The job market is at peak competitiveness, meaning, if you want to hire top talent and build a strong team who have what it takes to level your business up, you need to focus on your employer brand. What is an employer brand, exactly? It’s the reputation and perception of a company as an employer. Your employer brand is how potential and current employees, other professionals in your industry, and the public see your business as a place to work. A strong employer brand has a wealth of benefits, including attracting more of the top talent, increasing employee engagement and retention, and improving your business performance overall.
How Can an HR Team Help with Employer Branding?
Human resources (HR) is a department that plays an essential role in building and maintaining your employer branding. Working with an outsourced HR department gives you access to HR experts who can polish and improve your employer brand through the following:
- Developing a clear, consistent message: HR should work with management and leadership to develop a consistent, clear message that reflects the values and culture of the company. All branding efforts should reflect this message, including the company website, social posts, and job advertisements.
- Aligning branding efforts with the employee value proposition: The employee value proposition (EVP) is the unique set of experiences and benefits that your company offers to people who work for you. This could include benefits and perks, working from home, or even just refer to how supportive and accepting of employees your business is. HR plays a crucial role in ensuring that all branding is aligned with this message.
- Creating a positive experience for employees: Employees talk about their experience in a job, so it’s important for HR to work on ensuring that the workplace is a positive place for people to be. This might include providing opportunities for employees to engage further with their workplace or develop their skills, fostering a culture of inclusivity for all, and promptly addressing any issues or concerns that employees may have, working to iron out issues quickly.
- Leveraging online platforms and social media for brand promotion: HR should be focused on creating a positive online reputation for your business. They can do this by making use of social media platforms and other online spaces, such as industry forums, to promote your employer brand and reputation. This might look like sharing reviews and testimonials from employees, highlighting your main values, talking about your company culture, and promoting opportunities for employee engagement and development.
- Getting feedback from employees: The HR department should work closely with all employees to find out more about what they feel would improve their experience at work. Focus groups, surveys, and exit interviews are all useful strategies that can be utilized by the HR team to find out more about how employees view the company and get ideas for future improvement strategies.
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Best Practices for Building a Strong Employer Brand
Some of the best practices that an HR department should put in place include:
- Communicating the branding to current and potential employees: If your brand has a good reputation as an employer and people who work for you love working there, then it’s important to get that message out. HR should make efforts to mention it in recruitment efforts such as job postings and employee referrals.
- Provide engagement and development opportunities: HR should ensure that employees are provided with plenty of opportunities to engage further with the company and develop their skills. This might look like providing development and training programs that are funded by the company, hosting company-wide events that employees can attend to engage with departments they might not cross paths with often and creating employee resource groups.
- Encouraging an inclusive, positive company culture: Inclusivity in the workplace is often at the top of the list for job hunters today. After all, nobody wants to work for a company where they do not feel welcome. HR should work to create a company culture that focuses heavily on inclusivity for all, including providing support for employees and constantly striving to improve issues of diversity.
- Measuring and monitoring branding performance: HR should regularly monitor the effectiveness of all branding efforts to determine what’s having a positive impact, and what may need improvement. Some ways to do this include monitoring recruitment metrics, getting feedback from employees, and learning more about the company’s reputation as a place to work among the public.
Meet Employee Expectations to Boost Your Employer Brand Image
Businesses that have achieved the best reputation and image as an employer tend to have one main thing in common – they are consistently meeting and exceeding their employees’ expectations. Employers that have built up a strong brand image as a fantastic place to work know that there’s more to going to work than just getting tasks done and getting paid. And this is reflected in what they offer to their workforce.
So, what do employees want, if they’re going to feel that your business is the best place they’ve ever worked?
- Benefits and perks: Just getting a monthly salary isn’t enough for many employees these days. The benefits sphere is becoming increasingly competitive, and if you want to compete with some of the biggest and best employers in your industry, there’s just no getting away from offering extras. Health insurance and retirement plans are must-haves, but you can also top up the benefits packages you offer with supplemental health benefits, lifestyle perks, employer assistance programs, and paid training and education to name a few.
- Transparent and open communication: Keeping employees in the loop is a simple yet effective way to help improve their experience and in turn, build your brand. Employees want to be kept updated on the latest company goals, performance, and future. Be responsive to employee feedback and encourage open communication and working together as a main pillar of your company culture.
HR plays a crucial role in improving your business’s reach and impact as an employer. With the job market’s competitiveness at an all-time high, it’s worth investing in a quality HR team who can effectively communicate the benefits of working for you.
