As a business leader or HR professional, what is your plan to compete effectively in the war for talent? How will you convince great people to join your organization and stay? If you don’t have a strong employer brand, it will become increasingly difficult for you to meet your HR goals down the road. 

This blog post will simplify the concept of “employer branding”, why it is important, and how to build a strong employer brand to achieve your business goals. 

What is an Employer Brand? 

Before we dig deep into employer branding, let’s quickly define what is “employer brand”.

Employer brand refers to your company’s overall reputation. What do your existing or potential employees think about your company as a place to work? In other words, your employer brand is your employees’ perception of you as an employer. 

There are so many factors that collectively develop that perception; your hiring process, culture, employee benefits, etc. 

What is Employer Branding? 

Employer branding is the process of creating and managing your employer brand. Whatever your company does, intentionally or unintentionally, helps your employees create an overall perception of your company. 

Employer branding is the way you present your company to internal employees and job seekers. The better you are at employer branding, the more likely you are to find and hire talented people. 

If you want your business to attract top-tier talent within your industry, you or your HR leaders must understand the importance of employer branding. Why? Because skilled people don’t just jump at the first job they come across. Instead, they look for an employer with a personality that they can trust and recognize. 

Is your employer brand recognizable and trustworthy? Do you find it easy to find and hire talent with great ease and speed? If not, it’s high time for you to reimagine the way people think of your company. The objective here is to make your company more attractive for your existing and new employees. 

That’s where you need to focus on your day-to-day people management activities, company culture, and values. Most importantly, analyze the way you treat people. Employer branding is an opportunity for you to introduce your company as an incredible place to work. 

Why Your Employer Brand Matters 

Studies suggest that your employer brand can have a direct impact on your talent acquisition efforts. 83% of employers believe that employer brand plays a key role in their ability to hire talent. It’s not just about attracting talent but retaining it. 

Let’s take a look at some important stats to understand why your employer brand matters: 

• Talent Adore finds out that 78% of candidates consider candidate experience as an indicator to gauge how a company values its people. 
• Workable reveals that 9 out of 10 candidates are likely to apply for a job from an actively maintained employer brand. 
• 86% would not apply or continue working for a company that has a bad reputation with former employees. 
• Harvard Business Review tells us that a bad company reputation costs a company at least 10% more per hire. 
• A good employer brand leads to a 28% reduction in a company’s turnover. 

These stats are certainly enough to understand how crucial it is to have a strong employer branding strategy. Employer brand matters if you want to hire and retain the right people. 

Building your reputation as a credible employer is absolutely essential when it comes to today’s competitive market for top talent. 

Your reputation as an employer will have a strong impact on whether or not qualified candidates decide to join your company. If your workplace doesn’t meet your ideal candidates’ expectations, they will be happy to join your competitors. Therefore, you can’t afford to have a bad reputation as it will hinder your efforts to scale your business and ensure future success. 

A whitepaper from Linkedin indicates that employer brand becomes important when your audience is young and global. 

But what are the constituents of an employer brand? What makes a strong employer brand? Let’s answer these questions. 

Defining Your Employer Branding Strategy 

Now that we understand the significance of a strong employer brand, here are the fundamentals of a good employer branding strategy: 

1. Define your Employer Value Proposition (EVP)

The employer value proposition or EVP defines how an organization wants to be perceived by its employees. It encompasses your core values and benefits that make up your employer brand. Defining your EVP is a fundamental step in defining your employer’s brand strategy. 

Your unique value proposition should make it clear to your current and future employees why they should choose and stay with you. Simply put, answer this question: why should people choose to work for your company? This statement should be realistic and attractive. 

It’s not about the compensation your workers get. Instead, it’s about defining your company’s purpose and positive impact on the world. It’s important because people don’t just work for monetary gains. They want to know whether or not their work is meaningful. 

Here are examples of EVPs from globally know employers: 

• “At Goldman Sachs, you will make an impact.” - Goldman Sachs 
• “Do cool things that matter.” - Google 
• “We’re Shopify. Our mission is to make commerce better for everyone – but we’re not the workplace for everyone. We thrive on change, operate on trust, and leverage the diverse perspectives of people on our team in everything we do. We solve problems at a rapid pace. In short, we get shit done.” – Shopify
• “We lead. We invent. We deliver. We use the power of sport to move the world.” – Nike
• “Sometimes the chance comes up to be part of something really special. Canva is making design amazingly simple for everyone, and the potential is limitless. We’re empowering people to design anything, and publish anywhere.” - Canva 

2. Know where you stand right now 

Have you ever thought about your current business processes and their impact on your people?  You might not be fully aware of what your employees and job seekers think about your company. The best thing you can do is conduct an employer brand audit and review all of your recruiting and marketing channels. 

The process may involve analyzing your social media presence, the application process, candidate experience, your messaging, and chatter about your brand. Address the following questions: 

• What message are you sending to your candidates?
• How are you sending your message? 
• Is your message effective? 
• What are people saying about your company? 
• What should you start or stop doing? 

3. Engage your current employees 

Your employees are your greatest asset. You can turn them into your brand ambassadors. 

When candidates want to learn more about your employer’s brand, they would like to hear it from your employees. So, leverage your people and share their testimonials on your website. 

Another great way to engage your employees is to encourage them to highlight company events such as giveaways on their social media profiles. For example, you can ask them to simply share pictures on Facebook or Instagram with your branded hashtags. It’s a fun way to share your company’s culture online. 

4. Develop a strong onboarding process 

The first thing your new hires go through is your onboarding process. Do you want to make a positive impression? If yes, think about your onboarding process and improve it. People who go through a bad onboarding process are less likely to stay with you. 

While the hiring process does have an impact on your employer’s brand, be sure to have a great onboarding process. Early engagement indicates that you’re determined to bring about employee success. 

5. Encourage learning opportunities 

A workplace must not be a place where everybody feels stagnant and dull. 

Do you know the leading reasons why people left their jobs? According to a study, the number one is boredom.  And it’s not hard to make your workplace learning and growth-friendly. 

Create learning opportunities for your employees to help them learn new skills. It’s also important to challenge your employees and help them avoid boredom. 

Offering coaching and mentoring services can also make things easier for your workers as they would have someone they can turn to if they have questions or concerns. 

Offer continuous employee development programs. Your employee will feel motivated when you invest in their professional growth. And that’s a good way to stand out. 

6. Focus on diversity and inclusion 

Diversity and inclusion are key factors that determine how your company is seen by employees, applicants, and other stakeholders. 

If everyone doesn’t get equal treatment and access to resources, or if a certain segment of people feels uncomfortable at your workplace, it will be difficult for you to build diverse teams. Companies that take diversity and inclusion initiatives build stronger workplace culture and are more likely to achieve their business goals. 

Your HR department and managers can play a key role in implementing a healthy D&I strategy. When you implement a well-thought-out D&I strategy, it eventually increases your talent reach. 

7. Measure your efforts 

Don’t forget to track the results your employer branding strategy is producing. Analyze what’s working and whatnot. Here are some key employer branding metrics you must be tracking: 

• Time-to-hire 
• Job offer acceptance rate 
• Employee referrals 
• New hire retention rate 
• Employee engagement rate 
• Hire quality 
• Brand awareness 

A good employer branding strategy will help you perform well in terms of these metrics. So, be sure to measure your performance and make necessary adjustments whenever needed. For example, if your hiring process is time-consuming, try to streamline it with HR tools. 

Implementing a smart talent management solution will automate certain HR processes and help you track your performance. 

Final thoughts 

Use your employer brand to reflect your popularity, reputation, viability, and visibility in the employment marketplace. Your employer brand might not get the attention it deserves, but it’s critical for your business success.