Unleashing the Power of Employer Branding for Enhanced Collaboration, Innovation, Performance, and Growth
We always say that employer branding can be one of the most powerful tools in your arsenal. We passionately share with our clients that it's a way to communicate your company's values and mission to current employees, potential employees, and others in the community. Employer branding is also an important component of an overall brand’s performance. Think of employer branding as your digital first impression strategy.
When done right, it also encourages better team collaboration, innovation, and brand performance - which is crucial if you want to grow your business. But what exactly is employer branding? How do you define it in your organization? And how do you create an effective strategy for improving engagement and standing out as a brand?
Employer branding is not an option but a must-use business arsenal to drive business growth, attract new talent and foster community both externally and internally. In today's digital economy, where purchasing decisions are made faster than ever, employer branding can propel your business forward when done right.
In this article post, we'll share some essential insights into employer branding.
What Is Employer Branding?
Employer branding is a strategic process that aligns your company's reputation with how you want to be perceived by employees and potential applicants (future team members). It involves creating an employer value proposition (EVP) or what it's like to work at your company. It can then be communicated through various channels such as websites, social media profiles and career websites.
Employer branding helps employers attract talent by communicating their unique value proposition to create better experiences for both current employees and prospective candidates. Your employer branding should also be used to showcase critical topics such as diversity and inclusion, company culture and how you, as an employer, work hard to make a difference in your community.
In recent months, we've seen a growing number of “digital layoffs” in the tech industry. Layoffs where employees get notified by losing digital company access or perhaps a single email. These layoffs have driven so many conversations on platforms such as LinkedIn. A strong employer brand also means having a strategy to address difficult conversations (such as these layoffs) and share how you, as a brand, would perhaps do things differently.
As an agency, here is a tip that we share to help our clients understand employer branding. Think of employer branding as your digital first impression tool. Use your employer branding strategy to attract the best talent and stand out as an employer and to potential buyers. When done well, this will help you experience the employer success that brands can only dream of.
How to Define Your Employer Brand
Before you begin your efforts, you need to identify your areas of opportunity and your goals for your employer branding efforts. Let's look deeper at some questions you can answer as a brand.
We always recommend starting with the following questions:
What makes your company a desirable place to work? What makes you different from other businesses in your industry as a potential employer?
What are your company values, and how do they shape or affect the work environment that you offer?
How do you attract top talent, and what is your recruitment process like? What are the areas of opportunity?
How do you retain and engage employees, and what benefits and perks do you offer?
How do you currently communicate your employer brand, and what is your employer's reputation? Hint: You may want to review feedback from applicants and past team members on sites like Glassdoor.
How do you want your audience to feel when visiting your various social media platforms?
Once you've answered these questions, it's time to get to work and strategize on the type of content and campaigns that can help you stand out as an employer. It's important to emphasize what makes your company different and the value and perks you offer as an employer. Also, remember to use your voice to show how you support various initiatives and your stance on various social issues.
Employer branding affects more than your potential and current workforce. Many buyers make purchasing decisions based on the first impressions they observe from various brands online.
Enhancing Employee Engagement, Collaboration & Innovation with Employer Branding
When it comes to innovation, by positioning the company as a desirable workplace, employees are more likely to feel motivated and want to engage, leading to increased creativity, collaboration, and the development of new ideas and processes in the workplace.
When you get your new hires to feel like they already belong because the values align, they want to make a difference. Additionally, a strong employer brand can foster a sense of pride and loyalty among employees, encouraging them to act as ambassadors for the company and contribute to its success.
Suppose you want to build an employer brand that drives your organization's innovation, brand performance, and growth. In that case, you need to think beyond just the employee experience and focus on how this can be achieved through collaboration between employees, managers and various stakeholders.
Here are some example campaigns that can be done to increase engagement with employer branding.
Share content such as short-form videos or a carousel series on how your company has supported a local cause. Dive into the details of why your brand decided to help, how it did so, and what the outcome was.
Create content to discuss your diversity and inclusion strategy.
Ensure that your company leaders share regular thought leadership content on social media. This will encourage other team members to do the same.
Leverage storytelling to showcase the incredible journey of some of your team members. What was their life before working with your brand, and how has it made a positive impact in their life? What about some of their achievements at work? Finish by adding your EVP before linking to your careers page.
Host regular employee social media takeovers. Hint: A social media takeover is when an employee takes over the company's social media accounts for a specific duration to share content to discuss their experience working with a specific employer. This is great for building trust and driving engagement with future talent. It allows them to see what it would be like if they were also employed by this specific company. It also allows them to get a glimpse into the company culture.
Be transparent about your hiring process and share this on social media or your website. Far too often, we hear from some of our clients who have great candidates in the pipeline, only for them to get offers from a brand that has a quicker, more streamlined hiring process.
Let’s say you drive a company-wide contest for the development of a new product or service. Showcase the various ideas of each team member on social media to encourage others to join in. This is also a great way, as an employer, to showcase that all efforts matter, even if ultimately only one idea will be chosen.
The Impact of Great Employer Branding
According to Statista, brand reputation is one of the factors keeping consumers loyal to brands. How a brand fosters community and showcases how they embody its mission and value through its employer branding efforts can significantly contribute to its reputation online.
The power of employer branding lies in its ability to create an emotional connection between your company, its future and current employees and its current and future buyers.
When you have a strong employer brand, people feel more connected with your organization because they understand what makes it unique and want more of that feeling!
A strong employer brand builds trust among your employees, which leads them to believe that working at your organization will be rewarding both personally and professionally; this translates into higher levels of job satisfaction on both sides of the equation: employers enjoy having passionate workers who stay longer while employees enjoy being able to do meaningful work while feeling supported by their employer.
It's a win-win situation in both cases.
Ultimately, employer branding is a powerful tool, but it's not just about attracting new employees; it's also about encouraging collaboration and innovation within your existing workforce. By aligning your employer brand with your corporate values, you'll create an environment where employees feel more engaged in their work and motivated by what they do every day. This can lead directly to better results for your company.