How to Build your Employer Brand: Part I

Have you been charged with building (or rebuilding) an employment brand for your company? A well-thought-out employment brand is a differentiator for attracting and retaining good people, and while time and resource consuming, is worth the effort. There are three core components to consider when starting an employer brand project: employer value propositions (EVPs), personas, and brand elements.

In this post, I’m going to cover how to identify your EVPs. In future posts, I'll cover personas and brand elements.

Pre-work: Before you take on the task of building or rebuilding your employment brand, be sure to identify key stakeholders in your company for this project. Stakeholders should be people who have a vested interest in the employer brand and can help make large decisions and give guidance. In most cases, this would include the Head of Talent Acquisition, Head of Human Resources, a Senior Leader in Marketing, and sometimes, the CEO or a Senior Executive. Ideally, you’ll conduct a meeting with the key stakeholders before you begin your employer brand work to understand where your decision-making ability lies vs. what they need to approve. While this may sound like a lot of prep and exposure, more and more research shows top executives believe finding and retaining talent is a key business priority. This means employment brand has become more important (and visible) than ever. It’s crucial to get the right people at the table in the early stages.

Employer Value Propositions

EVPs answer the question, “Why would someone work for your company?”

EVPs are what makes working for your company compelling. In fact, these EVPs already exist where you work – they may not yet be packaged in a way that’s easy to communicate (that’s your job!). EVPs should be relatively specific (not just “My company is a great place to work”) and should have proof points that back up each EVP theme. For example, a good EVP would be “My company cares about the health and well-being of the community”. The proof point would be “We contribute $100,000 to the Cancer Research Institute annually.”

EVPs anchor your communication to candidates and employees. Imagine your recruiters, hiring managers and employees using similar language to talk about the experience of working for your company. Consistency is a key element in branding!

Here are a few more examples and a template you can follow:

How do you uncover what your company’s EVPs are? The best way to figure this out is through interviews, focus groups, and looking through your online reviews.

First, interview your recruiters and hiring managers. Recruiters have a wealth of knowledge about why someone should work for your company, as do hiring managers who interview candidates frequently. Ask them questions like “Why do people accept the offer?” and “Why do people stay with the company?”

Second, conduct focus groups. Build cross-functional focus groups within your organization and ask them similar questions like “Why do you stay with the company?” and “What is your favorite thing about working here?” When you ask these types of questions to enough people, you will start to see patterns emerge. You should see enough patterns to begin forming EVP themes. For example, if you hear over and over again that people in your company feel valued, listened to, and well-compensated (these are patterns), then one of your EVP themes might be “Our company prioritizes its employees first.” Remember, you also need proof points that back up your EVP theme. The more proof points, the better. A proof point here might be “We have a retention rate double the industry average” and “Our company conducts annual engagement surveys with action plans”.

Third, read through your company reviews on social media, Glassdoor, Indeed, and Google. The reviews you read should confirm what you’ve uncovered in your interviews and focus groups.

How do you validate your information and know when you are done with your employer brand project?

Once you have at least three themes identified with your proof points, it’s time to start validating them. Do most people within the company agree with the accuracy of how you describe your company’s working environment? Do your company reviews on social media, Indeed, and Glassdoor confirm them as well? When I was at this stage of building our employer brand, I met with anyone and everyone in the company who would listen. I read through what I discovered, then asked other employees about their experiences working for the company. The more validation you have, the more accurate your EVP themes will be. Accuracy is crucial in packaging your brand. People are smart and can sniff through BS, and, more importantly, don’t like being lied to. The last thing you want to do is to mislead a candidate with your EVPs, only for them to find out that’s not what the actual experience is once they join the company. That person will likely feel betrayed and will probably leave the company with a bad impression – not good for reputation management. Of course, you can’t guarantee that every single person who is hired will experience all of the EVP themes you outlined, but validating your EVPs and proof points with enough people in the company will help clarify and refine them.

How do you know when you are done developing your EVP themes and proof points? It’s hard to put specifics around this because employment brand is living and breathing as company culture can change over time. However, you can tell you are close to being done when you have found at least three EVP themes with multiple proof points that back each one up. Once you’ve met with your key stakeholders and get their agreement on the accuracy of your EVP themes, review and re-socialize your EVPs with a core group of people annually to ensure nothing has changed.

EVPs and proof points, while important, are just one part of the employer brand. Wouldn’t it be great if we could understand the drivers and motivators of our candidates? That’s personas. Up next: How to uncover what makes your candidate audience tick by developing candidate personas.