Up until recently, employer branding has been seen by many as a ‘nice-to-have’. Something that gives employees a few extra perks and helps improve morale.
Better late than never, senior-level CEOs have come to realise its true potential for their business’s profitability. Here’s why you should too.
What can employer branding do for your company?
Higher employee engagement. Better recruitment campaigns. Lower staff turnover. The direct benefits of a successful Employer Value Proposition (EVP) are pretty clear.
- Companies that actively invest in their employer brand reduce turnover by as much as 28% (Source: Officevibe)
- 50% of candidates will not work for a company with a bad reputation, even if they were paid more (Source: HR Daily Advisor)
- A strong employer brand attracts 2.5x the applicants of a weaker equivalent (Source: Startup Bonsai)
Less obvious are some of the indirect ways these and other factors can have a big impact on profitability. Employer branding is still a hugely underestimated way of increasing revenue. Businesses are missing out on the enormous potential it can have when you give it the time and resources it needs.
If allowed to realise its full potential, a strong employer brand should reach every employee and enable them to do their best work – as well as empower your company’s ability to capture consumers’ attention in an increasingly competitive landscape.
Building your reputation
In a packed field of competitors all fighting for the attention of the same group of customers, the strength of a brand’s reputation directly influences how positively they stand out from the crowd. A good reputation could be the difference in who they choose to buy from, and your employer brand plays an active role in establishing this perception.
Whether it is highlighting your company’s culture through videos or on your website, or harnessing your employees’ experience on social media, your employer branding is a big influence on how incentivised customers and the wider world are to buy from your company.
Why this boosts profitability
Your employer brand helps you build a positive reputation by reflecting the purpose and values that come through in your advertising. As well as being hyper-aware of modern marketing tactics, consumers are now more in tune with the inner workings of well-known organisations. Research shows that the way a company treats its employees will have a significant effect on buying decisions.
Consequently, creating campaigns around your employees’ happiness and development will build customers’ trust in your brand. Plus, what they say and share about your products and services on their own personal channels often holds more weight than your conventional adverts or messages from the CEO.
If you commit to creating an authentic, positive environment for your employees, this will resonate with both them and your customer base. Don’t underestimate the power your employees yield in your overall reputation – when former employees at Brewdog accused the company of having a “toxic attitude” and creating a “culture of fear”, their positive reputation plummeted, as did overall buzz surrounding the brand.
Earning positive reviews
You should also never underestimate a positive (or negative) employee review. When we buy something online or pick out a restaurant to visit, many of us instinctively turn to review sites to gauge others’ opinions. The same goes for candidates planning their next career move.
Even with a suite of benefits and a recruitment campaign that ticks all the boxes, looking at what past and present employees are saying about a company is the logical way to find out what it’s like working there.
As well as being one of the most cost-effective recruiting tools, employee reviews are the best way to attract the sharpest minds to your business. In the same way that many companies encourage product reviews to win over customers, your hiring managers have an interest in using positive employee feedback to attract in-demand candidates.
Why this boosts profitability
A strong employer brand means engaged employees who will put the word out that your company is a great place to work. Research from The Harvard Business Review has shown that 80% of employee turnover is due to bad hiring decisions.
When you combine this with the fact that the average cost of employee turnover is estimated at over £30,000, bad hiring decisions – made as a result of a limited pool of talent due to negative reviews – stand to cost your company significantly.
Having a wider choice of better talent, attracted to your organisation by a strong, inspiring employer brand with numerous positive reviews, makes it more likely that you’ll make a successful hire, limiting your turnover rate…
Improving employee performance
When your teams are engaged, they are more driven to achieve. This may sound obvious, but many companies fail to see the link between a strong EVP and high performing staff.
Getting your staff engaged with your business goals takes more than offering face-value perks. To build on your employees’ drive to succeed and make the most of their talents, it’s important to set clear goals, provide regular praise and feedback, and give them opportunities to grow through courses and learning opportunities.
Why this boosts profitability
Engaged employees have a knock-on effect throughout a company. It’s often the case that if one team achieves well, it will help another perform better too. Companies with higher employee wellbeing have long been associated with higher business performance. Recent research has proved this to be more true than many may have thought.
Make your employer brand shine with BAM
We hope this has illustrated the direct and indirect influence that strong, effective employer branding can have on your organisation’s financial performance. Getting the maximum ROI from your employer brand efforts can be a major difference-maker in how motivated customers are to buy from you, how long employees stick around, and how productive they are day-to-day.
While employer branding represents a sensible investment in your company’s future, BAM by Papirfly™ empowers it to reach peak performance. Offering the freedom to create consistent print, digital and email marketing without agency support, free your teams up for initiatives that drive employer brand excellence.
Enjoy cost and time savings, eliminate duplicated effort and gain a birds-eye view of your global recruitment activity – discover the full benefits of BAM today by booking a demo.