All companies have a reputation. It can be good or bad, but it’s something you can’t escape as a business. How does your reputation get developed and what can you do to change it? Two things that contribute to any company’s reputation are Employer Brand and your company brand.
How is your company brand different to your Employer Brand? Your company brand is something you create, or have someone create. You control what it looks like, what message it sends and where it goes. In contrast, your Employer Brand is how you’re perceived as a company. To ensure you have a great Employer Brand, your offer (Employee Value Proposition) must be great. If your offer is constantly monitored and refreshed, employees are more likely to want to stay. It’s important to monitor the needs of your employees, and make the effort to cater to them. Companies requirements from staff evolve, so the remuneration/reward should too.
What is an Employer Brand?
Your Employer Brand is how you’re perceived as a company, but what does that mean?
It’s a combination of things about your company; what’s unique about the organisation, the leadership, the company values and perhaps most importantly, the company culture. The remuneration package will affect your brand either in a positive or negative way, but a great brand is more about what your company is like to work for and things like whether the company has a good culture and opportunities for progression. If it does, candidates are more likely to want to join and employees are more likely to want to stay.
The culture is vital – if people enjoy working for you, that will be reflected in reviews and employee advocacy, improving the your brand.
What elements contribute to a great brand?
There are a number of elements that contribute to a great Employer Brand. Things such as flexible work arrangements, culture, values and vision, the style of management etc. can differentiate how good companies are to work for. The potential for career progression, meaningful work and a supportive management and team, can be of more value to some than salary or other financial perks. Making sure that your company considers these factors with all positions should improve your employee’s experience and therefore, contribute to a great Employer Brand.
Job security and regular performance and pay reviews can also help to ensure your employees are content. Reviews are a useful method of ensuring people are happy with their current work, identifying any difficulties people are having and make sure that employees are financially satisfied.
The onboarding process can be a significant component in how you’re perceived as an employer. These days, onboarding is often an entirely digital process, so how do you do it successfully? Our guide to digital onboarding provides a range of information useful to those who are inducting new starters digitally. Even if your onboarding isn’t digital, making sure the experience is as straightforward as possible can make a significant difference to a new starter.
Employee Value Proposition
Employee Value Proposition (EVP) is vital to your Employer Brand. It’s your whole offer to employees – remuneration package, holidays, healthcare, hours and work model (office, remote or hybrid). There’s now an expectation for real flexibility following ‘The Great Resignation’. Some employers are giving employees the choice of office-based, remote or hybrid, some are even testing out shorter work weeks. EVP plays a pivotal role in Employer Branding, in that what you offer must reflect your employees needs. It’s imperative therefore, that your EVP must be monitored and refreshed often to ensure your employees needs are always taken into account. Doing this can increase talent retention and attraction. If you aren’t refreshing your offer to employees, you may get overtaken by other companies who do make changes.
Marketing your Employer Brand
Having a great Employer Brand is one thing, making sure it’s visible is another. Part of any company’s Recruitment Marketing efforts should be marketing your Employer Brand. Though your brand is how other people perceive your company, there are certain things you can do to make sure their perception is what you’d like it to be. How do people know about your company and what it’s like to work for? Reviews by current/former employees? Other forms of employee advocacy? Some companies choose to create their own content and use their channels to promote it. This is a particularly useful method as it’s free, you have some control over the content, yet you’re allowing employees to provide their honest opinions.
Employees using their own platforms to speak about the company is another way of marketing your business. They might want to post a message about their experience with a company or share something about the work environment. This type of advocacy is extremely valuable, as it’s organic, therefore, looks more natural to those on the outside. It also helps advertise the company too. People will tag the company in posts, guiding viewers to your page.
Developing your Employer Brand
When developing your Employer Brand, there are a number of things you should consider:
- Know what your current employees and those you’re trying to attract want from their employer.
- Understand what your company culture is and make sure this is outlined clearly on your website.
- Have you got materials and assets to market your Employer Brand?
- Does your website need updating with details of the company culture and new/updated pages for any new content?
Gaining a better understanding of your company culture and ensuring you’re offering what people want is essential to improving your Employer Brand.
Another way to solidify your Employer Brand is by providing a place for your workforce to share content/advocate the company. Hearing directly from employees about company culture and the general ‘day-to-day’ can be a contributing factor in people’s decisions to work for a particular company.
By following these steps, you can drastically improve your talent attraction and retention without requiring a huge budget.
If you want to learn more about the development of an Employer Brand, our recent blog ‘Duck Creek Employer Brand‘ goes into more detail on the process.
