bad stuff by changing your policies.

You can use:

• Internal surveys of current employees
• Social media content including hashtags
• Sites like Glassdoor
• Or hire a firm that will track your Employer brand for you.

3. Enlist Your Employees As Enthusiastic Brand Ambassadors

Many of the best examples of Employer Branding are experts at getting their employees involved through events, culture, and social media. These companies use their current employees to tell the story of what it’s really like to work there.

We suggest:

• Listening carefully to employees and to be genuinely prepared to take action on the strength of what they’re saying,
• Cultivating an open, friendly and welcoming culture,
• Creating videos, interviews, and content that creates a human connection between your employees and perspective candidates,
• Leveraging social media and marketing channels to enhance employer brand.

4. Create Opportunities for Learning and Personal Development

Investing in your employees’ education and careers sends a clear message that you care and aren’t only interested in short term gains. Plus, employees that never stop learning will be less likely to get bored and constantly adding renewed value to your team.

• Offer frequent in-house workshops for employees to learn new skills
• Foot the bill for relevant up-skilling for your employees

5. Cultivate an Impressive and Effective On-Boarding Process

We know how much first impressions count, so think of your on-boarding process as a very important first date. Be sure to get new hires excited for their role by having a smooth, easy, and fun onboarding process. Don’t drop the ball after you’ve spent lots of money hiring an employee and skim on the onboarding experience, people who have a negative onboarding experience are twice as likely to seek a different opportunity.

• Get social – invite new employees to get to their team by hosting events outside of work.
• Be organized and give new hires all the information they need to hit the ground running in their new role.
• Design an on-boarding experience that prioritizes employee engagement and success.

6. Make Your Inclusion and Diversity Your Policy

Make it your goal to be as in inclusive and diverse as possible. Studies have shown diverse perspectives improve performance, enhance creativity and innovation, and enhances your company’s culture, which will, in turn, attract top talent. According to Glassdoor, 67% of people consider diversity as an important factor when choosing where to work.

• Create a hiring policy that fosters diversity,
• Account for various cultural backgrounds in your on-boarding process
• Think about your Employer Brand from different perspectives.