Can You Leverage Hiring & Retention for Your Brand?

How can you, as an employer, differentiate yourself from the competition to draw in the best candidates?

What are potential hires, current employees, and alums saying about their interactions with your business, and how much of a handle on these crucial discussions do you have?

The employer brand cannot be disregarded in this candidate-driven labor market.

To stay ahead of the competition and entice and keep top people, many HR professionals now think like marketers. 94% of job searchers will take the employer’s brand into account before picking that business, according to the 2019 Employer Branding Insights Report from Wonderful Workplaces.

However, many businesses are still finding it challenging to adopt the employer brand approach when it comes to their talent acquisition and development plans.

What is employer branding?

Ever wondered how people outside your organization perceive you as a business and an employer?

Add what your current employees and alumni think about you, and you’ve got your answer: your employer brand is your company’s reputation and image among your stakeholders.

The set of strategies and techniques you employ to develop this brand and reputation actively is known as employer branding.

And if you (and your employees) can confidently list all the things that make your organization the best place to work, you know you have solid and effective employer branding.

Creating content that supports your company culture, brand mission, and values, fostering employee advocacy, and changing your hiring process are all possible ways to build and strengthen your employer brand.

How hiring and retention boost your employer brand

Good hiring and retention rates directly correlate with your employer brand.

How? Since employer branding is about your workplace reputation, a positive and solid brand will do wonders for many aspects of your business.

For your recruitment efforts, a good reputation helps you be the “dream job” or the company of choice.

Now that the recruitment landscape is cutthroat, a solid employer brand will be your advantage as you compete to attract and hire top talents.

And once you get to hire the cream of the crop (who chose you, too), you have assembled a team eager to work for you.

This contagious excitement can soon translate to productive, collaborative, and engaged employees.

Engaged employees often feel content in their work environment.

They feel valued by the company, have good working relationships with their coworkers, and overall feel at home and confident in companies with good employer brands.

In short, they tend to stay. So from all angles, this is a massive win for you.

You get to continue working with a team of rockstars. This means you won’t be spending extra on constantly replacing good people.

You’ll know your employer brand is strong; there won’t be a shortage of applicants, and you’ll have a substantial number of trusted employees working with you for many years.

Improving your employer brand

What can businesses do to enhance their employer brands and draw in the best candidates?

The thing is, you shouldn’t limit yourself to developing an employer brand. The kind of company culture you should create is one that values engagement, inclusiveness, diversity, and trust.

If you put your attention on improving the overall work environment, your staff will gladly strengthen your employer brand for you.

Nowadays, word of mouth spreads quickly. People will find out if your company is not living up to its promises. Therefore, instead of concentrating on polishing the company exterior, create a solid and appealing employer brand by checking and improving what’s going on inside.

1. Assess your current employer brand

Some companies often think the corporate brand includes the employer brand, but that’s not the case.

A company may have developed a strong strategy to market its products or services to its intended audience, but it may still be branded as a horrible workplace.

So, let’s work on your employer branding strategy.

First, you’ll need to be able to answer what makes you a wonderful place to work.

Whatever your answer, your value proposition should be clearly defined to help candidates pick your business over your rivals.

Apart from the pay, your proposition should address other factors the candidates may be looking for in a workplace. For example, your company culture, benefit plans, and opportunities for growth are some of the things you’ll need to improve or include.

2. Get your employees involved

Earlier, we mentioned your employees can help your employer brand; that’s true.

They can have the most significant impact because they are the most reliable brand promoters. How so? They work there. Your employees are familiar with the inner workings of your company and make for credible insiders.

One way to get them involved is to take down specific testimonials regarding each employee’s experience working for your business. Publicize these materials.

You can even encourage employees to post about it on their personal social media accounts.

3. Utilize social media

Utilize your company’s social media platforms to share your employer brand’s narrative.

But remember: stay authentic.

Your employer brand can become quite prominent online with videos and pictures of internal events, charitable endeavors, and training and development. The goal is to establish a relationship with the clients and employees you want to keep.

4. Keep improving by leveraging feedback

How do you document the entire employee experience, from hiring to retirement?

Companies frequently handle employee feedback in pieces, such as annual performance evaluations and exit surveys.

Sure, you can do this, but you can also develop a comprehensive strategy that allows you to gather information at all points along the employee journey.

Use the feedback gathered at each stage of an employee’s relationship to enhance their overall experience.

Greater advocacy may result from this, improving your employer brand’s perception.

To summarize

Your employer branding should be more significant than just a marketing strategy—it should be your way of life, your modus operandi.

The management and leadership teams must be wholly committed to the brand to fulfill their obligations to their staff and make necessary adjustments when growth opportunities become apparent.

A great employer brand begins internally. Start slowly, boost employee voices within to attract new talent externally, and take it one steady step at a time.

Ready to take a step towards better, streamlined HR ops your employees will appreciate?

At Hezum, our intuitive and powerful solutions help your HR department and employees save time and effort in HR-related tasks.

From onboarding to requesting time off, streamline your flow and set your team up for success. Want to learn more about our solutions? Check out our website today.