The traditional definition of an employer brand is how an organization portrays itself as a place to work but it is not enough anymore. It no longer works as a stand-alone recruitment strategy because job seekers are so inundated with ads and social media advertisements that the message gets lost.
An employer brand is a marketing strategy that attempts to create a strong employee-employer bond. The goal of an employer brand is to generate a set of values, skills and strengths represented by the organization in order to connect with potential future employees. This can be achieved through communicating the company’s values and beliefs, publishing lists of competencies related to the position, and displaying a cohesive corporate identity. The most important asset that any company builds is its brand.
” Employer branding is one fruitful avenue for organizations to establish the value they offer employees and to differentiate themselves from competing firms. “
-Crystal M. Harold
Employer branding is the process of defining your organization’s brand to prospective candidates. It includes planning, creating, and executing a range of employer branding strategies to shape your brand. The employer branding processes you use shouldn’t embellish or exaggerate your existing company’s brand, goals, or values. It should reflect the actual perks of your organization and match your brand.
Effective Employer Branding: Benefits & Strategies
The employer brand means different things to different people but we can define it as a way of portraying the company’s image in front of potential employees. The employer brand is a mirror image of your company, managerial style, culture, people, and skills you manage. Some of the benefits of employer branding are as follows:-
- A strong employer brand will make your current employees proud to be a part of the organization. Culture is a big selling point for job seekers, and companies should be mindful of how they are show casing their employee-centric culture. Use your company’s social media profiles wisely to promote this employee-centric culture and ensure that prospective job seekers find out about it on various social media platform slike LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter etc. As per research, about80% of job seekers research an employer online before deciding if they want to apply for a position in that company or not.
- Companies with solid employer brands attract more candidates, which means they spend less on talent acquisition marketing. Working for a reputed company is crucial for all, and if you position your company in this way, you can surely attract more candidates for open roles. Why do you need to pay for postings posting a job onboard when you already have a dedicated pool of leads on your careers site? Research has shown that organisations that have a managed employer brand strategy can source more than 60% of the workforce.
” Stay true to your brand, and you’ll attract the candidates that are an even better fit.”
- Do you know more than 50% of jobseekers rely on employee reviews? So, when your top performers will share their own positive work experiences on their social media with their circle, it will work to support your recruitment strategies. Turn your employees into your brand advocates as by this your brand power will automatically attract and influence potential candidates.
- When an organization intentionally engages employees and makes them a central component of its brand, it will be more productive and profitable. This translates into less employee turnover, which in turn allows the business to build a stable base of potential candidates for new positions, increasing its chances of success in the marketplace.
- A well-crafted employer brand, supported by the right employer’s branding strategy and process, can provide a significant competitive advantage. Having a good employer branding formula at work means hiring more qualified candidates who are more interested in including your company in their job list.
Strategies to build employer branding:-Strategies to build employer branding
- A successful employer branding strategy will be formed by the company’s both short and long-term goals. By taking into account everything the organization can achieve the skills it requires for future growth. Kick-off by aligning the employer branding strategy with the organizational needs.
- A well-crafted employer branding strategy should help organizations solve problems or accomplish goals. Actionable objectives that share common traits can help businesses define their recruitment goals.
- The leadership of your organisation has an impact both on your company’s culture and how happy your employees are in their roles. Research even shows that an employee’s perception of authentic business leadership is one of the strongest predictors of their job satisfaction, commitment to the organisation and happiness at work
- Evaluate what goals you want to accomplish with an Employer Branding strategy. Some common Employer Branding goals are:
● To get more job applicants.
● To get good quality candidates.
● Enhance online engagement.
● High engagement of candidates.
● Increase brand awareness of the employer.
● Build trustworthy relationships with current candidates.
● To have high applicants from social media.
● Increase in offer-acceptance rate.
- Defining your candidate persona will ensure that your messaging is targeted correctly.
- Your employer brand speaks for your company. It is important to create a positive experience for the candidates who are applying to your organization.
- Today, savvy applicants are searching for information about a company before even thinking about submitting their CV. This makes it essential that your organisation has a presence on several online channels to attract and retain quality employees.
Employer Branding
An effective employer branding strategy helps you create a positive brand through effective marketing, which also enhances how potential candidates view your company’s culture. Employer branding also:
Informs the potential candidates about your company’s benefits.
Provide information to the candidates about the corporate social responsibility or services that you are offering.
Helps to inform the candidates about career development opportunities etc.
A company’s ability to offer positive incentives like the ones described above is an important factor in defining its employer brand and can significantly boost its image among potential employees. When you have identified such incentives, you can use them to promote your company’s benefits to job candidates.
company’s ability To build a good employer brand, you should add meaning to it. By adding value to the employer brand successful smart companies stay ahead of the curve. They have realized that this trend can bring them a lot of benefits such as talent attraction, employee retention and reduction in turnover cost.
Your employer branding strategy should be based on adding meaning to your brand. Don’t just think about coming up with an employer brand that is catchy, easily digestible, and has an impact. A survey was conducted by Monster World wide, of around 50,000 people across the globe in which it was observed that 10percent of them said that political unrest affected their chances of getting a job.
Further, it showed that 52% of employees are looking for new jobs because they feel unappreciated. A meaningful employer brand can fix these problems and make sure you get the best talent on board. Meaning simply adds more substance to what you are offering. It involves telling a story about the company which will be followed by the recruitment process in detail and it will involve everything that employers will have to deal with during their hiring process. Meaningless employer branding is a waste of resources.
The more a company can provide meaningful employment opportunities, the more they will be able to retain employees. A strong employer brand will contribute to greater employee satisfaction. Adding meaning to the employer brand is a strategic way by which employers are building an identity, defining their goals, and providing the foundation for their recruiting efforts. It will provide a competitive advantage in the recruiting process. The importance of employer branding lies in the fact that most of today’s candidates have already made up their minds about working for specific organizations. To bring them on board, employers need to make themselves appealing in terms of making sure they stick out from the crowd of other organizations they are competing with.
” A brand is no longer what we tell the consumer it is. It’s what consumers tell each other it is. “
The employer brand is the kind of picture an organization paints of itself to draw the best talents. It represents the feelings that a job seeker has about an organization. The success of an employer brand, therefore, relies on making it valuable to candidates by adding meaning to it and removing meaningless elements so that it becomes a valuable asset for the organization in attracting, retaining, and inspiring talent.