In a challenging market, a strong employer brand should be a priority for all businesses. Businesses’ people have never been more important, as organisations evolve to survive and thrive against tough macro headwinds. So, how can employers promote a strong employer brand in order to attract and keep the best people in their sector?
Have something distinctive to say
Distinctive employer brands are shaped when a business keeps a keen eye on their industry competitors, industry bodies and external stakeholders, and use that insight to highlight a competitive point of difference. Understanding market and competitor positioning – what they are saying and, in some cases, what they are not saying – is crucial to building a communications strategy that helps your organisation stand out in a positive way.
To help drive this, it’s important to look inside a business, mapping out your internal stakeholders’ perspectives against market benchmarking to inform business, recruitment, marketing and communications activity. After all, it’s your employees actual experience of a business and its values that creates advocates – and reflects the brand.
Act on your values and truly engage employees
Strong employer brands are built on a foundational understanding of a business’ core values. Having clarity on business vision and purpose, and how this informs the business strategy and day-to-day operations can go a long way towards developing effective employer brand messaging. It also builds confidence in the leaders, spokespeople and recruiters that communicate those messages.
But an inability to prove that employee engagement promises are being put into practice can undo years of well-intentioned, strategic communications efforts.
In essence, businesses need to walk their talk. Have readily available evidence of how employer brands are embedded in company culture, gather feedback from employees and stakeholders on how they experience your brand, and ensure that the workforce is part of co-creating and embedding your values and ethos day to day.
In fact, a recent report details how employee benefits, company cultures of inclusivity and belonging, and career development are part of the secret sauce that helps firms hold on to high performers. Additionally, research and analysis suggests that companies that put talent at the centre of their business strategy realise higher total shareholder returns than their competitors.
Unite internal and external communications
There are lots of engaging formats for communicating and proving what you stand for as a business. These can include (but aren’t limited to!):
- Employee case studies and testimonials
- Promoted across earned or owned channels
- Media announcements
- Social sharing
- Visual content that conveys company initiatives
These content formats can all be used for employee engagement and recruitment. When deployed strategically across the right content format and channel mix, recruiters, hiring teams and HR managers will have an easier ‘sell’ to prospective and existing team members.
Click here to read a recent piece we published on Unlocking the Power of Employee-Generated Content.
It’s also critical that employer brands are built with a long-term view in mind, which marries emerging business threats and opportunities with what their top future talent is concerned with. Understanding and forecasting this puts any business in a stronger position to support recruiters with navigating trickier questions from sharp-minded candidates and remain steadfast to their employer brand voice.
When we asked 150 UK CEOs what processes they have in place to navigate upcoming business threats, our research showed just over half (56%) of business leaders had a clear internal communications strategy so employees were updated and aware of their role in helping to address business threats. And just four in ten (42%) said they have a proactive external communications strategy to build a positive brand reputation and minimise any potential reputational setbacks.
This only highlights the opportunity at hand for businesses and recruiters to keep existing and incoming talent engaged. Uniting internal and external communications plans should be central to those efforts, to build employer brand and guard businesses’ reputation.
Ultimately, employer brand is an integral asset to a company’s success. With mounting challenges set to shape the rules of employee engagement for the foreseeable future, there’s no better time than the present to review how effectively employer brand efforts are being communicated.
Get in touch with our Corporate PR experts today to discuss how we can support you.