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Employer Branding: How Much Can It Weigh In Choosing A Job And In Attracting Talent?

What makes you special as an employer? What makes you stand out? Is it enough to have a strong brand? These are all questions that you should think about more often – and if you are continuously looking for talent, there’s a reason for this. And if you add the fact that over 85% of Glassdoor members read reviews before making the decision to apply for a job, you should consider employer branding a serious matter and an indispensable component in your story. And this is just an example, which can easily be considered a performance indicator.

What else could give us serious thought about allocating time and resources to the employer brand? Here are some other statistics:

According to CareerArc, 55% of job seekers who have read a negative review have decided not to apply for a job at that company.

A study from 2017, “Millennial Hiring Trends Study MRI Network” shows that 40% of Millennials say market reputation has the biggest influence on their impression of an employer.

And also 5 years ago, when the concept of “employer branding” was not given as much importance as now, 50% of candidates say they wouldn’t work for a company with a bad reputation – even for a pay increase. (Betterteam Blog 2017

”Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room” – Jeff Bezos – Amazon

A strong employer brand certainly comes with many benefits. A good reputation, so sought by candidates, can bring more applicants to the company. In the long term, this can mean lower marketing costs and even lower hiring costs. An employee who is satisfied with the company will not want to look for another job, and you, as a company, will not have to restart the recruitment process.

The phrases “our customer, our master” or “the customer is the King” may seem outdated, but in fact, it means that you pay attention to your customers. Just as no business can operate without knowing the needs and desires of its customers, the same applies to your employees. The more you motivate them to share their views, the more their satisfaction will increase, and the retention will decrease.

Although you will never meet totally satisfied customers and employees, you can only improve their perception of the company. More than that, word of mouth spreads quickly. Gossip is gaining new meanings, and reality is becoming more and more distorted. You will never treat a customer with disrespect, you will not make him feel undervalued or underappreciated. So why not avoid the same things for your employees? Treat them with respect, listen to them, involve them more often in decision-making, ask them for feedback and make sure you provide follow-up, that you come up with concrete solutions and proposals. Better said, treat them like your customers! In fact, everything starts from here – it’s all about the foundations of an employer brand. Allow them to share their experiences in the company, listen to their needs and, through their voice, make sure you create a story that inspires you to grow and inspires others to join the company.

The employer brand is not only about the employer. Benefit packages, now cliches, motivating salaries and a friendly work environment are long gone. Beyond speaking to buncombe, as the above has become in a recruitment ad, candidates are looking for much more. In the end, the employer brand is about people, about the employees.

Put people in pictures

While, I mentioned above, the analogy employee – customer, this time, the second rule in branding invokes employees in images and I would say with a double meaning. Beyond the visual identity of the company, the brand manual, lies its story, and a story can only be perceived as real by the people who make it up. So, make sure that you shed light on employees, that you will communicate the right message to the right people and through the right channels.

Social media, for example, has become an important recruitment channel, so everything that is shared online, either by employees or employers, can have a significant impact. Employees can now more easily show their work environment, the projects they work on, a working day, etc., of course, without omitting the contractual aspects related to confidentiality. Create the right environment for such messages, plan an effective communication strategy, value your employees and your company, and integrate video messages, real images, and natural testimonials!

A simple wrong step can lead to a bad reputation. And its management is just one of the components of the employer brand.

Who is responsible for the branding strategy?

Building an employer brand has been approached differently in recent years and has become a daunting task, which can now be led by mixed teams – from human resources specialists to marketing, social media and PR specialists. New talent now has more confidence in a company, based on what its employees have to say, rather than in the recruitment advertising. In other words, attracting talent is much more based on employee involvement and support, which starts right at the top of a company. This explains the results of a questionnaire conducted by Universum – “2020 Outlook, the Future of Employer Branding”, on branding activities. 60% of questioned executives said that this responsibility rests with the executives (40% of marketing leaders agreed) – a strong indication that the employer’s brand is expected to gain increasing strategic importance. 

You? What kind of actions do you take to have a strong employer brand? Does your organization invest in such actions?