You may have heard of the importance of having brand recognition and reputation. Having a recognisable and reputable brand can build trust, loyalty and confidence in your target demographic and market, as well as with your investors and stakeholders.
However, did you know that it is equally essential for businesses to have an employer brand?
In any company or organisation, the axe of brand marketing swings both ways. With an employer brand, your company will develop a distinct brand of engaging with your employees and team members. This brand is an integral part of your overarching corporate brand and deserves as much thought and strategy as your outward branding.
When you put time and resources into developing your employer brand strategically, you can increase the success of the entire employee life cycle and guarantee that your company is known for having intimate employee engagement at all times.
Why Employer Branding Matters
Employer branding impacts nearly every aspect of your business – from the hiring process to how you are perceived as an employer by clients, customers and your current and potential workforce. If your employer branding suffers, then you can almost guarantee that your overall branding will collapse.
Reason #1: Employer Branding Protects & Cares For Your Employees
Employer branding shines a spotlight on how your company treats its employees from hiring day to their last day in the office. Unfortunately, a short-sighted branding strategy often leaves one of your greatest assets out to dry.
You should never think of your branding as trading one for the other. Many businesses sacrifice their employees into the ground as they seek to build their outward branding success. This remains true even though 96% of employees report that their personal values must align with their company’s culture for them to find their work satisfying and fulfilling.
Never put employer branding on the altar of consumer branding. After all, your employees are already loyal. Yes, you may compensate their loyalty and hard work with pay and benefits, but they could choose to work for anyone. For some reason, they have chosen to dedicate most of their time and energy to helping your business meet its goals and expectations.
Reason #2: Employer Branding Is A Vital Part Of Your Overall Brand Management Strategy & Potential Growth
In brand strategy, your corporate and employer brands must work together seamlessly and synchronously. When executed correctly, both brands can benefit immensely and each side is magnified by the success of the other.
Whether in the recruiting process or during annual reviews, you will quickly find that your employer branding is seamlessly intertwined with your company’s purpose and goals. Employer branding helps to bring meaning to employees’ work and drives them to connect with their critical stakeholders in an emotional and authentic way and capture their attention with conviction.
Nearly 80% of company recruiting and staffing leaders interviewed state that their company’s employer brand was a major factor in their ability to find and hire great talent. Why? Because employees work in a culture, not just for a company.
Reason #3: High Employer Branding Equals Increased Consumer Loyalty
Need more proof that employer branding is essential to your overall business success? Consider the statistics: 64% of consumers have stopped purchasing a brand after hearing news of that company’s poor employee treatment.
If you want to ostracise your company quickly, ignore your employer branding. Your greatest marketing tool – your employees – will soon start to share the negative messaging and reveal your lack of compassion and purpose. 50% of employees report that they wouldn’t work for a company with a bad reputation – even with high pay and benefits. Employer branding matters.
What Drives Successful Employer Branding?
Once you learn the importance of high-level employer branding, the next step is to discover how to increase employer branding at your own business or organization. Regardless of your industry or niche, here are the top ten drivers of successful employer branding:
- The company is financially healthy and transparent about fiscal behaviours.
- The business strives to create and implement a healthy and safe COVID-19 work environment.
- The company maintains a high reputation with the community, customers, and employees.
- The business offers a high sense of job security to its employees at all levels.
- There are obvious opportunities for career progression and development.
- The company commits and follows through on giving back to the community and global society.
- There are opportunities to work remotely or from home in a full or hybrid method.
- There exists a pleasant and welcoming work atmosphere and culture.
- Leadership encourages and models a healthy work-life balance.
- The company offers new and existing employees attractive salaries and benefits packages.
The Top 10 Companies With High Employer Branding
Wondering which companies are successfully implementing employer branding? Here is a list of the current top ten companies that score highest on employer branding in the UK based on feedback from employees and management:
- Hilton
- Cisco UK
- Salesforce
- DHL Express UK
- Admiral Group
- SAP
- Home Group Limited
- Principality Building Society
- Softcat plc
- Gowling WLG (UK) LLP
How did these companies earn such high employer branding scores? Take a look at why Salesforce is consistently in the top five – the answers can be found in their employee’s responses to employer branding surveys:
5 Steps You Can Take NOW To Boost Your Employer Brand
Ready to take the next step in defining and increasing your employer brand? Here are five tips you can put in place today to start developing a strong employer brand and enjoy the benefits that come along with it:
1. Define Your EVP
Your Employee Value Proposition is better understood as those values that your organisation stands for. This is what employees are looking to align with when they work with an employer. Your EVP is a combination of your company’s core values, mission, vision, and culture. It is what differentiates you from your competitors and what ultimately attracts talent to your company.
Shockingly, only 61% of companies have well-developed EVPs. This means that with a bit of EVP definition and boosting, you can quickly gain a recruiting and hiring edge.
2. Define Your Unique Candidate Personas
Your Candidate Persona is a defined, visual representation of your company’s perfect job candidate. When determining your candidate personas, you should start with your current employees, as they will give you the best overall impression of what type of individual chooses to work for your business.
3. Align Internal & External Marketing
Don’t lose sight of your employer branding by ignoring your marketing strategy. Make sure you are actively aligning your corporate marketing collateral with your external adverts and comms that are used by your recruitment team. This will help connect the dots between your company culture and your outward branding.
4. Boost Your Social Employer Branding
Just like external branding, your employer branding needs a marketing strategy. Get creative with finding ways to ensure that your branding exists on all of your media channels to find the best candidates.
5. Engage Current Employees
Don’t forget your current employees! Make sure that your efforts to boost your employer branding extend to your current employees and make use of them to help you curate your candidate persona and other culture-boosting strategies.
Find Employer Branding Help With GCR
Taking the time to define and develop your employer brand can lead to an increase in the effectiveness and productivity of your entire company – as well as your potential to hire and keep high-calibre candidates.
If you are looking for effective and creative ways to start boosting your employer brand, contact GCR. Our team has years of experience helping companies in the UK discover proven methods to increase your company culture and employer brand. GCR is here to help as an extension to your internal recruitment and EB team.
Want to learn more? Contact GCR today, and email info@gcrsolutions.co.uk to speak to our company leader, Hadie.
