Who is your employer brand actually for?

Employer branding should be a familiar topic to my readers now. You can read my previous articles on employer branding here: “How Providing Feedback to Candidates Will Help Your Employer Branding” and “5 Reasons Why Employer Branding is Important”.

For those who are unsure what employer branding is, it refers to how your company is viewed by others – key shareholders, employees, and the public. Your employer brand is affected by everything from how the company conducts itself in the market to how well the company treats its employees. All these issues will affect the general perception of your company in the eyes of others.

This article aims to promote who employer brand actually benefits at the end of the day. In order to compete as an attractive company to work for, companies must create and maintain an awesome employer brand. As a result, many companies might feel that a good employer brand only benefits the candidates or employees. However, this is definitely not the case.

I mentioned in my previous article some benefits of a strong employer brand:

1) Strong social media presence

2) Financial stability

3) Engaged and enthusiastic employees

4) Improved recruitment cycle

5) Recognition

If you would like to find out more about the 5 benefits, please read the article here!

Just the five benefits above are enough to validate how a strong employer branding will affect the company. Employer branding is becoming more strategically important.  Thus, CEOs need to start realising that the company actually does benefit from good employer branding.

For example, if you are looking to hire more experienced employees your company can highlight certain attributes to reel them in. Senior-level employees are typically older and more mature since it takes years to gain the experience necessary to climb the corporate ladder. These employees might be attracted by benefits that are more family oriented instead. If your company gets branded as being “family friendly” you might be more likely to attract these more experienced candidates. This goes for other groups of employees that your company is targeting so your strategy should be planned according to your target group.

You should regularly monitor your progress as well. Find out what your employees, ex-employees and even applicants think about your brand and how it is perceived. This will allow you to see what is working and what is not, and help you to tailor future recruitment campaigns so that they are more successful.

Companies that fail to recognise the importance of their employer brand and monitor it accordingly are likely to find themselves at a disadvantage over the long-term. While increased spend on recruitment campaigns may aid talent attraction in the short term, employers may well find themselves losing out on the best talent to firms with stronger employer brands. Even if you manage to attract a high level of talent, the reality of how your employer brand is perceived across the whole company will ultimately determine whether you can retain the talent.

Therefore, a strong employer brand ultimately benefits the company and it is up to you how you up your game. You should make employees want you and make them dream of joining your company. With such significant benefits gained from creating a compelling employer brand, it comes as no surprise that many businesses plan to spend more on developing their employer brand.

You can improve your employer brand starting with your recruitment process. First, download and read the definitive guide to Candidate Experience.