Leveraging Your Employer Brand

Your employer brand is “the image of your organization as a ‘great place to work’” in the minds of current employees, candidates, clients and customers.  It encompasses the recruitment and retention initiatives targeted at enhancing your company’s employer brand.

It focuses on the idea that sometimes the best approach in the hiring process is to take a salesperson’s approach – to treat each candidate as a potential new customer.  This is an important point, because (even if they do not get the job) candidates will tell everyone who asks about their experience with your company.

They can be your best friend or your worst friend when it comes to employer branding.

This is a classic chicken-and-egg situation.   To lure talent, companies need to establish themselves as a “cool place to work”, which is a descriptor that defies generations.  Everyone wants to work for Google or Zappos.com or Wegmans.  Being part of Fortune magazine’s list of 100 Best Companies to Work For is instant, high-level (free) advertising for a company, their brand and their recruiting efforts.  However, “coolness” status can only be achieved if you have great employees in the first place.

So how can you resolve this situation and achieve an effective employer brand?

• Define your objectives.  Like all projects and initiatives within a company, a certain amount of planning is required.  What do you want to achieve?  Do you need to create an entirely new employer brand from the ground-up, or do you need to enhance portions of your current branding strategy – like integrating contingent workers into the workforce during seasonally busy times or improve candidate quality or emphasize on-campus recruitment?
• Messaging has to be true to your company.  If the employer sells one thing and the candidate experiences something totally different, then your employer brand has just died right there. For example, if you sell yourself as a green organization that has gone paperless, and you require the candidate to fill out 4 different paper forms, there is a huge disconnect.
• Develop a relationship between HR, marketing and corporate communications.  In a survey conducted by the Bernard Hodes Group, 51% of respondents stated that employer brand responsibilities lay within the HR department, with 31% placing those responsibilities with marketing and 28% placing it them with the corporate communications group.  The ownership needs to be clearly defined, so that responsibilities are clearly understood, so that consensus can be achieved and everyone is united around a common goal.

Remember, the employer brand is a long-term strategy focusing on talent management development, and it requires strong collaboration between human resources, marketing, and corporate communications.   Small companies tend to have an easier time merging marketing and HR, largely because managers are used to wearing multiple hats.

If you are needing assistance in your recruiting and hiring initiatives, Snelling can help.  We have over 60 years of experience supporting small firms all over the United States in their recruiting and hiring initiatives.  Our managers take the time to learn your culture and your employer brand, so that we can find the best-fit candidate for your job opening.   We focus on you – our client.  So Visit us today at www.snelling.comto find your local Snelling office.  We would love to sit down and learn about your culture, your direction and where we can help you move you and your brand forward.

NOTE:  For a downloadable, full-color PDF, click here.