Three Effective Ways to Improve Your Employer Brand

Your company’s brand can affect your ability to sell products or services, but your brand as an employer impacts your ability to recruit and retain top talent. The Harvard Business Reviewwrites that 73 percent of CEOs are concerned with talent shortages worldwide. In light of the new “war for talent,” strengthening your reputation as a great place to work can help you attract better new hires and improve your employee retention efforts. We have written about the importance of creating a positive employer brand. Below, we’ll cover three smart steps to improve your employer brand and implement a branding strategy that attracts talented job candidates and retains and engages your current employees.

Projections has decades of experience working with thousands of companies to reach millions of employees, helping to build better leaders, improve engagement and keep organizations union-free. We help you develop positive employee relations strategies in order to create authentic employee connections and develop leaders your teams love. Projections resources can help you navigate challenges and drive sustainable behavioral change. With custom video, website, and eLearning solutions, we can help you unify and engage employees and become an employer of choice.

What is An Employer Brand?

According to Builtin, a national tech community, employer branding is “the process of managing and influencing your reputation as an employer among job seekers, employees and key stakeholders.” This means that your employer brand includes everything your company is doing in terms of hiring, how much you’re paying your employees, benefits, opportunities for growth and training, etc. Not only that, your brand is determined by company culture, values, Your branding strategy is critical for potential candidates determining whether or not they want to work for you. Not surprisingly, 95 percent of job seekers say that an employer’s reputation impacts their decision whether to take a job or not.

Steps to Improve Your Employer Brand

1. Become a Learning Organization

Research by Deloitte indicates that learning and development are among the most pressing issues in effectively managing human capital challenges. Rich, multimedia options for employee learning can attract motivated new hires who are eager to improve their professional skill sets. Videos, web courses and other forms of eLearning can provide on-demand options for a global workforce and help position your brand as an employer of choice. In fact, according to the 2019 LinkedIn Workforce Learning report, a staggering 94% of employees surveyed said they would leave a company if they didn’t allow them opportunities for learning and development. With statistics like that, you can’t afford to skip out when it comes to providing tools and training for growth and career development – for team members at all levels.

2. Improve Employee Engagement

Positive employee relations play a critical role in your digital employer brand. Potential new hires will scope out your recruitment materials, but they’re also likely to investigate how you’re represented by your current staff on LinkedIn, Twitter, employer reviews websites and other mediums.

Forbes declares that the days of a once-yearly employee engagement survey are officially over. Today’s HR teams and management should make engagement and staff happiness an ongoing conversation, which can include an official open-door policy, frequent data-collection and other methods of relationship-building. It may be difficult to request feedback from your employees on a regular basis, but the impact cannot be ignored. Engaged employees are going to be productive employees, and they’re also far more likely to share their experiences on forums like Glassdoor, enticing new job candidates every day.

3. Maintain Competitive Total Compensation

Your organization’s ability to attract and retain talent will also be significantly impacted by your salaries. HR leaders should also look beyond pure pay scales to consider their financial and non-financial employee benefits. As BluIvy group writes, it’s often about “the total compensation package, not just the salary.” Forms of non-salary and non-fiscal compensation that could improve your employer brand will likely include:

• Benefits
• Retirement plans
• Learning & development opportunities
• Work-life balance
• Flexible or mobile workplaces
• Employee discounts
• Leadership training programs
• Opportunities for employee recognition

While your candidates are likely to consider the impact of a salary offer, they’ll also consider an offer to telecommute and strong training programs as perks that can have a positive impact on their life.

Culture is Key to Your Branding Strategy

It’s one thing to focus on how your company treats its customers, but it should be considered equally important to think of your employees the same way. Emphasizing the customer experience and how they are taken care of is essential, but it is meaningless if your branding strategy doesn’t also include prioritizing your employees. Employees who feel their voices are heard, their needs are met, and their well-being is important to their workplace are going to be employees that treat their customers with that same amount of respect and compassion.

Since your employer brand is based upon your reputation as an employer, the way your employees feel and act at work are naturally going to play a large part in that. Creating a positive work environment where employees can deliver feedback to leadership, share ideas, and feel respected are all elements that are within your control.

Build a Strong Employer Brand

Stiff competition for the most talented employees isn’t likely to go away anytime soon. By building a strong and comprehensive employer brand, HR leaders can achieve a global reputation as a positive place for talent to grow a career. By looking beyond pure salaries to learning and development, total compensation, engagement and more, you can improve your brand, your reputation, and ensure job candidates are actively seeking employment with your company.

If you are in need of a custom solution to improve your employer branding strategy, Projections can help you create powerful employee and leader-facing websites, orientation videos, custom leadership training, and more. We’d love to help you get started today to become the employer of choice that hires talented employees, and keeps them!

This article was originally published on the Projections blog at https://projectionsinc.com/three-effective-ways-to-boost-your-employer-brand/