February222022
Six Tips to Help Your Marketing Team Enhance Your Employer Brand
Operations Chat
Bridget Doidge
02.22.22 | Operations Chat
What is an employer brand?
An employer brand is the opinion job candidates and existing employees have of your company as an employer and the value they perceive you offer employees. Whether you have actively worked to position yourself in this area or not, your organization has an employer brand, and it can either help or hinder your efforts to attract and retain the best talent possible.
Why is employer branding important to your business?
There’s no denying that the world has changed. With a shift in the values candidates prioritize when looking for jobs and the demand for workers being at a historic level thanks to “The Great Resignation,” the often-overlooked task of employer branding has skyrocketed in importance. A strong employer branding strategy, which should clearly outline and promote your company’s mission, values, goals, and culture, can:
- help to attract a vast pool of candidates – reducing the cost of recruiting
- offer new hires what they are looking for beyond compensation – minimizing salary expenses
- engage current employees – improving retention, morale, and productivity
- enhance the overall perception of your company in the market.
The result of these efforts can impact your success in attaining top talent and, therefore, the success of your business for years to come.
Six Tips for your Marketing Team
Although employer branding may be considered a Human Resources responsibility, in most cases, a collaborative effort between a company’s HR and your Marketing Department will result in the most productive and valuable effort. Some tips to help to maximize your employer branding efforts include:
- Align your employer and corporate brand. Your company’s purpose, values, culture, and goals should be the basis of both your employer and corporate brand. Although the target audiences are likely different, the driving force and identity of your company should be apparent in both and incorporated in all branded messaging and visuals. Staying consistent in these aspects will help all audiences outside of your company connect to the products and services you provide as well as the value you offer as an employer.
- Solicit input and feedback from current employees. A good place to start any employer branding effort is with input from current employees. An excellent method to achieve this is through a focus group. Here, you can gather information that will help lay the foundation for the development of your employer brand. What do they value in an employer? What would entice them to leave the company? What about the company makes them proud? Conducting the focus group anonymously may assist with the participating employees’ comfort levels—resulting in more honest and realistic feedback. Once you initiate your employer branding efforts, you can implement a process that will collect real-time feedback from current employees to ensure you are accurately representing them, staying on top of the latest trends, understanding what works best, and identifying opportunities for improvement.
- Develop employee profiles and related content. Input from current employees will help a great deal in establishing ideal employee profiles. If not for every open role, your Marketing team should at least be identifying key characteristics and traits of the entry-level and experienced hires you are looking to attract. These personas will help you to develop messaging to specifically target potential employees and appeal to top candidates who possess the technical or professional requirements you are looking to fulfill, but also match the values and culture of your organization. Some questions to answer when developing these profiles include:
- What is their education level?
- Where are they located?
- What are they looking to get out of a job?
- Where are they active online?
This information will be essential when creating recruiting collateral, developing social media campaigns, speaking with candidates during the hiring process, and more.
- Test out new ways to reach your audience. The manner in which people consume information and where they look for it are constantly changing. Don’t be afraid to explore new platforms and how your employee profiles interact differently with each one; for example, LinkedIn vs. Indeed vs. Handshake for posting job openings or Instagram vs. Twitter vs. TikTok for social media. Make sure to take into account the purpose, features, and audience of each platform, as some content will need to be modified, although it should always tie back to your culture and corporate brand. Utilizing a variety of platforms and being innovative with the content you put on each one also gives your employees opportunities to act as brand ambassadors, sharing the information with their networks and expanding the pool of talent you are able to reach.
- Utilize programs and activities that are already successful internally. Whether your company has a robust community outreach program, education and learning track, or a packed schedule of team outings, make sure to market these activities. Not only are they great ways to show your current staff that you value them and are actively investing in their futures, but satisfied and engaged employees are also likely to share their positive experiences and help recruit talented candidates for the company. Further, externally promoting the exciting things your company is doing to enhance its culture also provides indisputable proof to those searching for a job that you deliver on your promises and you are the employer you brand yourself as.
- Be genuine and transparent. If there are areas where you lack or need improvement as an employer, don’t be misleading. Although all companies are looking to attract top talent, no one company is perfect for everyone, and promoting messaging that does not honestly represent your company could come back to hurt you. For example, candidates who join your firm based on untruths will eventually realize it and likely not stay long or, even worse, negatively impact the culture of the company and influence how other employees view the company. Beyond new hires, launching an employee branding campaign that is exaggerated or misleading could cause morale amongst existing employees to suffer as what is being promoted externally does not match what they are experiencing first-hand. In summary, it is essential to highlight your company and the value you offer employees, but remain true to your brand and staff.
Differentiating your company in today’s competitive hiring market is a challenge, but developing and promoting a solid employer brand can make the difference.
For questions on how your Marketing team can support these efforts or any marketing related issues, please reach out to Frank Vitale, Chief Marketing Officer at Berdon at 212.331.7650 | fvitale@berdon.com
Bridget Doidge is a Marketing Associate at Berdon with five years of professional experience in roles of increasing responsibility. Bridget participates in numerous industry-focused business development activities, event coordination, and various social media activities including contributing to LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing and Management for the University of South Carolina and attended The American Business School of Paris.