Your Employer Brand Is A Valuable Tool: 10 Steps To Start Building It Today
A compelling employer branding strategy can give your organisation a powerful competitive edge in recruiting and retaining the best employees (without additional spending).
According to LinkedIn’s 2020 Research, an organisation with a strong employer brand experience benefits from:
- 28% reduction in employee turnover rates
- 50% reduction in cost per hire
- 1-2x faster time to hire
- 50% more qualified applicants
So, what steps can you take to build a solid employer branding strategy for your business?
Step 1. Conduct an internal brand audit of your company
The first step in creating an employer branding plan is determining what your company is already conveying to the public, your current and potential employees.
This can be done by conducting an audit of your existing employer brand, which involves:
- Evaluating your company’s website, social media presence, job postings, and internal communications to identify any inconsistencies or areas for improvement.
- Gathering feedback from current employees through surveys or focus groups can provide valuable insights into how your organisation is perceived as an employer.
- Reading reviews on employer review sites like Glassdoor is an unfiltered source of information about your company’s culture and brand perception. This can help you to better understand what your organisation does well, i.e., what your employees enjoy (and/or dislike) about working for you.
Understanding your current situation and areas that require improvement is the first step towards making positive changes.
Step 2. Evaluate your recruitment and selection process
You may be surprised by how much of an effect your recruiting and selection practices have on your company’s reputation as an employer. Everything from advertising jobs, and screening applications to conducting interviews to making an offer and welcoming new recruits into the fold falls under this category.
- Is your company’s identity consistent in the minds of potential employees?
- Does it provide them with a realistic picture of working for your company and convince them to apply?
- Does your recruitment process run in a smooth and timely manner?
- Are you bringing in the proper people and making sure their core principles match with those of your organisation?
- Is the prospective employee prepared for their first day on the job?
- Finally, how optimistic are they about commencing their new job?
Employees who are eager, motivated, and competent will have a reduced turnover rate and will be more productive as a team if they are properly onboarded. Employees who have a poor onboarding experience are twice as likely to leave their jobs.
Step 3: Develop your employee value proposition (EVP)
In a compelling EVP, you’ll detail the monetary and in-kind benefits your company offers in return for your employees’ time, expertise, and dedication.
Your EVP should serve as the foundation for all of your company branding efforts. Although each company will have its own unique EVP, at its core, the five key elements include:
- Compensation: Employees’ satisfaction with their salary, as well as other perks and bonuses.
- Work-life balance: Paid vacation time, sick leave, flexibility, remote working opportunities, health insurance, and retirement plans.
- Job security: Opportunities for career advancement and progression, mentorship, learning and training programmes.
- Location: Your office’s physical space and cultural setting, workplace environment/atmosphere and its location
- Values: This makes your culture, team spirit, way you treat others and becomes the foundation of you act and interact with colleagues, suppliers and customers.
The most important thing to do is focus on your skills while still being honest and trustworthy. If you aren’t content with your EVP, consider how it might be improved to appeal to a wider pool of qualified applicants. In this way, you’ll have a solid foundation on which to develop your company’s reputation as an employer.
Step 4: Define your goals and KPIs
The next step in developing a winning employer brand strategy is to define your goals and objectives. Some critical questions that may help you establish them include:
- How would you wish your company to be seen as an employer?
- What do you want potential employees to learn about your company, and how do you want them to feel when interacting with it?
- Do you know what your primary goals are, and how you would rank them? Is it increased diversity or a larger pool of quality applicants that you seek? Or maybe you want to improve long-term staff retention?
Step 5: Identify the target audience and “ideal” candidates
Who exactly is the type of professional you are looking for to join your company? In what sort of atmosphere are they interested? This goes beyond considering someone’s job title or amount of education. Consider factors such as their desired work-life balance, opportunities for growth and development, company values and mission, and the overall workplace atmosphere they seek.
By comprehensively defining your target audience’s expectations, you can tailor your employer branding as well as recruitment strategies to attract candidates who align with your organisation’s culture and values.
Step 6: Identify Your Stakeholders and Communication Methods
Employer branding is a group effort, much because building a strong brand for a company takes more than the work of a single individual.
To avoid burnout and disorganisation down the road, it’s important to divide up tasks and get everyone involved on board right away. Consider things such as from whom the involvement is required. Who exactly is accountable for what? How will you get everyone on board with the employer branding plan?
Consider your company’s means and channels of dissemination of information. Internal communication tools like email, intranet, and team meetings can keep employees informed and engaged. Social media, industry events, and partnerships can also help you reach more candidates who match your employer brand.
By strategically leveraging these channel, you can effectively communicate your company’s values and opportunities to both internal and external stakeholders.
Step 7: Involve your C-suite
Any changes to the organisation that are necessary to improve your employer brand must have the support of the C-suite.
ABN Resource research found that 53% of surveyed lubricants professionals attributed purposeful and meaningful work as a key factor to job satisfaction. Include your executive team in company communications to give them a chance to contribute to that sense of purpose. Who would want to serve on a ship whose captain has no faith in the mission?
Don’t be afraid to include your executive team in the day-to-day operations of your strategy, either. Leadership can demonstrate their interest to current and prospective employees by participating in employer brand content creation, social media outreach, and internal communication.
Step 8: Showcase your company values, vision & mission
Keeping your messaging and interactions consistent is the backbone of a strong employer brand. Make sure your core beliefs and long-term goals are front and centre.
Knowing exactly what you want to accomplish as a company will help you articulate that goal on your official social media pages. They can then use these as models for their own work, resulting in consistent output across the board. Without this focus, your message will be unclear and watered down.
Your company’s values, reputation as an employer, and objectives should all be in sync with one another.
Step 9: Foster employee ambassadors
Your employer brand is clearly shaped by your current staff. In fact, candidates trust employees three times more than employers to gain an accurate picture of what it’s like working at an organisation, according to research from LinkedIn.
This is especially relevant for niche and hard-to-find roles within the lubricants and fuels industry. For example, If, for instance, your company is in need of experts in a particular field, now is the time to feature an employee who can relate and connect with those audiences by recounting their own experiences and successes in order to engage with people who may not have otherwise interacted with your content.
Step 10: Monitor your results
Your plan is a journey, not an endpoint.
Measure your progress towards your objectives by keeping tabs on key performance indicators. Whether it’s the social media platforms themselves or employee advocacy tools, you already have access to a variety of resources that might help you evaluate your progress.
Regularly reviewing and analysing your performance allows you to identify areas of improvement and make necessary adjustments to your strategy. This iterative process will help you stay agile and responsive to changes in the market, ensuring that your strategy remains effective and aligned with your goals.
Start building your employer brand strategy today
In today’s competitive lubricants job market, having a strong employer brand can give your company the competitive edge that is so desperately needed.
Creating and implementing a successful employer branding strategy is an excellent way to raise awareness of your company and attract top talent. By showcasing your company’s unique culture, values, and opportunities for growth, you can differentiate yourself from other employers and position your organisation as an employer of choice.
