How do Employer Brand Practitioners stay relevant in 2024?

In short: My view is that the EB industry is at a significant juncture. It will take bravery and a laser, strategic focus, to thrive. But it's an opportunity-rich environment and smart Practitioners have the chance to accelerate.

TQ's Employer Brand and Experience Practice recently facilitated 2 Think Tanks with Employer Brand Leaders, representing 15 diverse organisations across sectors like Banking, Government, Retail, Travel, Education, Professional Services, Property and Defence. To our knowledge this is a unique format within Australia and we will continue to run them - as a platform for connection and collaboration for attendees, but also with the aspiration that we can collectively ‘help all the boats rise’ with Employer branding.

Our sessions have ‘Chatham House Rules’ for confidentiality, so I won’t share specifics. Rather, I’ll distil interesting themes, blended with outside sources and TQ perspectives, to make these public pieces both anonymous and relevant to a wider audience.

How do Employer Brand Practitioners stay relevant?

Let’s (playfully) go for the jugular.? Employer Brand continues to be rated as a priority on Executive lists, yet we continue to see EVP being seen as a tagline, suffer under-investment or get relegated to a hiring brand which makes for precarious job stability for Practitioners.?

So, where are we at in 2024, if our backs are still somewhat against the wall – how do we stay relevant??

This is certainly not an exhaustive list in the SWOT visual above (and I’d love to hear what others would add). But I do believe it tells a narrative that’s consistent with what we're seeing across the market – Stand up and make your mark. Or don’t - and accept a lot of risk.

Some call outs for consideration:

1. Proving value remains elusive and inconsistent

The lack of value-based metrics continues to plague the industry. Common sense alone suggests that a strategic focus on Employer Brand will help improve attraction, engagement, belonging etc but it’s common for practitioners to report on tactical marketing metrics like content views. The reality is this – EB influences lots of important business outcomes, but accurate attribution is hard with so many variables at play.

Considerations

• The most sensible advice seems to be around hitching your value-wagon to what matters most within your organisation. Make sure EB goals and activities align tightly to Talent Goals, which roll up to Company Goals. And yes, if not covered within the Talent Goals – Brand/Reputation alignment too. This elevates the perception of value by being visible, contributing to (not owning) impact and metrics
• Don’t hang your hat on ‘retention’ or similar, such lofty goals. It’s too big, too broad, and you have nowhere near enough control or direct impact
• Don’t try to be known for ‘one metric’ – whilst simple is good, it also paints you into a corner
• In terms of industry standards, watch this space!

1. It’s an opportunity-rich talent environment.

This is a glass half full / empty statement. So, let’s be positive. Fortune favours the brave.

Examples:

• As multi-disciplinary professionals (creative, data, marketing, people-oriented etc) who often need to pull multiple functional silos together to get things done – EB practitioners spot opportunities to solve problems. Do we promote ‘benefits’ externally but feedback shows employees are too busy to use them? You can start to change that.? Make stuff happen, take on challenges, make a name for yourself and the role of EB. In this instance, the champion of change for internal experience (using data, change and marketing skills) which in turn helps shape the external employer brand.
• AI is a double- edged sword of course. Used incorrectly it might create reems of beige content. But used smartly, here’s your chance to supercharge content creation, advocacy and other areas that are a real challenge for teams of 1.
• If you work in EB, where do you go for career progression? The big one has to be Experience? To move from hiring brand to internal value creation, smarter organisations and Practitioners are leaning into Experience – the power of listening (what the data tells us about People Experience) to create action (how do we improve Experience) is an exciting new horizon for the Industry – it’s an exciting opportunity waiting to be seized!?

1. Do the hard work first on the ACTUAL Employee Value Proposition

There tends to be two schools of thought. Those who think the EVP is more of a marketing construct - the articulation of what makes you great and why people should be inspired to join and stay (I’ve traditionally been in this camp; it was the origination of our industry). Then there is the strategic definition of the ACTUAL proposition – what is the intentionally designed People Experience (product) we are going to design, the culture we need to foster, the rewards we need to offer and the upskilling opportunities we need to provide in order to achieve our organisational objectives and responsibilities?

What becoming clear to thoughtful practitioners is that the marketing lens alone is a non-starter. You can’t put lipstick on a pig. You can’t promise something that isn’t delivered. You can’t prove the value of a marketing construct then attempt to put your name against meaningful organisational goals.

To truly elevate your Employer Brand, the real work for the organisation comes from intentionally designing and sustaining the right talent experiences (I say again – product). That’s what you then take to market and communicate. And continually iterate through data and insight, in line with the business and talent goals.

Summary

That is a whistle stop tour of some (definitely not all) strategic considerations for Employer Brand Practitioners, are to stay relevant.

In my view, we are at a pivotal moment, full of promise and chances to raise our collective ambitions and impact. It’s wonderfully exciting. The gravitational pull towards Experience feels, and looks to be, inevitable and powerful.

But there are age-old handbrakes still holding us back. And hurdles to overcome.

Fortune does favour the brave and in other articles, and future Think Tanks, we’ll start to chip away at these together.

But for now, what would be on your SWOT (I left lots out from our sessions and would love to see other contributions), what keeps you awake and what other opportunities would you raise to build on this emerging picture??