How to Build Your Employer Brand

The Consumer Brand and the Employer Brand both play a unique role in an organisation's success; while the Consumer Brand is designed to drive people to purchase your products or solutions, your Employer Brand is designed to drive the ideal employees to want to work for your organisation. It defines your Value Proposition to potential hires and reinforces the organisation's reputation as a rewarding and inspiring place to work. Today, as employees are drawn to a meaningful career and strong work-life balance -expecting work to be part of who they are, not just a way to make a living - Employer Branding is more important than ever. Yet, it is even more important to follow through on the brand promise so your Employer Brand not only attracts the right employees but also retains them in the long-term.   

So how do you build an Employer Brand and how do you ensure it remains sustainable? 

Employer Branding must be built as a strategic and holistic process that follows a cyclical approach to ensure the brand stays timely and relevant to potential employees. 

1.    Identify your organisational objectives

Your company objectives are the foundation of your culture, and you want to attract candidates who are drawn to this culture. Today, people want to believe that their work has meaning and that they are playing a part in achieving something bigger than themselves. By defining your corporate objectives, you are telling potential employees: “This is what we can achieve together.” 

2.    Define your audience 

Just as you market your products and services to the target customer, you need to "market" your workplace to the most desirable talent. First, you need to define the skills and qualities you want in an employee, then you need to understand what drives and motivates people who fit this profile. What type of workplace culture do they want? What long-term career structure would appeal to them? What do you need to offer in order to keep them stimulated and enthusiastic about your organisation long-term? Once you have defined your audience, you can hone your brand message to incorporate all the information they need to see in order to think of your organisation as a desirable place to work.  

3.    Understand your organisation's internal reality

It’s easy enough to make exciting promises – it’s another thing to actually follow through and create an exciting and stimulating workplace that meets the expectations of new employees. The narrative you present to the world must fit your internal reality, or your eager new employees will quickly become disillusioned and leave. A fast turn-around of staff will damage the credibility of your Employer Brand and you will struggle to attract the talent you need to make your business thrive. 

4.    Identify and communicate your Unique Selling Points (USP)

Now that you have a good understanding of who you need to hire into your organisation, what drives their career decisions, and what you can truthfully offer perspective employees, it's time to define the core pillars of your Employer Value Proposition (EVP). These must be built on solid foundation and must be True, Attractive, Sustainable, Credible and Differentiating. Once you have unveiled your core values, a communication strategy that is data-led, human and purposeful is a must-have. This will allow you to translate your EVP into messages that are relevant across geographies, functions and target groups, and leverage on genuine storytelling to reach talent where they expect to find you.

5.    Full circle

Finally, engage your talent and assess the impact of your Employer Branding and recruitment activities to ensure your success is measurable. This will allow you to tweak your communication strategy if you find that your message is not coming through, and take a more scientific approach to both increasing your market share and building your brand equity. This cyclical strategy keeps your organisation alive as a growing and developing entity, and it ensures that you continue to position yourself as an ideal and desirable place to work for the talent that is right for you.

And remember, as Sir Terry Leah once said, "Your Employer Brand isn't what you say it is, it's what people tell you it is."