5 Steps to Successful Employer Branding.
Understand what successful employer branding looks like
Successful employer branding incorporates three essential elements:
Leadership behaviours that reflect and champion your company's culture, purpose, and values.
HR management practices that uphold the psychological contract throughout the employee lifecycle.
Value-driven internal and external communication, which fosters brand equity.
Without either element, you will experience incongruence. And while you may achieve some success, such as C.V inflow due to fantastic looking creative and excellently executed recruitment marketing, you may not recruit quality hires that last with the organisation, or build the brand reputation you are looking for.
The aim is to establish a symbiotic relationship between your HR, and branding / marketing particies that is guided by your organisation’s purpose, values, and strategy.
2. Conduct a 'mini' employer branding audit
Clarity is key. It's crucial to gain clarity on your current talent attraction and retention efforts.
Here are a few steps you can take:
Map out your HR practices across the whole employee lifecycle, from attract to exit.
List and monitor key HR and marketing metrics.
Gain a profound understanding of your employee experience through employee survey data, organisation reviews etc.
At this stage, start to understand what matters most to your organisation and where you need to start putting your focus. You cannot possibly focus on everything.
3. Understand your employees' needs.
It’s so easy to listen to your loud, actively disengaged employees in a way that this is the only truthful employee experience, but what about if you seek out those ‘quiet’ high performers. Why do they stay?
Think about conducting focus groups with different employee segments.
Engage in insightful conversations to understand their expectations.
Shift your emphasis from why people are leaving, to who your ideal candidate is. And just like a seasoned marketer, create employee and candidate personas. This is the only audience that matters.
4. Define your uniqueness as an employer
Now that you have gained an understanding of your employee experience, your ideal candidate, and your organisation’s values/purpose, it's time to draft a narrative around what sets you apart as an employer and what you really have to offer. Why should this target audience work at your organisation?
HR and marketing are to join forces to come up with some great messages to use in any external and internal employer branding.
Use real examples and stories from your employees to illustrate your messages.
Test your messages with current and potential employees.
In more technical terms we could call this your EVP – employee value preposition. Yet, truthfully. It’s way more important to know what you have to offer and to embed this in your communications and behaviours, rather than state you have an EVP and don’t actually use it.
5. Infuse your ‘USP’ throughout the employee lifecycle
Make sure your unique selling points permeate every aspect of your organization:
Think about how your current HR practices align with the brand values and purpose.
Use internal communications to enhance the employee experience and cultivate the unique culture you want to create.
Create a creative identity that conveys who you are and what you have to offer, authentically.
Authenticity is crucial. Let your external employer branding resonate with the human work needs you meet in your organisation, rather than a romanticized, unrealistic portrayal of ‘a possible’ workplace.
To conclude.
Employer branding is not about a creative identity we call ‘employer brand’; it is a comprehensive approach that connects every people-related decision. It is a chance to demonstrate who you are as an organisation, to attract, engage, and retain the talent you desire. With the right blend of HR and marketing strategies, you can create an authentic, value-driven employer brand that boosts productivity, profitability, and growth.
This blogpost is a summary of my webinar: Getting started with employer branding in 5 simple steps. If you’ve missed my last webinar, & would like to join the next one, register your interest here