Employer brand strategy – or Employment Branding – is what creates and develops the perception that potential employees have of your company and what it is like to work for.
It covers such things as your company vision, mission statement and even your brand voice. It is also heavily influenced by your brand visual assets, as these often give the public an insight into the internal workings of your business.
Employment branding has a cross-over with your marketing brand – some of your branding will affect your employment branding, but not all of your employment branding comes from your marketing.
In a post-covid world, companies that are recruiting will have a larger-than-ever pool of potential candidates chasing a limited number of jobs. Having a clear employment branding can go a long way to attracting the right kind of candidate to your business.
Employment branding is as important as your company brand that you use to market your business – so let’s have a quick look at how this affects you in ways that you may not have realised.
Your company vision and mission statement
As a part of your marketing branding, your company vision and mission statement define who your company is.
Your vision is your company’s purpose of being; it dictates the direction that it is heading in. This will have a direct impact on your recruitment process, as not only will it attract a certain type of person, but it will also assist you in understanding who will be a good fit for working with you
If the potential candidate clearly ‘gets’ your vision, there’s a good chance they will work hard to help you achieve it.
For example, if your company vision is to create food products that replace meat with plant matter, then it’s likely you are going to attract vegetarians and vegans to work with you on that. Not exclusively, of course, but if they already ‘live the life’ then they already have a vested interest in the success of the business.
Your mission statement, on the other hand, describes how you are going to achieve your vision. This is how you are going to get from where to are now to the point where you have achieved your vision. This has an impact on the types of skillsets that you are looking to employ.
Both your vision and mission statement are a part of the package that puts into the minds of your employees (and potential employees) what it is like to work for you, so they need to both be clearly defined.
Your company values
Your company values are where employment branding starts to be its own definition and not completely the same as your market branding.
Company values can be a wide range of elements, but usually, we are referring to the attitudes and moral dynamics that operate within an organisation.
Having a written list of company values becomes a description of the ideal employee and what all staff are striving to become in terms of behaviours and work ethic.
They have a large impact on the experience of what it is like to work for your company and thus play a major part of your employer brand strategy.
If you have a list of company values (and you should) then it is important that the recruitment of staff accommodates this as a part of the HR recruitment policy. As we have just mentioned, these values are almost a description of an ideal candidate (alongside relevant skills, of course).
A part of your employer branding is to publish these values and make known the type of company that you are to work for; this will in turn help attract the right kinds of personalities that you are looking for when recruiting.
This is an important way to develop your employment brand and start to create your employer reputation.
By making your values public, you are also declaring your values to your customers as well, and this can have a beneficial impact on your brand as a whole, so long as your values have merit.
In this regard, providing feedback is also one of the core values. For instance, some good feedback examples can be used both in the process of interviews to gauge candidates’ responsiveness and adaptability, and in terms of building company values by fostering a culture of open communication and continuous improvement.
Your company visual assets
Whilst not perhaps the first aspect to cross your mind when contemplating employment branding, your company visual assets have an important role to play.
As a part of your employment brand strategy, you should curate a collection of photographs of your workplace, your staff (both working and socialising together) and generally present an impression of an attractive place to work.
This is not particularly for use during recruitment drives (although these types of images look great in brochures if you use them) but for occasional social media posts focussing on what it is like to work for your company – introductions to key members of staff, interviews with them – “getting to know you marketing”, in other words.
Over time, these social posts build a strong employment branding in the public eye and add to your reputation as an employer.
If you think of Google, you think of a search engine. If you think of working for Google, however, then most people will have a clear impression of what that experience is like. Where has this come from? Well – a large part of this perception has come from a long history of Google social media posts, video from staff interviews and web features and reputation, which they have worked hard to cultivate.
This is their employment branding.
Many other companies often describe their workplace experience as Google-esque, since it is so well known.
Visual branding has played a key role in Google’s recruitment success and it can do with yours also.
Google office Orange County. Source: johnchow.com
Why is employment branding so important?
Employment branding is important because it is fast becoming one of the main bargaining chips in attracting employees.
One way to attract the best employees is to pay more than anyone else – although this is often not sustainable. So the other way is to complete on what makes you different (better) to work for.
And how do you gain this reputation? Employment branding.
Employment branding can even help your staff retention. If your reputation and work ethics (values) are already known in the employment market, then recruits already have an idea of what to expect when coming to work for you. Those unlikely to fit in are less likely to even apply, so the ones that do will tend to stay.
With an abundance of talented workers likely to be looking for work over the next 6-12 months, more than usual, it is clear that a rethink of employment branding is required by many firms.
If you need help with your employment branding, visual assets or just a second opinion on how you could improve your market share of the peak employee market, then talk to Splento today.
Call us or email, and we will be happy to advise on any steps you may need to take to increase your leverage in the increasingly competitive work marketplace.
Splento has professional corporate photographers who have experience in employment branding strategies, so take action on your employment branding today and benefit from it tomorrow.
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