Many companies are competing to attract competency, and your employer brand is more important than ever. But what does employer branding really mean, and why should you know about it? We’ll guide you through the essentials and provide you with three tips on how to succeed.
What is Employer Branding?
Employer Branding is how you, as an employer, work consistently and strategically with your employer brand to be a good, healthy, and sought-after workplace. In short, it’s about the existing company values and the company culture, and how you as an employer communicate this both internally and externally to be perceived as an attractive workplace. In other terms, it means that you, in an honest and trustworthy way, communicate what the company stands for, to increase your possibilities to attract the right employees.
Why You Should Know About Employer Branding
The job market is constantly changing. It used to be the employers’ market, with many candidates to pick and choose from. Today, it is quite the opposite – the candidates often have several job offers at their disposal and can hand-pick their new employer with care.
Nowadays employers need to profile themselves to be visible, and this is where employer branding comes in. With a strong employee brand, you will increase your ability to attract and recruit competent and talented candidates – the best-case scenario is that they come looking for you instead of the other way around. They are also more likely to accept job offers much sooner, since they already know about the company and its good reputation as a workplace.
Last but not least: Another important reason to think employer branding is that your employees are ambassadors for your company. Their opinion about the workplace is crucial as to how the workplace will be perceived by others. When someone asks your employees what it’s like to work with your company, their answers won’t primarily involve your great products – instead, they will talk about how the atmosphere is, how the management is, and how the workplace cohesiveness is. And, obviously, you want them to spread the word about how great it is to work at your company, right? Thus, working with employer branding can be a crucial factor for new candidates to pick your company as their workplace.
Working Strategically with Employer Branding – Three Tips
Even if you already have a good clue about what employer branding is, it might be a struggle to know where to start. Here are three tips on how you can build a solid and attractive employee brand.
- Start From the Inside
Your ability to attract work force comes from within. It’s not just about communicating your company values – it's also about internalizing those values. Is the workplace culture influenced by engagement and confidence? Or is there friction and lack of trust? Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter how much work you put into your core values if your employees feel that those values aren’t truly aligned with reality.
A great way to start with employer branding is to review how you are perceived by your employees. Let your employees fill in surveys so you can get an overview of how they experience the workplace. By regularly scheduling staff appraisals or conducting employee surveys, you will discover if there is room for improvement to get your employees to thrive even more. - Communicate Your EVP
Your Employee Value Proposition is what you have to offer your employees that makes you unique as an employer. What is it that employees get when they choose to work for you? What kind of company will they be part of? Being able to communicate this to new potential candidates is just as important as communicating to potential customers what they will get when buying your product. You’re probably already working strategically with communicating a value proposition to your customers, and it is a good idea to work apply the same approach as an employer. Because if it isn’t clear to employees and new candidates what makes you unique, why should they pick you? - Show Who You Are – Reach the Right Candidates
Employer Branding is about communicating what makes your company such a good workplace. A good way to do this is through social media, where there are loads of opportunities to show what kind of employer you are. What happens at your company during the day? Are you arranging fun, enriching events, or are you celebrating something? Post about it! Potential candidates will get some insight into what it’s like to work at your company, while you at the same time involve your employees in what is going on in the company.
Another way to increase awareness about your employer brand is through career pages, where you can tell both your employees and new candidates about development possibilities when working for your company.
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