How do you create an Employer Branding strategy?

What are the action points for creating a strategy? 

Many companies assume that the creation of an employer branding strategy is the sole responsibility of the HR department and/or the marketing department.  

However, employer branding should be a coordinated effort carried out by teams across the organisation, driven by the business owners or CEO and top management.

 

How can companies develop their employer branding strategy?  

Developing an employer branding strategy is a continuous process that might need constant assessment and revaluation. 

Do your homework:  

While building your employer branding strategy, you must look both inward and outwards. 

Identify your company’s unique value proposition. What does your company offer that will help attract and retain talent?  This process includes focusing on your company’s mission statement, values, vision, and culture. 

Before you set out to create your employer branding strategy, it’s always a good idea to know what your competition is getting right (or wrong). If you identify your company’s business needs, it would be easier to work backwards and understand the type of talent you need to complete those objectives.
 

Conduct an employer brand audit:  

Before you set out to build your employer branding strategy, it’s a good idea to understand how your company is currently perceived by your employees and the public. You can do this by sending out internal surveys to employees, and by looking at websites like Glassdoor. Your research should bring to light your company culture’s strengths and highlight any areas for improvement to ensure a strong employer brand.

 

 

Create an employer value proposition:  

In order to make employer branding campaigns more personalised and effective, it is important to define and understand the persona of the candidates you’re trying to attract to your company. Once you’ve done your research and created a list of values and benefits your company offers to the candidates, you’ll want to create an employer value proposition.  

Avoid including anything that would not be acceptable to your current employees because an employer value proposition is first a commitment and a marketing message. Make sure the message is clear once you’ve chosen your employer value proposition by using it on your website, LinkedIn company page, and recruitment materials.   

 

Create a strong onboarding process: 

Onboarding is a critical part in building your company’s relationship with a new employee. It’s vital that you ensure a smooth onboarding process. Ensure that the candidate is the centre of your onboarding process. It’s important that you get your employees motivated and excited for their new role. This includes timely responses to candidate enquiries and ensuring that they are equipped with the right tools to carry out their new role. It’s important that you keep your promises to the new employee once they have joined. If a potential candidate experiences a negative onboarding process, they may seek a different opportunity.  

 

Leverage your current employees 

When potential candidates wish to learn more about your company, they’re going to want to hear from your current employees. This is where employee advocacy comes into play. Employee advocacy simply means the promotion and awareness of a company and/or its products and services by the employees who work there. Leverage your employees by conducting employee interviews or testimonials to share on your website, and even encouraging your employees to post on their social media accounts when there are events or outings.  

 

Offer learning and development opportunities:  

In order to ensure that your employees feel challenged and excited about their job, you should enable your employees to pursue new skills and responsibilities. By challenging your employees, you’re making sure that they won’t feel bored in their roles — which would help contribute to higher retention rates.   

 

Use company social media accounts to tell your story:  

While you’re implementing your employer branding strategy, to strengthen the market’s perception of your company, it’s vital that you communicate your message through multiple channels. It’s critical to use high-quality photos, blogs, videos, and other forms of messaging to ensure you’re reaching the largest possible audience.  

It’s important to remember that the most important part of creating an employer branding strategy is to be authentic. In companies that have established successful employer branding strategies, empathy goes a long way in helping attract great employees. In the current state of the talent market, candidates choose to work in companies that align with their values and beliefs. Even though your company is spending time and money on employees, you should remember that by choosing to work in your company, they are investing in you too.   

How to measure the success of your employer branding strategy 

So you’ve established a well-thought and researched employer strategy within your company. But now how can you measure the effectiveness of the branding?  Don’t you worry, we can help you with that answer as well. 

1. Using Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Review your KPIs regularly to measure the success of your employer branding strategy. These will give you clarity on how well your strategies are doing. Examples of possible KPI’s you can set for your company include: –  

i)The number of applications per year 

ii) The number of applications per position 

iii) The number of high-quality applications per position 

iv) Number of clicks on application button

v) Number of clicks on job ads

The KPIs also highlight any problem areas that might need your attention, so you can accordingly produce solutions.

 

2. Through Surveys and Questionnaires

Anonymous surveys are an important way of getting valuable insight into the success of your strategy. If you create a cycle of routinely collecting employee feedback, you will be able to regularly assess how well (or not so well) your employer branding strategy is doing. 

But also ask outside your organisation from time to time, e.g., by interviewing and conducting surveys with people who fit the employee persona.

 

3. Reviews on social media and job boards

Go through your social media accounts to see what comments and suggestions users have left. 

Job boards are a goldmine for measuring your status as an employer brand. You can even find valuable insight on any changes that you may need to bring to help strengthen your employer brand. (There’s nothing like a negative review on Glassdoor to drive away potential employees from joining your company).  

 4. Traffic on your job sites

Find a way to measure inbound traffic to your job sites – or check the analytics on other job boards you’re using. If your strategy is effective, you can say goodbye to your site traffic woes.