How to start an employer brand
Control your employer brand by shaping how current and prospective employees perceive your company. Develop a strong employer brand to attract aligned talent and enhance your reputation.
Control your employer brand by shaping how current and prospective employees perceive your company. Develop a strong employer brand to attract aligned talent and enhance your reputation.
By Brad Nakase, Attorney
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Have a quick question? We answered nearly 2000 FAQs.
Every company has an employer brand. The question is, are you the one creating your employer brand, or are other people (disgruntled employees and the like) creating your employer brand for you? Here’s how to start an employer brand and control how current and prospective employees see you.
An employer brand is how you manage your reputation as an employer. This includes what current and former employees think about you as an employer, as well as what prospective employees and people who know employees think of you as an employer. While an employer brand has a separate purpose from branding for marketing or sales purposes, your employer brand can impact your reputation amongst consumers.
The main reason why companies put effort into developing an employer brand is to attract aligned talent. Many employees want to be proud to say they work for a company, so they look for employers that share their values and morals. When you achieve this alignment, your employees are more engaged with your mission and the work you do.
A strong employer brand is often a collaborative effort between HR, recruitment, marketing, and internal communications. You can’t pull an employer brand out of thin air; it needs to work with the rest of your business marketing, and it needs to reflect both your current reality and where you are heading.
1. Write a Value Proposition
Like any other type of branding, it starts with a value proposition. In the case of your employer brand, your value sentence would sum up your value as an employer. What can prospective employees expect when working with you? How do you show that you value your employees? What sets you apart from other employers?
When writing a value proposition for your employer brand, a great place to start is with your current employees – particularly the employees that you would love to clone. What attracted these employees to your company in the first place? What are the aspects of the company or their jobs that make them want to stay? What does your company not provide that may cause them to look elsewhere? This is all key information for your employer brand because it shows you the motivations of the kinds of employees you want to attract and what they value in an employer.
2. Review Your Company Policies and Practices
This is a great opportunity to review your internal practices and policies to ensure they align with your employer brand. There is nothing more frustrating than a company that talks a good game but doesn’t act upon it. While your employer brand should be a little aspirational as it encapsulates the mission you are working towards, it should not be divorced from reality. Your current employees need to see the reality of what it is like to work for your company in your employer brand.
Before you launch your new employer brand far and wide, ensure that you are creating a structure that supports your employer brand. This includes sending your leaders on training courses to ensure a top-down embracing of your employer brand. Your managers and supervisors should set the example of the changes and they will have valuable feedback into how you can make changes to strengthen your employer brand. For example, they may be able to point out that the performance metrics create a different culture than your employer brand requires.
3. Revamp Your Careers Website
Once you have crafted your value proposition and decided what kind of employer you want to be, revamp your careers website. This is the information you communicate to prospective employees and current employees applying for internal opportunities. How can you ensure that prospective employees understand what kind of employer you are and what you and your employees are working towards?
The ideal employer brand of your careers website will differ depending on your current marketing and your employer brand priorities. Work with your marketing department and HR to revamp your careers website.
4. Craft Job Descriptions Aligned with Your Employer Brand
As you are refining your company culture to align with your employer brand, you should also be ensuring that the fresh talent you are hiring are aligned with your employer brand. This is a good way to get a fresh perspective on your workplace. These new employees will be valuable sources of information as they are not influenced by the way things have always been done or internal politics like your current employees may be.
5. Get Active on Social Media
Amplify your employer brand by using social media to communicate what you do. A great place to start is LinkedIn, where candidates connect with employers. Join the conversation about the world of work and standard practices to show what kind of employer you are. Everything you post or publish on LinkedIn will either strengthen or weaken your employer brand, so make sure anyone posting on behalf of your company is clear on your employer brand. A branding guide for your employer brand may be a good idea.
Have a quick question? We answered nearly 2000 FAQs.
See all blogs: Business | Corporate | Employment
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See all blogs: Business | Corporate | Employment