Employment31 Mar 2023
Creating a Strong Employer Brand: Strategies and Best Practices
Your Employer Brand is a powerful business asset that supports your brand recognition in attracting and retaining top talent. In today's turbulent economy, you need an active and engaged workforce to stay ahead of your competition. To create such a workforce and to attract and retain top talent, requires a strategically developed Employer Brand that authentically reflects the diverse culture and values alive in your employee experience.
A strong and compelling Employer Brand helps businesses to attract new candidates to the talent pool of your organisation, while a weaker one can tarnish your brand, meaning employees will not even show up to fill your vacancies.
Why implementing an Employer Branding Strategy is important
Your Employer Branding strategy keeps your company ahead of competitors by crafting a positive message about your business and how your people feel about the employee experience. A strong Employer Branding strategy helps to reduce employee turnover and attracts new talent without increasing your recruitment costs.
Some of the essential benefits of implementing an Employer Branding strategy are:
Implementing an Employer Branding strategy helps organisations attract new talent as they can more easily see the benefits offered as being valuable to them. It also increases employee morale since the company culture and values enhance employee engagement and development.
A strong Employer Branding strategy reduces overall recruitment costs since employees are more likely to seek you out and less likely to leave your organisation to seek better opportunities. A positive work culture and supportive environment can help keep your employees happy, engaged and more productive.
Employee-centric organisations are more focused on implementing an Employer Branding strategy. It helps them create a conducive workplace where employees feel valued, can contribute and where they feel that they belong. This can help increase productivity and profitability over the longer term.
How to plan your Employer Branding Strategy
Successful Employer Branding strategy planning involves the input of a wide range of stakeholders including your senior executives, middle management and employees. Taking into account your company’s vision, values and objectives as well as understanding what employees value about the workplace and how they like to be seen, recognised and rewarded.
The planning of employer branding strategy involves the following steps:
Set actionable objectives
For an Employer Branding strategy to be successful, it is essential to identify achievable and measurable objectives. Doing so allows the organisation to address a problem or achieve a desired goal effectively.
The company must achieve these actionable Employer Branding objectives within an allotted time frame. These Employer Branding objectives will help attract and retain qualified talent to attain the desired organisational goals.
Identify your key talent segments
To make Employer Branding strategy more efficient, we must define and understand your key talent segments. This is about understanding what the different types of talent value most about working in your organisation.
To achieve this, use focus groups or surveys to garner employee perceptions and values. Identify the commonalities across segments but also highlight the key differences as these will make your messaging more relatable to prospective candidates.
Define relevant KPIs
Identify the critical metrics required to measure how you will achieve your Employer Brand objectives. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) should align with overall company objectives and could include the following:
1. Social media engagement (e.g., clicks, shares, likes)
2. Cost per hire
3. Attrition rate
4. Ratings from job-seeking platforms (e.g., Glassdoor)
Define your Employee Value Proposition
Your Employee Value Proposition (EVP) clearly outlines what candidates can expected to experience once working at your organisation. Developing a compelling EVP is essential in constructing your Employer Branding strategy. It will form the basis for all your internal and external messages.
Measure your Employer Branding success
Assessing the efficacy of your Employer Branding efforts is paramount for refining them in the future and achieving the best possible return on investment. To gauge your Employer Branding strategy's success, you should refer to the predetermined objectives and compare the results before and after implementation.
Employer Branding Best Practices you need to know
To attract and retain the best talent, organisations must first assess what they need to build a magnetic Employer Brand. Companies can follow these essential considerations to help craft a strong Employer Brand.
To discover the essence of your unique Employer Brand, you must first evaluate what people in your organisation most value. Conduct focus groups and surveys to understand the benefits of the employee experience that your people value. This will help build an authentic Employee Value Proposition (EVP) that will form the basis of a magnetic Employer branding brand.
To craft an effective Employer Brand, knowing what your competitors offer regarding benefits and experiences is essential. To better understand the EVP of your competitors, conduct online research, interview missed candidates and review 3rd party review sites. Look for ‘clear space’ that your Employer Brand can own in the marketplace. You don’t want to sound like your competitor!
Your Employer Brand reflects a combination of your internal culture and how external candidates may perceive your work culture. Enhancing your Employer Brand with propositions that strengthen your brand’s credibility is necessary to grow your talent pool effectively.
Some of the unique qualities that can enhance your Employer Brand’s unique qualities can be:
1. Organisational vision - the journey employees sign up for
2. Corporate Values - that align with employees’ values
3. Unique perks/benefits or physical workplace environments
4. Flexibility policies
5. Industry thought-leadership driven by respected ‘ambassadors’
6. Exciting projects and team environments
Your careers website can be a powerful tool for catching the attention of prospective employees. To make it engaging, consider a structure that is centred around what candidates want to know; What can I do here? What is the culture like? What are the benefits? Who will I be working with? How do I apply or follow?
Including authentic and diverse employee stories (in written, imagery and video) is by far the best way to engage viewers and keep them on your careers web pages.
Employer Brand communications across multiple channels can help you reach both internal employees and external candidates. Some typical channels include; intranet, yammer, careers website, job boards, careers expos, review sites, posters and social media. Don’t forget to embed your EVP into all your candidate and employee touchpoints.
Often word of mouth is so much more effective than corporate advertising. So to help your Employer Brand stand out from competitors, empower your employees as brand advocates. These ambassadors will help attract new candidates and lower recruitment costs by promoting your employee experience in a compelling and cost effective way.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q. What is an example of an Employer Branding strategy?
The best example of an Employer branding strategy is Google. They have created an incredible EVP that attracts a talent pool from across the globe.
Q. How do you build a strong Employer Branding strategy?
To build a strong Employee Branding strategy, you need first to define your Employer Branding objectives, set relevant KPIs, draft messages to communicate your EVP, and finally measure the success of your Employer Branding strategy.
Q. What are the components of an Employer Branding strategy?
The components of an Employer Branding strategy are:
1. Employer Brand objectives based on business goals
2. The culture, vision and values of an organisation
3. Employee Value Proposition - including strategic pillars
4. Employer Brand Positioning (Talent Tagline) and Narrative
5. Authentic EVP-aligned people stories
6. Segmented target employee personas
7. Measurement of key metrics
Belong Creative has been developing Employer Brands since 2009 for sought-after employers throughout Australia and globally. If you’re embarking on your Employer Branding journey and would like support to ensure your result is authentic, relatable and differentiating then please reach out to us today.
