It makes sense -- nowadays, a company's reputation matters more than ever. Here, we're going to explore what employer branding means, examples of good employer branding, and how you can implement your own employer branding strategy, today. What is employer branding? Instead, he's going to lay into the day-to-day of people management, company values, and workplace culture. Actually, employer branding is critical to your bottom-line. Once you've done your research and cultivated a list of values and benefits your company offers, you'll want to create an employer value proposition. Additionally, your employer value proposition is something your recruiters and HR team can discuss with potential candidates. Employer branding examples Starbucks HubSpot SoulCycle Eventbrite Jet Starbucks does a good job ensuring they cultivate a strong community among their employees. To demonstrate its commitment to recruiting high-quality talent, Eventbrite created a web page to introduce job seekers to its recruitment team. The video is especially powerful because it uses real employee interviews, giving the job seeker a sense for Jet's work culture and values.
When a job seeker begins her search, one of the first things she’s going to Google is this — “Top companies to work for in 2019” or, alternatively, “Top companies in X industry.”
It makes sense — nowadays, a company’s reputation matters more than ever. In fact, 86% of workers would not apply for, or continue to work for, a company that has a bad reputation with former employees, or the general public.
Ultimately, you spend plenty of time creating a compelling, incentivizing brand story surrounding your products or services. But how long do you spend cultivating a powerful employer brand to ensure you attract and retain top talent?
Here, we’re going to explore what employer branding means, examples of good employer branding, and how you can implement your own employer branding strategy, today.
What is employer branding?
At its most basic, an employer brand is your reputation as a place to work, as well as your employees’ perception of you as an employer.
In other words, employer branding is how you market your company to job seekers, as well as internal employees. The better you are at employer branding, the more likely you are to attract top talent. Additionally, a positive employer brand can also help you retain top talent.
Let’s say you’ve done a phenomenal job building up a strong brand in relation to your products or services. Unfortunately, that alone won’t convince someone to work at, or stay at, your company. You need to implement the same branding strategy when it comes to communicating your company’s leadership, values, and culture.
If a job seeker asks an employee at your company, “What’s it like to work there?” the employee isn’t going to say, “We’ve built some awesome merchandise.” Instead, he’s going to lay into the day-to-day of people management, company values, and workplace culture. To ensure a good employer brand, then, you need to tell a compelling story.
However, it goes deeper than storytelling — you also need to walk the walk. Telling your employees, and the general public, that your company is a great place to work because you have ping-pong tables isn’t going to cut it.
At this point, you might be wondering, Does this really matter to me and my company?
Actually, employer branding is critical to your bottom-line. A good employer brand can reduce turnover rates by 28%, and cut your costs-per-hire by half. Additionally, candidates who apply for roles are 50% more qualified when the company has a good employer brand.
Ultimately, an employer brand can help you greatly reduce recruitment and hiring costs, while ensuring higher morale and more productivity among members of your teams. Plus, you have an employer brand whether you’ve put effort behind it or not — so why not put effort in, to ensure it’s a brand you can be proud of?
Next, let’s explore how you can implement an employer brand strategy today.
Employer branding strategy
An employer branding strategy allows you to control and positively change the dialogue surrounding your company, to ensure higher talent acquisition and retention. At its most basic, employer branding is how you market your company to job seekers, and what employees say about your company as a workplace. A good employer branding strategy can help you attract better talent, cut down on hiring costs, and reduce employee turnover.
1. Know your company’s unique value proposition.
To create a powerful employer brand, it’s critical you start by focusing on your company’s mission statement, values, vision, and culture. It could be helpful to identify what your business needs are, and then work backwards to understand what type of talent you need to acquire to fulfill those objectives.
For instance, consider Teach for America’s mission statement — “One day, all children in this nation will have the opportunity to attain an excellent education.”
Using this statement as a guideline, Teach for America is then able to tell a compelling brand employer story on their Values page. Among other things, they promise employees the chance for continuous learning, stating, “We operate with curiosity and embrace new ideas to innovate and constantly improve. We take informed risks and learn from successes, setbacks, and each other.”
In this way, they’ve aligned their values, and their employer brand, with their business goal.
2. Conduct an employer brand audit.
You might not be fully aware of the reputation your company has among job seekers or even your own employees. Send out internal surveys, conduct social media searches, check out sites like Glassdoor to read reviews, or hire a firm that administers reputation monitoring.
Ultimately, your research should uncover your employees’ favorite aspects of your company culture that you can focus on highlighting, as well as any areas for improvement to ensure a strong employer brand.
3. Write an employer value proposition.
Once you’ve done your research and cultivated a list of values and benefits your company offers, you’ll want to create an employer value proposition. An employer value proposition is a marketing message and a promise — so you shouldn’t…
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