Your company’s brand is far more than a logo or trademark. It’s everything that comes to mind when a person sees or hears your company’s name—the good, the bad, the true, the false, even the emotions it stirs. For many decades companies have worked diligently to build and manage this complex mix of impressions.
Only during the last 10 years or so, however, have they devoted a similar level of attention to their employer brands. Your employer brand is everything that comes to mind when people think about you as an employer—the types of jobs you offer, your company culture, what your current and past employees say about you, your compensation practices, the benefits you offer and so on.
Your employer brand is every bit as complex as your company brand, and just as important.
Why Your Employer Brand Matters
Your employer brand is crucial to attracting, recruiting and retaining quality talent. Whatever candidates know or learn about you helps them decide whether to look at your job ads, careers webpage and other recruiting channels and content. And the more they know about you, the more effectively they’ll self-select into or out of your jobs, which improves the quality of your applicants and reduces your recruiting costs.
Believe it or not, your employer brand also affects your overall company brand. A strong employer brand can help influence potential customers and investors to do business with you, while a negative employer brand can drive them to your competitors and do significant damage to your reputation.
Tips To Build Your Employer Brand
With so much at stake, here are three things you can do to nurture your employer brand and improve your ability to attract and retain high-quality talent:
- Ensure that your employer brand and company brand are aligned. When they are, both brands reinforce one another and project a clear, consistent image to the marketplace. When they’re not aligned, they can confuse candidates and prospective buyers about your company, its mission, core values and culture. One way to make certain the brands are in sync is to have HR and your recruiting team work closely with your C-suite and Marketing department (who are typically the keepers of the overall company brand). Together you can determine exactly what and how to communicate to candidates based on the larger context of your company brand. For example, if your company brand stands for innovation, speed and disruption, your employer content should reflect this. Keeping the two brands in alignment not only helps you maintain a consistent image in the marketplace, but it also helps your recruiters find and engage talent more efficiently.
- Make employee benefits part of your brand’s story. Without a doubt the quality of your jobs is the main draw for new talent. People want to do work that is meaningful to them. But make no mistake, compensation and the benefits you offer matter almost as much. This is because pay and benefits are concrete outward symbols of how you value employees and the respect and support you give them. These are critical aspects of any employer brand and how candidates think and feel about it. As we shared in a previous post, 62% of workers say benefits are a key reason they accepted a job with their employer, and 73% say that having benefits increases their employer loyalty. So, when telling your brand’s story, don’t forget to highlight your company’s benefits and the programs you have in place to support employees and their families.
- Enlist your employees as brand evangelists. One of the most effective ways to build your employer brand is to encourage your employees to share their personal stories, insights and opinions about working at your company via Glassdoor, LinkedIn and other social media websites. The reason this tactic is so effective is because it’s completely authentic as you’re enabling employees to tell their stories in their own words. What could be more engaging to candidates and potential employees? Of course, sharing these stories online is only one way to leverage them. You can also bring employees who are willing to share their stories into the recruiting and onboarding process, allowing them to speak at recruiting events and during orientations, for instance.
Overall, your employer brand should convey what makes your company a great place to work. Implement the three tips above and that message will come through loud and clear.
If you’d like to discuss how to strengthen your employer brand—and the types of benefits and support programs that can really make your brand stand out—contact us here or call us at (866) 675-3751.