8 min
Turn Your Employer Branding into a Competitive Advantage in 8 Steps
Written by
Alexandre Diard Employer branding is the best way to have employees want to stay with you as a company. To truly succeed you must listen to what your employees’ needs are and meet those needs so competitors aren’t at a higher advantage over your hires. Here we will be talking about why employer branding is helpful in a successful business and how to strategize your retention.
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What is Employer Branding?
The definition of employer branding is:
the process of managing and influencing your reputation as an employer among job seekers, employees and key stakeholders.
To break it down in to simpler terms, the more you appeal to your employees or job seekers, the better your company will do against other companies since you are listening to the needs of people.
Why Should You Invest in Employer Branding?
People will put themselves first, so when you have a great team that provides for your employees, you will get the top talent. Why invest so much in employment brand? When trying to recruit people for your team, you want to find that talent that will push your company to the highest capabilities. Examples of good employee branding would be employee benefits (insurance, health care, etc.), good salary, and working conditions. It may increase cost per hire, however, long-term, this will give your company many benefits and you will see a change in how much your company is making.
Who is in charge of employer branding?
The main people in charge of employee branding are HR leaders to attract and hire talented people that will bring new skills into the company. HR deals also with firing and keeping up with new laws or recent laws in the state. HR is the most valuable part of a company because their goals are to find and excel in the recruitment of talent that goes best with the company. HR tries to make the business a place that people want to come to, and they use their employer branding strategy so it can win over people for the business.
8 Steps to Create an Employer Branding Strategy
How does HR create their employer brand strategy? HR, as said previously, focuses on what the people want when working for a business. To create that employer branding strategy, you must ask your employees or the desired right talent you want to attract, what they are looking for when finding a job. Different people have different needs, and you must learn what they need to create the right tactics. This can also create trust with your employees since it shows that you are caring for their values, and they will open to you. We will go through 7 steps you can take to build or improve your employer branding strategy.
1. Know your company strenghts and weaknesses
By learning what employees are saying about your company, you learn about the strengths and weaknesses of your company. When learning about weaknesses, it is important to realize that learning your weaknesses is not a bad thing and taking that criticism can really make a company better than the next. When presented a weakness, ask how you can do better. At the same time, you can leverage your strengths and place them at the forefront of your employer branding which will ultimately help retaining employees.
2. Define your employer value proposition
A good employer value proposition (EVP) is essentially a statement intended to express the company’s core values, company culture and benefits that the company offers to its employees. This statement is used to attract top talent to the company by engaging like-minded people in the job market. Using an EVP as the core of your branding is a smart way to recruit, because you know that you are attracting candidates that will uphold the values of your company.
3. Audit your current employer brand
Once you know what you want your employer brand to look like, it’s important to audit your existing brand and assess your current position in the marketplace. Don’t forget to compare it to the employer brand of your competitors because that is what your potential candidates will be doing as well.
It is also important that you look for best practices and compliance when it comes to collecting data from and communicating with employees and candidates. HR deals with the legality of anything new that happens in the company, so having them involved in putting in place recruiting practices in crucial. When HR then makes the strategy, many people in HR should look over it and confirm that it matches what is best for the company and it meets legal standards for the state.
4. Leverage employee advocacy
Employee advocacy is leveraging your employees’ experiences in their role to grow your company’s social status. This can be done by sharing employee generated content on social media or setting up an employee referral program for example.
This will get more people involved and have a better understanding on what it’s like to work at your company. It’s a more effective way to communicate about your employer brand because HR or recruiters may be seen as untrustworthy sources of information. Letting people hear the experiences of real employees is a good way to establish trust among job seekers. However, it is really important that you monitor what is being said about your company and to proactively address any negativity that arises.
5. Write compelling job descriptions
Using good job descriptions will make sure that anyone who is wanting to get hired will know what they need to do for the job and what kind of standards they will be held to. Make sure that the job description you write reflects the values of the company. Not only is it a good idea to include the values directly on the description, but also that the description is written while upholding these values.
For example, if your company preaches full transparency, it may be a good idea to include the job salary in the job description. If one of your company values is focused on excellence and high-quality performance, make sure you communicate about the training and development opportunities your company offers.
Once you have written the job description, make sure it reaches the right candidate. HR professionals can share digital business cards and include links to the company’s job page, company information etc, and share it with candidates.
6. Develop an engaging onboarding process
Make a good first impression. When people are starting a new job, they don’t want a lot of wordy pages to read about the company. It is best to make an engaging onboarding process that is also easy to complete. Mostly everything these days is technology-based which makes it easier on everyone to onboard a new hire.
This is a crucial moment in establishing your employer brand because this is the point where you teach your employee about the company and instill the values in them. Making sure that people know what they are expected of when going in the company is important because that way, they have a clear understanding of what they need to do and won’t be surprised or too overwhelmed when hired. Not only should they know what to do but how to do it. The what is what keeps the company running and the how is what creates the company culture.
7. Provide learning opportunities
Providing learning opportunities is a way to make a new employee feel less anxious about working in a new place or environment. This is not only for interns or entry level positions, but anyone that joins the company. It also shows that the company is willing to invest in their employees and help them grow. Career progress is something most employees are looking for in an employer, so it is important address this as part of your employer branding.
8. Tell your company story
Finally, tell your company story. Talk about why your company exists, who does it benefit, what is the future, what is the overall goal for this company. This will give people an idea of what type of company it is and if they see themselves fitting in. We don’t normally think of businesses as being made up of real people. Telling a story allows you to be relatable and humanize your company.
Where do you tell the story? Every chance you get, you should be telling your company story. But one example of a place to do so is on social media. As you may already know, one of the biggest apps or websites used for finding talent today is LinkedIn. So, it is vital that a company establishes a presence there in order to continue attracting employees to the company. Utilizing this social media channel can help in your branding, and you can really get your values out in the public so people can find your company and encourage to attract employees who align well with your business strategy.
In Conclusion
Employer branding is made to increase the company’s ability to succeed in attracting employees and employee retention. To have a good employer brand, you must think about what the employees need, how to make the company better than another company, and to have a diverse group of people that want to increase the company’s ability to succeed and keep evolving.
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