Employee branding: Do you remember when you were a five-year-old keeping your candies away from your brother? You are a grown-up now running a company. Your retentions and objectives have shifted. But you still have valuable things to save tooth and nail.
As a head of an organization, human resources are your most valuable objects.
Indeed, the matter of holding your employees is that serious. Human resources are the power a company counts on. Its strength amplifies business success and keeps new promises. Human resource management must be tailored with strategies to improve employee branding.
Kelley Van Boxmeer, CEO of Motion Invest explains “To define more precisely, employee branding is the practice of the whole employee experience conditioned by their reputation and the employee value proposition. Engagement and retention make up the underlying foundation when enhancing employee branding attraction. In employment, the concept of ‘top talents’ is widely accepted. The point is recruiting talents who match your company’s employee branding ‘metrics’.”
In short, employee branding is the process of creating the employee brand of a certain enterprise. The process goes internally and externally and aligns with the company’s wants, needs, and objectives. Thus, the employee’s career expectations and the company’s strategic goals count when improving employee branding. This article discusses the further steps to improve employee branding. Stay put for these strategic steps.
Here is what it takes to improve Employee Branding
Employee branding has been entailed with marketing in today’s world. Nowadays, recruiting is a type of marketing where you market not for the customers but for the future employees’ attention. The buyer’s persona has been changed with the employee’s persona. And the term employee journey is quite common. Since the recruiters use a candidate-driven and candidate-centric approach, the vie is high to win the battle.
Kristian Longden, Content Marketing Executive at James and James Fullilment believes “An employee branding strategy is critical for building an employee identity that will drive new talents into the pool.”
Let’s split crafting solid employee branding into steps.
Analyze your Current Position
Do you imagine improving something without knowing your current conditions? To move further in something, you should first understand where it is standing. It applies to employee branding as well. Identification and exact positioning are the first steps in upgrading your employee branding. Define the strong and weak sides of your current employee brand, what they lack and what should be improved. To get more truthful information about the weak sides, your leaving employees is the best place to start scraping data. They are the resources of honest feedback since they express themselves without fearing losing something.
Also, the initiative seeds determine how you will proceed with building your employee brand. These seeds are planted during the hiring process when you identify your future employee’s imaginations and expectations of your brand. Thus, you will have a dependable strategy to nurture the employees.
Do your Research
Any industry of the day has turned into a battlefield for top talents. Established companies of all niches compete to grab the most professionals in their workplaces. Ultimate employee branding is what attracts the candidates for the post. Whether you run a small cafe or a B2B2C eCommerce platform, you should conduct competitor research and point out the offerings you are competing against and the assets the potential employees will be choosing from to understand what your ideal candidate persona is looking for. Search job seekers’ platforms and define the goals you should satisfy.
State your Message
“We attract what we fear” does not work in employment. The priority of attracting talents is to be definitive in your statements and captivating in your messaging. By stating your brand voice in clear and definite wording, you will make your expectations exact for the employees. Coherence must start from the first interview of onboarding new talents. To attract the right team, you should invest in proper communication. employee value propositioning is part of stating your message clearly.
Promote your Culture
With the company mission and vision statements in mind, you need to identify the work culture you want to create. You will be more accurate in your culture promotion based on the definition. Your company culture is the direct reflection of your employee’s brand. One reflects and affects the other.
Tom Miller, Director of Marketing at FitnessVolt explains “A thriving company culture that creates a safer work environment one wants to work in attracts people to your organization. Since they spend more than half of their days in the office, the more convenient it feels to work with a firm, the more people will be magnetically driven in.”
Open management and leadership function as the fundamentals of building culture. All your company elements should reflect your culture and values. Think of your logo design, its fonts, colors, and messaging you convey by the visual look. Since visual information sticks into people’s minds, you need to work on crafting a visual design that communicates ideas. Consider getting support from a design agency, if you are struggling to create a logo that aligns with your company’s values.
Moreover, performance appraisals offer a prime opportunity for organizations to showcase their commitment to employee development and recognition. By conducting fair and thorough evaluations, companies demonstrate that they value their employees’ contributions and are invested in their growth. When employees feel appreciated and supported through appraisal processes, they are more likely to align themselves with the organization’s brand and become brand ambassadors. Positive experiences during performance appraisals can enhance employee satisfaction, loyalty, and motivation, which in turn contribute to a positive employer brand perception. Furthermore, transparent and merit-based appraisal systems can attract top talent who are seeking organizations that prioritize employee development and recognition, thus reinforcing the company’s employer brand in the eyes of potential recruits. The appraisal benefits extend beyond mere evaluation; they encompass enhanced employee engagement, decreased turnover rates, facilitation of professional development, improved managerial-employee communication, and, importantly, have lasting effects on organizational culture, talent acquisition strategies, and the cultivation of a positive company ethos.
Integrate Technology
Technological integration in building and nurturing a solid employee brand plays a massive role. Technology not only assists in improving communication but also enhances the employee experience with the company. From the onboarding process to accurate work time, technology is assistance in providing the top working experience. For instance, having reliable coworking management software will save your employees time and help to automate some daily repetitive business operations.
Leo Ye, Co-founder, and CEO of CUBO add” HR managers can use technology for job posting, talent segmentation, application processes, and assessing and selecting candidates. Interviewing and recruiting using technologies has relieved HR managers from losing valuable time and energy between scheduling and meeting.”
Technological integration makes the processes more efficient and professional, from safer communication by having a DMARC report set up to noiseless meetings.
Get Social on Mediums
Now job seekers are on social platforms looking for opportunities that fit their expertise. It implies you should position your brand name right in front. Identify where your candidate persona is on social media and start your job postings there.
Ligia Lugo, Owner of The Daring Kitchen says “Establishing your domain on social media will lay the ground for safely building your employee branding from the very start.” She adds, Social media platforms allow two-way communication and create the stage for sharing the company message and not losing talents from the vast pool.
Social media allows brands to interact with future employees and makes the first impression. In social media interactions, data security, protection, and privacy come in first place. Ensure you have the right protocols in place.
Intrigue with a Narrative
It is no surprise that the best way of building human relationships is through storytelling. Sharing a personal story through a narrative will intrigue potential employee candidates. It will help establish your brand identity and transmit your brand values to people. With stories, you let people find themselves in your company culture.
Take restaurant management, where you want to attract the best chef talents into your restaurant kitchen; you can share the insights of your current chefs, how their working day goes, and what motivational messages they will share with the potential new hires. Encourage your current employees to share their narratives and experience with your company. Shot and post it on your social platforms so that new potential talents will define what it is like for you.
You can even go further and shoot a whole new podcast with the help of video recording software. Posting weekly on a platform, you will build an employee identity and let your employees share their voices and the awesomeness of your company. Thus, engagement from both sides will be present.
Clearly State Benefits
You might have already guessed that benefits come after salary in attracting candidates to the position. The perks and benefits section is the most looked at since who doesn’t love free ice cream on a tiring Monday afternoon? Or, who does not love professional training or mentoring and coaching sessions for growth and development?
First, point out for yourself what the candidates are looking for and what benefits you already offer. Talk to current employees and take note of what they find the most appealing about your company and what hooked them into applying initially. Further, pick some ideas on the benefits you can add for better value. Review your job descriptions and ensure you add what is in your basket to the list.
Takeaways on improving your employee branding
To build a winning employee brand in the intense battle of talent acquisition, you should tackle an exact strategic plan. There is no right or wrong way of improving your employee branding. As a manager or an entrepreneur, you should combine several activities into crafting and nurturing a fantastic employee brand. From the very beginning, when you recruit people up to providing a proper working environment. Your employee brand should reflect the greatness of your company. Workers are not merely for labor but for relationships and mutual ideas. Identifying and establishing company culture, values, and ethics and implanting the same seeds in the employees will make it easier to onboard like-minded people willing to work for a common objective.
