In today’s world, having a strong employer brand is not enough. To attract and retain top talent, companies need to focus on employee branding as well. But what is employee branding, and how is it different from employer branding? In this article, we’ll explore the importance of employee branding, its benefits, and how to create a successful employee branding strategy.
What is Employee Branding?
Employee branding is the perception of your company created by your employees and potential employees. It’s the image of your company as a workplace, shaped by your employees’ experiences and opinions. It’s the things your employees tell people about what it’s like to work for your company. Simply put, it’s the personality of your company as seen through the eyes of your employees.
In contrast, employer branding is the reputation that an employer creates in the labor market. It’s the image that you want job seekers and current employees to associate with your company. Employer branding is influenced by company leaders and HR and is the persona that you want job seekers, stakeholders, and the community to associate with your company when it comes to offering a place to work.
Why is Employee Branding Important?
Employee branding is essential because it creates a consistent message about your company and its culture. In today’s world, people are looking for more than just a paycheck; they want to work for companies with values that align with their own. Companies that have a positive employee brand have employees who are also powerful brand ambassadors. They help improve employee loyalty, contribute to solid brand reputation management, and attract and secure the right talent.
A strong employee brand can help you attract top-tier candidates and retain quality talent. Research shows that 95% of candidates care about a company’s reputation when vetting job opportunities. When your company is seen as a great place to work, candidates will choose to apply at your company over one that might not have as much to offer.
The Difference between Employer Branding and Employee Branding
While there is overlap between employer branding and employee branding, there are distinct differences that set them apart. Employer branding is largely driven by company leaders and HR, and it’s the persona you want job seekers, stakeholders, and the community to associate with your company. Employee branding is the perception created by employees and potential employees about your company as a workplace.
Employer branding focuses on marketing your company to potential hires, while employee branding focuses on engaging your current employees to create a positive perception of your company. Employer branding is about presenting your company in the best possible light to attract and retain talent, while employee branding is about getting employees on board with the values that your brand stands for.
How Can Employee Branding Help Your Company?
Employee branding efforts don’t just affect staff retention and customers; it’s a main driver for attracting candidates and prospects who are looking for differentiators across similar offerings. Organizations with a strong employee brand have employees who are also powerful brand ambassadors. They help improve employee loyalty, contribute to solid brand reputation management, and attract and secure the right talent.
Employee Branding Program: Getting Started
If you’re just getting started with employee branding, there are some important considerations to make:
Teach Employees About Your Brand
The first step is to create, teach, and instill the brand message in the minds of your employees. Naturally, this message must be a positive and compelling message that employees can associate with, making them more likely to identify with your organization. Without team buy-in, your employee branding won’t be authentic, and it will even be more difficult to get the talent and customers needed for long-term success.
Conduct Brand Training
Employee branding requires processes like brand education and interface training. These are designed to teach your employees how to represent the brand through their behavior and create structured opportunities to practice representing the brand and become ambassadors. Uniformity is vital to employee branding messaging efforts so that those hearing about your brand externally don’t get mixed messages.
Drive Organizational Communication
With current and new employees, it’s important to keep talking about what your organization is all about. Your messages should clearly, frequently, and consistently convey the organization’s mission, values, and desired brand image. Set expectations and improve the clarity on each employee’s role through internal communications, human resource activities, initiatives, and informal social events.
Fine-tune Hiring and Recruitment
It’s difficult to turn employees into brand ambassadors if your hiring and recruitment processes don’t attract the right people in the first place. By proactively managing and monitoring your employer brand with reputation management software, you can easily listen to and address feedback coming from employees. In turn, this allows for accurate and specific job previews, and a better commitment to grow your organization by selecting the right people for the job.
Listen to Employee Feedback
The employer-employee feedback loop is a critical component of the employee branding process. Thanks to the rise of business review sites like Glassdoor and Indeed.com, more employees are making their voices heard through reviews. They’re rating their interview and employee experiences. They’re sharing details of their working lives and expressing their feelings about their CEOs and leadership team with a thumbs up or thumbs down (or smileys or frowns).
When employees share their thoughts in their own words, you have an incredible opportunity to listen in, respond, and take action in ways that help your business grow. By using custom experience analytics software, you can gain further insights from each piece of feedback which can reveal trends about numerous employee-facing processes.
Employer Branding in Recruitment
Employer branding is critical when it comes to recruitment. In today’s talent marketplace, top talent has more opportunities than ever to find a company that fits their needs, and they want to work for companies that care about them, not just as workers but as people. Over half of US employers report that their companies focus more on employee branding than they did five years ago. And these employers see results: 75% report an increase in revenue, and 50% report an increase in profitability from employee branding initiatives.
When it comes to recruitment, your employer brand can play a significant role in attracting the right candidates. By creating a strong employer brand, you can differentiate your company from competitors and create a compelling reason for top talent to want to work for you. A strong employer brand can also help you minimize recruiting efforts, fill positions faster, and mitigate losses associated with vacancies.
Importance of Employer Branding
Employer branding is more important than ever. In today’s world, people are looking for more than just a paycheck; they want to work for companies with values that align with their own. A strong employer brand can help you attract top-tier candidates and retain quality talent. Research shows that 95% of candidates care about a company’s reputation when vetting job opportunities.
A strong employer brand can also help you minimize recruiting efforts. When people see you as a place they want to work, you can rely less on job postings, agencies, and extensive searches to keep your talent pool full. In turn, this can help you minimize hiring and recruiting costs, fill positions faster, and mitigate losses associated with vacancies.
Talent Branding
Talent branding is a subset of employer branding that focuses on attracting and retaining the right talent. It involves creating a compelling employer brand that appeals to top-tier candidates and retaining quality talent. Talent branding can help you differentiate your company from competitors and create a compelling reason for top talent to want to work for you.
To create a successful talent branding strategy, you need to focus on creating a positive candidate experience. This involves improving your job postings, application process, and interview process. You also need to create a culture that values employees and offers opportunities for advancement.
Employee branding is the perception of your company created by your employees and potential employees. It’s the image of your company as a workplace, shaped by your employees’ experiences and opinions. A strong employee brand can help you attract top-tier candidates and retain quality talent. By creating a strong employer brand and employee brand, you can differentiate your company from competitors and create a compelling reason for top talent to want to work for you.
