The Ultimate Guide to Employer Branding

When searching for the best talent, employer branding is a must. It is often overlooked as a recruitment strategy by companies, preventing them from seeking new opportunities. If you’re looking to create a strong brand that lasts, then you’ve come to the right place. 

In this article, we’re going to look at everything from understanding what employer branding is to knowing why it is important and some top tips for how to implement it yourself. With this information, you can then go forth and do great things whilst attracting the right people. 

For those of you aiming to lure the brightest stars in your field, you’ll want to keep reading as we have everything you need to know about employer branding below!

What is Employer Branding?

So, what is employer branding? It seems logical to start by explaining what we’re talking about here before we move on to more of the nitty gritty stuff. 

Employer branding is about showing job seekers who you are, what you do and what you can offer them. It allows companies to project their values and shine a light on what makes them different. 

Employer branding in recruitment provides you with a strategy to position yourself as the best of the best. It allows you to not only create a personality around your brand that will retain current employees but also attract new ones. 

This strategy is often used by HR teams to paint a picture of who your brand is and the type of place you are to work. You’ll want to ensure that you create a strong reputation from the perspective of your employees. Things like your culture, benefits and workplace atmosphere are key areas to highlight when building your employer brand.

Why is Employer Branding Important?

There are many reasons why employer branding is important. This under-valued strategy has plenty of benefits and helps to highlight the areas that make your business great.

Below are a few more reasons why you should be focusing on your employer branding.  

Increases Employee Retention

We all know that hiring costs businesses a lot more time and money than retaining the talent you already have. Creating a strong employer branding strategy will help employees see the value in your brand, encouraging them to stay with you. Plus, according to The Employer Brand Statistics from LinkedIn (page 4), a strong employer brand can aid a 50% cost per-hire reduction, allowing you to reduce the impact on your bottom line.

Puts You Ahead of Competitors 

When competing for top talent, candidates have the upper hand when it comes to choosing where they work. They’ll likely have several companies competing for them, so employer branding can make all the difference here. 

The Employer Brand Statistics by LinkedIn (page 5) also found that 75% of job seekers consider an employer’s brand before even applying for a job. With this in mind, you’ll want to make sure all your highlights are obvious when they start looking!

Helps Attract New Talent 

A strong employer brand will also help ensure you attract the right people and the best talent to your business. Job seekers are 3 x more likely to trust a company’s employees than the company (page 5), so having good employee reviews on places like Glassdoor will likely attract more of the finest candidates out there.

How to Build a Strong Employer Brand

Now you know a bit more about what an employer brand is and its importance for your business, let’s move on to the strategic stuff.  

Keep reading to find our top tips on which you can apply employer branding to your company to get the most out of your marketing efforts. 

1. Conduct an Employer Brand Audit 

To create the best employer brand possible, it is important to know how others feel about what you’re currently doing. Conducting an audit on the perception of your brand is an excellent way to gather feedback and find room for improvement. 

Your employees are a superb place to start when conducting a brand audit as it will help you understand your current branding from a different perspective. Dig into your strengths and weaknesses and find areas to improve. This will also help to ensure you’re presenting your brand in a way that is relatable and relevant to those you are trying to attract.

2. Understand Your Values

If you’re looking to present your brand in a way that is true and meaningful to your audience, you first need to have an in-depth understanding of what’s at the heart of your company. Spend some time uncovering what motivates you and your employees and take a look at how your business is impacting people and the world around them. 

To help get you started, you could first look into the reasons why your business exists. What is your purpose and do you show this through your brand? Next, you can start to look at where you’re heading. What is the vision for the business and how do you plan to get there? Finally, focus on the values. Ask what is important to this business and understand how your behaviour reflects that. 

These will enable companies to understand their organisation on a more meaningful level, which will help transform your business into a strong brand. Once the foundations are formed, you can then start to use these to project your employer branding strategies to potential candidates. 

3. Enhance Your Online Presence

Often the first place people go when searching for a business is online. Whether it be your website, social media or recruiting sites, this is often the first impression that your brand leaves on potential candidates. As we all know, first impressions count, so if you’re not already presenting yourself as the best of the best, then you’re missing out on a great opportunity. 

You can enhance your website or social media by creating value-led content that has the reader at the heart. Understand what people want from you and have it waiting for them the minute they click on your site. It’s also important to create a user-friendly website, allowing visitors to explore with ease – errors or slow sites will just make them frustrated and more likely to leave. 

It’s also vital that you highlight why you’re different and what you have to offer. This can be done by showing off your perks and benefits, displaying employee testimonials or engaging in a way that is human-orientated and likeable. Visitors to your site or social media page will get a feel for who you are and will start to build associations around your brand, so you must present your organisation in a way that aligns with your values.

4. Develop a Strong Onboarding Process

Your onboarding process is the first experience that your new hire has with your company, so you must get off to a good start. Not only do you want to make it as easy as possible for them to settle in, but you also want to ensure you’re leaving a positive impression.

A good onboarding process should include everything they need to know about working for you and what is expected of them in their role. Being clear and consistent from the start helps them to feel more comfortable in delivering their tasks and creates a smoother transition for everyone involved. Plus, according to statistics in a G2 article in 2019, companies with strong onboarding processes improve their new employee retention rate by 82% and productivity by over 70%.

5. Create Perks and Benefits To Be Proud Of

We all love a perk and who’s to say we can’t also enjoy these at work? From healthcare benefits to meal vouchers, team breakfasts, gym memberships and much more, these benefits will help present your brand in a strong light. When candidates are comparing you against competitors, you must stand out from the crowd and create an employer brand that shouts ‘We care, look at what we offer our employees!’.

6. Host Company Events

Company events provide an ideal place to shout about the great things you do. You can host these events both internally and externally, both of which have their benefits. External affairs are great for visibility and enhancing your brand to a wider audience. Whereas internal occasions are perfect for boosting team morale and creating a positive work environment.

7. Encourage Employee Testimonials

Not only are potential candidates more likely to trust what your employees have to say about your brand, but 69% of current employees also said that it is very important that the brand they work for is one they are proud to support. 

So, by enhancing your employer brand and creating one that your employees value, they are more likely to start spreading the word about how great you are! You can then use these testimonials on places like Glassdoor, Vault, Comparably and more to attract some of the best in your field.

8. Build a Positive Workplace Culture

Workplace culture is vital for building a strong employer brand. As we have already explored, what the employees have to say matters. So, you’ll want to work on ways to keep your team happy to ensure they feel good about working for you and also want to tell others about their happiness within their job. 

Ensuring you’re a place that focuses on diversity and inclusion is a great place to start working on the overall culture of your company. Plus, with more than 50% of CEOs stating that company culture influences productivity, creating a happy work environment makes sense on multiple levels.

9. Design Workspaces Around Employee Needs

Your workspace reflects the company and is a visual representation of your brand. When considering employer branding ideas, we recommend ensuring that your offices or working areas reflect who you are as a company. For example, a fun marketing agency might have pool tables, games, and quirky decor throughout their offices. 

Creating an experience for your employees when they come to work every day is also super important for developing a strong employer brand. A McKinsey Employee Experience in 2020 found that having a positive employee experience has 16 times the engagement level of employees with a negative experience. If that doesn’t make you want to create a better environment to work in, we don’t know what will!

10. Actively Encourage Learning and Development

With boredom being one of the main reasons for employees leaving jobs, learning and development opportunities are more important than ever. Not only does this create an environment for growth but it also looks great for your employer brand. 

The more opportunities you give to your employees to learn and develop, the more likely they are to stick around and also say good things about working for your company. Plus, we already know that potential new hires trust what current employees have to say about the company, so everyone wins!

Tools to Use for Employer Branding

There are plenty of amazing tools out there that will help you get your employer branding off the ground.

For those of you looking to get started on your brand, check out some of the recommendations below.

1. Glassdoor

Those using Glassdoor are in a great position to showcase their employer branding efforts. Here you can tell potential hires what’s great about working for your company, include the elements we’ve discussed above and shout about the good stuff. Be sure use lots of imagery of your team too, it demonstrates your human side. It also assists in creating a place for your current employees to share their experiences of the business – an excellent way to showcase your testimonials! 

According to Glassdoor, 86% of job seekers look at a company’s reviews and rating before deciding where to apply for a job. Glassdoor is the leading platform for company reviews and it pays to be in charge of your reputation their. Make sure you’re responding to all feedback, positive and negative.

2. LinkedIn

Those using Glassdoor are in a great position to showcase their employer branding efforts. Here you can tell potential hires what’s great about working for your company. It also assists in creating a place for your current employees to share their experiences of the business – an excellent way to showcase your testimonials! 

3. Applicant Tracking and Recruitment Management Systems

The whole idea of creating a strong employer brand is to present the best impression possible. Applicant Tracking Systems and Recruitment Management tools can help ensure candidates remain engaged with your company and guide them through the recruitment process. These tools allow to to stay in control throughout the process, whether that’s setting tasks, delivering candidate feedback, managing interviews and more. Tools like Greenhouse allow you to do this, and build a wealth of analytics to understand where you can improve your candidate experience. According to a study conducted by Career Builder,  78% of candidates view candidate experience as an indicator of how a company treats its employees. 

4. Google Analytics (Or Other Website Analytics Tools)

Those using Glassdoor are in a great position to showcase their employer branding efforts. Here you can tell potential hires what’s great about working for your company. It also assists in creating a place for your current employees to share their experiences of the business – an excellent way to showcase your testimonials! 

Summary

Overall, we can see that employer branding benefits are tenfold. It is an important aspect for any business looking to attract the best talent, alongside retaining existing employees. This strategy also helps to put you ahead of your competitors and create a recognisable presence in your field. We hope that after reading this article you are now equipped with the knowledge to go forth and create a brand worth talking about! 

If you’re looking to attract and retain the best and brightest talent in your field, the Marketists can help. Specialising in marketing for recruitment businesses, we can help get your brand in front of the right people. Get in touch to find out more about our employment branding services or check out our other articles to learn more.