Your employees produce your products and deliver yours services, if they don’t embody the same values, behaviours and purpose as your organisation there will be a misalignment that will be felt by your customers.
Your employer brand is how your current employees, perspective employees and the market views your organisation as a place to work. It’s defined by how current employees view working for you, how you conduct yourself with your behaviour and perceived thoughts about what it would be like to work at your organisation. This may not even by on your radar but it’s such an important part of your brand strategy and you should be proactively building this as part of your brand strategy.
If you consciously build your employer brand you can proactively communicate your organisation’s values, personality and culture to create the desired perceptions. It will attract talent who will embody not only your values, but also give you the best pool of talent to choose from. Therefore, you get talented staff who embody your values to deliver your brand promise and proposition.
What is an employer brand?
It is the perception key stakeholders, and more specifically current and potential employees, have of your organisation. An effective employer brand presents your organisation as a good employer and a great place to work which helps with attracting, recruiting, and retaining great staff.
It’s important to clearly and effectively communicate your organisations values, personality, culture and purpose. If you do this you will attract talent who embody these traits and want to help you achieve your objectives.
Where your employer branding plays out
Attracting – when prospective employees are looking for opportunities and deciding whether they would like to work for you. This will be channels such as your website, social media channels and first hand experiences about what it’s like to work for your organisation.
Recruitment – how your describe your workplace during the interview phase and how you conduct the interview process.
On-boarding – how your new employee is introduced to your team and what induction they go through when they first join the company. How you express your values.
Day-to-day behaviour – staff will quickly realise if your employer brand proposition is not authentic. If you promise one thing and deliver something else it’s likely that new staff will start to look else where. Your employer brand needs to be authentic and reflect your behaviour as an organisation.
Your behaviours – how do you live your brand values? Do you deliver what you say you will? What does training and development look like?
Exit – staff members will always talk about what it was like to work for your organisation in their social and professional circles. Their last impression of your organisation may be during the exit phase when they are leaving. Make sure your employer brand and values shine through in all aspects of their journey with you.
The benefit to organisations
In companies where brand values, personality and desired behaviours are deeply embedded across all touch points, organisations will benefits from increased engagement from employees as they work to deliver their companies purpose and proposition. As a company you’ll attract like minded employees who you don’t need to mould to your way of behaving and you’ll have a team of people ready to work towards a common goal.
How to develop your employer brand?
You need a clearly defined brand essence, values, personality, belief system and tone of voice that is authentic and communicated clearly. Then it’s about how you communicate this to prospective and current employees. Don’t be afraid to show the ‘human’ side of your brand and use channels such as Instagram which lend themselves to showing images and what it’s really like to work for your organisaton. Humanising your brand proposition will go a long way to solidifying your employer brand.
Align your employer brand and your market facing brand
Employer Branding should always match your organisational brand, and more importantly your values. This means that your value proposition will be truly reflected by the actions of all people, at all levels of the business, all the time. Your people will then be truly connected to your purpose and everyone will be working towards the same purpose and objectives.
Seven steps for getting your employer brand in check
- Make sure you have a clearly defined purpose, and ensure this is articulated to prospective employees so that you can attract staff who also believe in and want to contribute to that purpose.
- Clearly define your brand values and behaviours of your organisation and articulate what that means for employees and how you expect them to behave.
- Have a dedicated page on your website or microsite that explains what you offer prospective employees and what makes you an employer of choice.
- Perspective employees want to know what makes you different as an employer and why they should choose you over another, so make sure your point of difference is clear.
- Be authentic – your employer brand proposition should be authentic and a true reflection of what it is like to really work for your organisation. Employees will soon find out the truth and if it’s not what they expect it will lead to a high turn over.
- Show your human side, after all you’re attracting humans so make it real and authentic.
- Ensure your employer brand proposition manifests at all touch points of an employees interaction with you.
If you’re looking on some areas to develop to become an employer of choice the 2017 Randstad Employer Brand Research identifies a gap between what employees seek and what employers offer.
“Our research reveals that 70 per cent of Aussie workers are willing to take a pay cut to work for a company with a mission they believe in and that shares their personal values,”
Jason Laufer, director of talent solutions for LinkedIn Australia and New Zealand.
Some great examples of employer branding
Determining which organisations have the ‘best’ employer brands is tricky, because what constitutes a great employer brand depends, in large part, on the kinds of workers you’re trying to attract and what values you have defined for yourself. Here are a few of my favourites:
Swisse
Dimple – one of our favourite clients
If you need help defining your brand and how it translates to your employer brand or looking for some engaging new ways to communicate your proposition we’re always here for a chat.
Gemma Dittmar
Director of Brand Projects