Employer brand is for everyone

So, a strong employer brand makes the chances of capturing the imagination of top talent and inspiring existing employees much greater. That begs the question: is your employer brand living up to its full potential, or is there room for improvement?

Here, we share 9 ways to assess the strength of your employer brand to ensure it is having a positive impact on your recruitment efforts. For information on other aspects that will help with attracting and retaining talent, check out our complete guide to employer branding here. 

9 telltale signs that you’ve got a great employer brand:

#1 Employee retention rate is high

Employees come and go in any organisation. However, the rate at which employees voluntarily depart is a useful indicator of how well your employer brand is performing.

When you are able to retain employees for numerous years, it indicates that they see value in being part of your organisation. Whether it’s due to financial incentives like salary and bonuses, or a close affinity to the values and missions that your brand stands for, it shows that your employer brand is keeping people engaged.

Conversely, if employees leaving after a few months in the role is a regular occurrence, it could be a strong signal that their reality as an employee isn’t living up to the promises of your employer brand. 

So, when does turnover become a problem? While employee turnover rates vary from industry to industry and location to location, in the UK it averages out to around 15%. Use this as a benchmark – how does your turnover rate look in comparison?

To work out your monthly turnover rate, simply divide the number of employees who left your company during the month by the average number of employees at your organisation in the same period. For example, say you had an average 100 employees in your company and 7 leave, that month’s turnover rate would be 7%. 

To quickly calculate your turnover rate in any given period, work out:

A – The number of people you employed at the start of that period of time

B – The number of employees who left during that period of time

B/A = Turnover rate  

If your turnover rate is lower than your regional or industry average, it is a good indication that your employer brand is doing an effective job of keeping people tied to your organisation.

#2 You receive many unsolicited applications

Do you find that, despite having little to no vacancies listed, you still receive job applications and CVs from interested recruits? If so, that’s a powerful sign that your employer brand is resonating with top talent, and they like what they see.

While there is little statistical evidence as to what a ‘large number’ of unsolicited applications amounts to and will vary depending on the scale and reputation of your organisation, receiving these approaches indicates that people aspire to be part of your team. 

The fact that they are willing to make a completely speculative effort to join you should be a clear illustration that you’re sending the right messages out there. If the number of these applications you’re receiving is rising, then it’s a good indication that your employer brand is getting stronger. 

#3 You have a high job offer acceptance rate

If the majority of your job offers to potential recruits are accepted, it’s a strong sign that your employer brand is:

• Connecting with the right candidates
• Providing the right incentives to join
• Motivating people to be part of your team

In 2020 the average offer acceptance rate across all industries globally was 95%. To work out yours, simply divide the number of offers accepted by the number of offers issued:

If your percentage matches or exceeds this level, then it’s another positive marker for your employer brand. However, it is useful to assess those who didn’t accept an offer and find out their reasons for doing so where possible, as this could highlight potential improvements for your branding:

• At what stage did they reject the offer?
• Why did they refuse?
• Which company did they join instead?

#4 You are securing quality hires 

It’s a highly competitive recruitment landscape – the best talent is hard to secure. For today’s top-tier talents, salaries and perks will likely only go so far in attracting them to your organisation. They will want to join a brand that aligns with their own values:

92% of people would consider switching jobs if offered a role at a company with an excellent reputation (HR Daily Advisor)

Knowing whether your employer brand has secured the best candidates is difficult to measure, but these factors are a good way to tell whether you’ve made a good hiring decision.

Are you securing quality hires? Here’s your checklist…

✅ Your hiring manager is satisfied 
✅ They are very competent or go beyond expectations at their job
✅ They meet or exceed the seniority level they displayed in their interview
✅ They have made an immediate positive impact
✅ They have become embedded within the organisation

#5 You have a high employee referral rate

If your employees recommend your job vacancies to friends, family or people in their wider network, it indicates several positive things about your employer brand:

✅ They have a strong grasp of your values and can see them in resonating with others
✅ They enjoy the culture of your organisation
✅ They are happy to act as advocates for your brand

Referrals are still one of the most effective recruitment methods for securing great talent – in 2020, the average number of jobs filled by referrals was 51%, and 45% of hires sourced from referrals stay at a company for longer than 4 years.

So, not only does it take an employee to be passionate about their job to recommend your company to someone they know, but they are also more likely to have confidence in the person they are recommending for the role.

If you feel this aspect of your approach to recruitment is lacking, try offering referral bonuses for staff who bring in successful hires from their network. In 2019, the average referral bonus was over £1,800.

#6 You have a positive giveaway/takeaway ratio

This ratio denotes the number of people you’ve hired from competitors against those who left your company to join a competitor.

Between two similar roles with equally matched salaries, your employer brand is often a candidate’s deciding factor and sometimes the only basis upon which they have to choose. So if you’re attracting employees from your competitors, it’s a big win for your employer brand.

Conversely, if you are losing potential hires or your existing employees to competitors, it should start to raise some red flags about the strength of your employer brand – particularly if the promise of a salary increase is not enough to win them back:

• What did your competitor offer them – pay increase, career progression, personal incentives, etc.?
• Did your own company culture or employer value proposition contribute to their choice to depart?
• What are their core values and mission? Are they highlighted more prominently than your own?
• Is their employer branding more visible than your organisation’s?

For more information, check out our insight on “14 reasons why you’re losing good employees to competitors”.

#7 You have a happy hiring manager

One of the easiest ways to tell whether your employer brand works is to speak to your hiring manager.

If they’re satisfied with recent hires and confident in your company’s recruitment campaigns, then they are almost certainly onboard with your employer brand.

#8 Your marketing and HR teams work side by side

Communicating your company values, posting job adverts and launching recruitment campaigns is a team effort between marketing and recruitment. And the thing that links them together? You guessed it, your employer brand.

Combining the expertise of your employer brand and marketing teams is one of the best ways to improve engagement of internal communications, keep staff in-the-know and instil your brand’s shared goals and values company-wide.

#9 Your employees are active on social media

When your employees are engaging with your company’s content on social media, you have visible proof that your employer brand is working. Even better if your employees are creating their own content through employee advocacy programs.

68% of Millennials visit a company’s social media channels to evaluate their employer brand (CareerArc)

To break down barriers between employees and organisations, staff need a way to share their stories and show the world what it’s really like to be part of your brand. Social engagement can be encouraged using platforms built for this very purpose, such as PostBeyond and EveryoneSocial.

Both these employee advocacy solutions actively encourage staff to share high-quality content with their wider networks and engage prospects.

How does your employer brand measure up?

If your company is falling short against the tangible metrics above, then it might be a sign that your employer brand isn’t working as well as it could be, and that you’re missing out on top candidates as a result. 

As well as exploring the 9 signs of a strong employer brand, it can be helpful to look for inspiration from the global brands that are leading the way. Here are a few pointers to take away from three employer branding examples we love.

Tony’s Chocolonely

In an effort to remind people that profits in the chocolate industry aren’t evenly distributed, Tony’s Chocolonely fair trade chocolate bars are not moulded into neat squares like other brands. 

This powerful mission statement to end unfair practices in the chocolate industry is combined with their bright, colourful packaging and informal typography to present a brand that is fun and inviting on the surface, with a strong, meaningful message inside.

Why we love it

The Tony’s Chocolonely brand mission and core purpose come across in every part of their employer branding – from their brand manifesto video to the way they showcase their team on their website.

What makes this such a success is the effective way that they walk the delicate balance between an important purpose to improve the lives of others, while maintaining a light-hearted brand packed with humour and joy.

Zappos

In addition to a highly engaging employee-driven social media presence through #insidezappos, the success of this company’s employee branding goes a step further to secure the best talent during their onboarding processes.

Every new hire undergoes a 4 week training process where they learn about the company’s values and gain experience working in the customer service department – regardless of the role they have been hired for. 

Before their ‘onboarding graduation’, new hires are offered payment to quit if they feel the job isn’t the right fit for them. According to Tony Hsieh, Zappos CEO: “The original motivation for doing it was to make sure that people were there for reasons beyond a short-term paycheck.” 

Why we love it

Zappos’ purpose and personality are embodied at every employer brand touchpoint. From keeping the world up to date with what’s happening within the company through social media, to making the interview process match their positive values.

It has helped them garner a passionate, engaged workforce who share the same drive and purpose for the exceptional service Zappos has become renowned for.

Greggs

In recent years, UK-based bakery Greggs has excelled in building positive brand perception through witty campaigns and publicity stunts that won the hearts of consumers and loyal customers. The brand is also becoming regarded as a highly ethical employer, thanks to its support of mental health initiatives and help for people from disadvantaged backgrounds through The Greggs Foundation.

These are values that can also be seen in the way they treat their employees. After the resounding, and somewhat unexpected, success of launching the vegan sausage roll, all staff received a bonus from the incredible sales and profit boost that it resulted in.

Why we love it

It’s clear that Greggs understands and celebrates the value of its employees and the work they put in. They are careful not to forget that their biggest success is a result of their people and make sure they communicate this with actions not just words.

Shaping positive staff experiences goes a long way to shaping positive customer experiences. For Greggs, this has given them the perception as an ethical brand that values its employees and wants to give back to local communities.

Support the strength of your employer branding

With these 9 signs highlighted in this article, we hope that you are able to use them to check the strength of your own employer brand, and determine whether any improvements can be made to raise these all-important metrics. The continued success of a company’s employer brand plays a pivotal role in shaping its future, whether it’s attracting impressive candidates, to retaining its most exceptional employees for the long term. Keeping it strong and in shape will help ensure your organisation consistently expands and thrives with a motivated, engaged workforce behind it.

Keeping your employer brand in good shape requires an honest assessment of its current condition. The sooner the better.

Perhaps your employer brand is currently fit and healthy with hires steady, retention high, and perceptions positive. Or maybe it’s not currently in its prime state. Either way, it can be tempting to take your foot off the gas when it comes to employer brand investment – be that in terms of time, effort or budget.

Yet if the last few years have taught us anything, it’s that you never know what’s around the corner. Teams need to be agile with streamlined processes – ultimately, your employer branding framework should be working as hard as possible every day.

Conduct a health-check today and take the essential steps to keep motivated teams together, while winning the race to attract new talent by persuading them to choose your brand over your competitors.

How strong is your employer brand?

Measuring the direct impact your employer brand is having on your overall business’s profitability can be difficult as there are many contributing factors. You can, however, check whether your employer brand is reaching its full potential in several ways.

Work out your employee turnover 

The number of employees coming and going is a strong indication of how engaged staff are with your EVP (employer value proposition). 

To work out your monthly employee turnover rate, simply divide the number of employees who left your company during the month by the average number of employees at your organisation in the same period. For example, say you had an average of 100 employees in your company and 7 left, that month’s turnover rate would be 7%.

High employee turnover will have significant costs for your business. If you’re struggling with employee retention, it’s important to investigate the reasons why they are deciding to leave. This can highlight common patterns that will show you where you could improve as an employer, or whether you need to adjust your recruitment strategy for attracting and retaining talented employees. It may even be that you need to attract a different kind of candidate.

Check employee engagement activity on social media

When your employees are engaging with your company’s content on social media, you have visible proof that your employer brand is working as your talent can be a brand ambassador. 

Establishing employee advocacy programmes and empowering employees to create their own content is a great way to get them more engaged with, and build an employer brand.

Discover if you have a positive giveaway to takeaway ratio

This is the number of people you’ve hired from competitors against those who left your company to join a competitor. 

If you’re losing good talent to the competition, it can be easy to jump to the conclusion that they have been offered a higher salary. This may not be the only reason. Factors like work-life balance, flexible working, company culture and opportunities for growth have overtaken pay on the list of employee priorities and are key to building a great place to work.

Build positive brand perception from the inside out

The reason that your EVP is so closely linked to the financial success of your businesses – now more than ever– is because consumers care about employer branding.

As we’ve discussed before, building a positive brand perception is the key to winning the hearts and minds of consumers. It’s no use hiding behind your external messaging when what happens behind closed doors doesn’t match the ideals your brand is pitching to consumers. At best, your messaging will come across as inauthentic. At worst, your hard-earned trust and customer loyalty can all come tumbling down with a single post on social media – hence the importance of employer branding.

To let your positive company culture shine through, start from the inside out. Your external and internal employer branding should be natural extensions of each other, centred on the same purpose and core values.

How senior leadership teams can strengthen their company’s employer brand 

As a CEO or senior-level employee, you have the power to make or break the success of your company’s employer brand. If you’re not engaged with your EVP, why should your teams be? 

Here are three relatively simple ways you can instil belief in your employer brand and boost your profitability:

#1 Create an authentic EVP and embody it

Once you’ve established your employer value proposition with your team, it’s vital that the values and aspirations you are promoting to others come through in your own actions and decision-making. Lead by example to bring your staff on board with what your company stands for.

Unsure if your EVP is in the right place? Read up on the crucial components of any employer value proposition.

#2 Communicate regularly

You may not get to work directly with every employee in your business, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get to know them. Opening two-way channels of internal communication, like intranets and staff portals, will make all teams feel more equally valued and help you better understand their day-to-day impact on the business.In addition, having brand guidelines in one place will also help align everyone to the same message to stay consistent with the brand they work for which, as a consequence, can strengthen your company culture.

#3 Promote content around your company culture

As a member or key influence on your company’s senior leadership team, it’s important to have a visible online presence. Showcase your company’s big wins. Celebrate your employees. Let consumers see the human side of your brand.

Give your employer brand a regular checkup

There has never been a more important time to invest in your employer brand. No matter how successful it is, the attitudes of employees and prospective talent can switch at any time, and it’s important you have processes, tools and skills in place to respond. 

You can make your employer brand work smarter with brand management solutions from Papirfly.

With our brand management platform, you have a centralised portal for all recruitment and brand assets, which teams can edit, share or even create from scratch. Digital, print, video, social, email – everything you need to keep your employer brand front and centre.

 
Make this quarter count, find out more about unleashing your employer branding with Papirfly. You can even book your demo today.

 

In any organisation, the skills and dedication of the workforce is the lifeforce powering its future. You want to attract the best possible talent to your company, and retain them for the long term to bring continued success to your business.

Employer branding is critical to achieving this objective. How effectively you market the values that underpin your organisation, emphasise the unique benefits of working for your company, and demonstrate a strong, defined culture will have a powerful influence on your ability to capture the imagination of those at the top of the talent pool.

This guide is designed to help you unlock the true potential of your employer brand in 2021 and beyond. Settle in and discover everything you need to know in today’s landscape.

What is employer brand?

Employer branding at its most basic is the way a company promotes itself as a place to work. It comes from the external reputation the company has as a business and the way its employees view it. Having an effective employer brand in place can lead to benefits including:

• Reduced turnover of staff
• Attraction of high-quality talent
• Help in retaining valued employees
• Less money spent on hiring new staff
• Engaged employees

In the modern world of business, employer branding and recruitment have become entwined, creating strategies that are as much Human Resources department initiatives as they are marketing.

Employer branding and employee branding are different too. Employee branding is really a focus on how the employees act in accordance with the values of a company, and how the organisation promotes this.

Employer branding and corporate branding differ in that the latter focuses on a value proposition to customers, defining what your organisation offers to the marketplace.

Some employer branding statistics

When you’re successful in employer branding, the numbers really stack up. These are just some of the statistics reported in the employer branding space:

• 43% decrease in hiring costs
• 67% of employees would accept a lower wage if a company has positive reviews online
• 69% of employees are likely to apply if the company actively manages its brand
• 84% of employees consider leaving their current job if another company has a better reputation
• 88% of millennials believe that being in the right culture is important
• 72% of global recruiting leaders believe that employer brand has a significant impact on hiring
• 79% of jobseekers are likely to use social media in their job search
• A good employer brand leads to 50% more qualified candidates

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Why employer branding matters

Staff have serious expectations of what they want from a company. And one of the very bottom line commercial benefits of employer branding is that staff turnover can be reduced by 28%.

High turnover is demoralising for other employees and costly for a business. Taking into account recruitment hiring fees, it can cost an SME £5,500 to replace a member of staff on a national average salary wage.

Stats revealed by Staffbase below show just how costly employee turnover can be for corporates:

While a company may consider its staff as its greatest asset, so many organisations still don’t employ effective processes when it comes to hiring staff. And retaining staff once on board, is often something that falls by the wayside. Even companies who do recognise the importance of retention, sometimes struggle to dedicate the time to implement change.

In an increasingly competitive market, hiring and retaining talent is tough, but attracting the right people to your positions can be pretty much impossible without a powerful employer brand.

Messaging, creative and distribution of campaigns need to be targeted and carefully considered. That’s only made possible with employer brand initiatives, driven by the employer branding teams.

…For hiring and retention

Your business should make employees feel proud to work there. Company culture is of course important for most people, but particularly for those from generation Y, who are more likely to read reviews and use social media to determine if they are a good fit for your brand.

Having an effective employer branding plan really helps retain employees and recruit new ones. People are the core of any business, so you will want to find the best. Having a popular brand makes it easier and faster to hire good staff.

This is because with good employer branding the Human Resources team will spend less time trying to find quality candidates. Talented people will want to work for your company and be drawn to it for all the right reasons. Hiring time can be as much as two times quicker with a strong employer brand. Generally, the hiring process will differ depending on the candidate’s circumstances such as how much notice period they need to give, but this top-line process from Google shows how an average application might unfold.

…For more engaged employees

When employees are happy and engaged with the brand they work for, they’re more likely to evangelise about these positive experiences. They become ambassadors and you’ll likely see more applications as a result of direct referrals.

…For reducing costs

There are two ways of looking at cost reductions in relation to great employer branding:

Firstly, if you have a good reputation a lot of the hard work in recruiting the best people is already done for you. Staff are looking for good companies with positive reviews and experiences. Applicants will seek out good companies to work for, and will see your brand as a good place to work.

Money is saved as hiring is quicker and talent is placed in the business sooner. It can be spent strategically instead of on recruitment costs.

Secondly, having a lower staff turnover reaps significant savings to the overall recruitment budget.

Cost per head goes down and potential staff are willing to accept a lower salary if the company had very positive reviews online. This is because the value of a good environment is worth more than a higher salary in the wrong environment.

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How has the global pandemic reshaped employer branding?

The ground-shaking consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic turned the marketing landscape on its head several times over, and employer branding was not immune to its effects. While the pandemic itself will eventually subside, its ramifications will live on for significantly longer.

In times of crisis such as what many in the world experienced in 2020, or the uncertainty with which we entered 2021, employer brand teams will need to work harder to meet the expectations of available talent and existing employees.

Here’s a breakdown of what changed for employer branding since the start of the 2020s – and how you can adjust to meet this new landscape.

The response to COVID-19

Many organisations were hit hard by the global pandemic. The hit to the economy and restrictions to certain industries, namely retail, leisure and travel, resulted in many redundancies and cost-cutting measures.

Unfortunately, no matter how unavoidable these were in the circumstances, a brand’s response to COVID-19 will live long in the memory for many past and prospective employees.

75% of prospective employees consider a brand’s reputation before deciding to make an application (CareerArc)

Brands that demonstrated a desire to put people over profits during the hardest months of this pandemic will have strengthened their reputation among today’s talent. Even if they were forced to proceed with mass lay-offs, companies that handled it with compassion, like Airbnb, came away with credit for when the world returns to some semblance of “normal”.

Conversely, those brands that failed to convey this will need to spend the coming months and years rebuilding their image.

COVID-19 left employer brand teams with a valuable lesson – it’s not enough to say you care about staff, but this must be reinforced when times are tough. It will pay dividends for employer brand managers to explore the best and worst brand responses to this crisis to inform how they approach circumstances like this in future.

Values matter more than ever

The fallout from COVID-19 has put a magnifying glass on company values like never before. The worst company responses to the pandemic have made talent particularly skeptical of the values that an employer brand emphasises. To combat this, employer brand teams should go to greater lengths to demonstrate these values in action across their content.

Promote the ways you have prioritised the wellbeing of your employees throughout this challenging period, and harness employee stories of how they’ve appreciated your support in these strange times. 

Any authentic stories of this nature will hit home with prospective employees in a way they never have before, helping your company stand out as a destination that cares about its team.

Global talent wants more from employers in 2021

• Newly-hired remote workers want their onboarding process to be as robust and reassuring as it would be for ‘traditional hires’
• Employees want to know their company has clearly defined remote and hybrid working models
• Talent wants to see companies pushing their diversity and inclusion efforts further than ever, especially following the events of 2020

The need for clear communication

The excessive amounts of misinformation and hearsay about the global pandemic have made it more important for employer brands to deliver clarity and consistency to both existing employees and available talent.

In order to meet people’s need for clarity in times of substantial uncertainty, employer brand managers should:

• Facilitate regular meetings/video conferencing calls with teams to communicate important information and check on employees’ wellbeing
• House up-to-date company policies and guidelines in a shared, accessible space
• Share positive events and stories where possible to build morale
• Approach any bad news earnestly and empathetically
• Investigate straightforward chat/workflow management systems that will keep remote employees connected 

Up to a third of employees have contemplated leaving their job due to poor communication from management (Dynamic Signal)

Remote recruitment and onboarding

The greater emphasis on remote working inspired by the pandemic will have a long-term impact on how recruitment and onboarding will take place. Video interviews are now commonplace. Employees are hired and start work without ever having stepped inside an office.

While traditional, face-to-face interviews will never disappear entirely, employer brand teams should work to better facilitate these evolutions in order to deliver the biggest benefits to new recruits and your overall organisation.

• Consider including someone from your branding team in video interviews to give recruits a strong picture of your company culture that they can’t experience in person
• Account for technical issues on either side that might affect the interview
• Make clear company literature available for newly-recruited employees to inform their understanding of your operations
• Assign recruits with a remote “buddy” to ease their integration into your team and handle any initial problems they may be facing
• Immediately engage them with your IT team to demonstrate anything they need to know to work effectively from home
• Include them in team social events and gatherings so they don’t feel distanced from the brand following their introduction to your team

Remote working is not the only recruitment-based challenge that employer brand teams will need to confront and conquer this year:

Harness data for continuous improvement

Employer brand teams should be empowered to track the response and engagement to the content they promote, and use this data to inform agile adjustments over time and to guide future campaigns based on what resonates most with their audiences.

Restructure company material for the new reality

With a marked shift towards recruitment materials that prioritise empathetic, authentic storytelling over lists of perks, now is the time for employer brand professionals to reassess their content and determine the right story to tell prospective recruits in the current climate.

Remove barriers to internal recruitment

Internal mobility gained a lot of momentum in 2020, and employer brand managers in 2021 should work harder to emphasise this possibility within their teams. Consider what obstacles must be eliminated to educate talent on their potential to switch roles within the same company.

Supporting company culture

Finally, it’s important to recognise the impact of the pandemic on company culture. The transition to remote working across numerous organisations has rendered traditional office hotspots for socialising and creature comforts unavailable for the time being.

But, that doesn’t mean that company culture can be put on pause until COVID-19 is behind us. For many in the modern landscape, a strong, welcoming culture trumps salary and other perks in attracting them to work for an organisation:

With this in mind, the onus is on employer brand experts to rise to the occasion and find ways to maintain (and even strengthen) company culture for the remote-working era.

• Document your company’s values clearly and make them accessible to all
• Ensure consistency across all communications to make your values and identity inherent to everyone
• Showcase the history and future of your company to help employees find their identity within your company
• Harness your video conferencing technology for company social events like gaming, movies or friendly get-togethers

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The importance of employer branding to an organisation

Two in five organisations say that hiring is becoming tougher. Businesses are having to become more flexible in finding the right candidate.

With a powerful employer brand strategy, you’re looking to become an employer of choice. By creating a strong, positive reputation you’ll stop talented employees from voting with their feet.

Potential candidates will often look to an employer of choice before all others. Positioning yourself in this way starts with the following:

• Creating a positive candidate selection process
• Having a focus on career growth opportunities
• Putting the company’s values at the heart of everything
• Reviewing your pay scales and benefits

You might also like to consider these eight values when positioning yourself as an employer of choice. They’re part of what may help attract a person in the first place:

Flexible placement – this is where an employee has opportunities to work in a variety of roles and settings within the organisation, where they have an interest in expanding their understanding. Employers should encourage staff to work in a variety of roles too, to give them a better view of the overall business.

A customer focus – business should be customer-centric and understand that for the employee the customer comes first. Managers should give staff the tools needed to achieve this, and support the idea that the employee serves the customer’s needs first, before those of the manager. For example, a customer service employee would want to satisfy a customer’s complaint, before serving a manager’s needs. This would require the entire organisation to have a customer-centric mentality.

Performance focus – employers should use performance and benefit-based rewards to support staff development and keep them motivated. This might include additional days off or performance-related pay bonuses.

Project-based work – where possible, employees should have work structured around internal projects rather than organisational functions. For example, this might see employees in a marketing department working collaboratively on a new project from the start, rather than being focussed only on their singular role within that project at the time it’s ready to go to market.

Valuable work – work needs to be meaningful for staff. If tasks become menial or meaningless, it can cause them to become disengaged.

Commitment is important – staff should be committed to the outcomes of the organisation, while employers should be committed to helping staff do their jobs to the best of their abilities.

Ongoing learning and development – the company should encourage staff to learn and develop within the organisation. Whether that’s a certified CPD course or discovering the way another area of the business works – professional development can be invaluable to employees. A typical process for keeping employees at their best can be found below, but will of course vary from business to business:

Share information – employers should help staff by giving them access to a wide range of company data. In return staff should be willing to digest this information and show initiative to help move things forward, address any issues and drive productivity.

Creating and maintaining these processes are part of a culture change that needs to be supported in the long term by the HR staff. Building this relationship is critical when it comes to an effective employer brand strategy.

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How to build employer branding

Whether it’s holiday allowance, perks or salary, great talent demands great benefits. But they also want a culture they can identify with.

So, in this context employer branding strategy becomes a combination of economic benefits, functional rewards and psychological attributes that make employees connect with your company on an emotional level too.

If you can understand these benefits and what they mean to staff, you can create an attractive benefits package, which helps create a stronger employer brand.

By investing in your employer branding tactics, you can engage better with prospective and current employees whose values fit yours. It’s this that will make your brand stand out to the right people. 

Always begin with understanding who you are trying to reach, and what they want.

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What is an employer brand strategy?

To be successful, and as with any form of marketing, you need a good employer branding strategy to help create and promote your campaigns. 

Audit your brand’s perception

How does the world see you? What do your employees really think about working for your company? Unless you’re fully engaged in your internal employer branding you probably won’t understand how employees genuinely feel about working in the organisation. And working in hectic global organisations can mean these get forgotten, albeit unintentionally.

There’s a host of places to look. Check employment review sites – did you get five stars as an employer? Staff often post on social media too. Are they proud of their work or are they critical? Do they say nothing? Look for the underlying message. Other options for feedback include internal surveys or using an agency to monitor your reputation.

Whichever method you choose should uncover where staff are happy or where changes can be made.

Also check for brand consistency. Do you convey the right message at all times? Do your visuals and tone match that message?

It’s important to have a realistic understanding of how you are perceived. Then you can begin to address the issues with your employer brand. 

Decide what makes your company unique

Once you know what makes your company unique you can create your story. Look at your company’s mission statement, its values, its social responsibility and culture. Look at what makes your company stand out. Is it the best? Is it the fastest? What do you stand for? Do you have a social responsibility stance?

From here you can create your brand story for prospective employees. By having a brand story you’ll be helping candidates to match their personal values to those of your organisation and your employer brand marketing. A story will also help provide clarity for existing staff too, and drive better employer branding internally and externally.

Create an EVP – an employee value proposition

This is a mission statement or marketing promise to employees. It’s important that it’s truthful, and that you intend to stick to it.

And it’s important that it creates a sense of passion for the business and working there, as well as relaying how many days’ holiday you get by joining. It might include any positives about corporate social responsibility, or how valuable staff are at your organisation.

It can also be shared with recruiters. It’s designed for everyone who interacts with your employer brand.

The employee should be at the centre of your EVP and ideally your proposition should have been well received within your organisation. Think about all the things that are important to staff. These might include:

• Professional development
• Workplace culture
• Additional benefits such as healthcare
• Flexitime
• Quality of work
• Bonuses
• Office location
• Perks such as free fruit, gym memberships and social outings
• Company values
• Work-life balance

People want to feel their work is valued and meaningful, and that the company culture is the right fit for them. Creating an Employee Value Proposition cements this for the entire organisation. It’s a chance to showcase your positive impact as a brand.

Offer career development and learning opportunities

What’s the reason most people leave their jobs? Its staff feeling bored and wanting a new challenge is at the top of the list.

By offering learning opportunities to staff you’re showing a commitment to the employee, and gaining a staff with an improved skill set.

By making their roles challenging will help stave off the risk of staff feeling like they’re stuck in a rut. You should find they’ll be less likely to move on, or in reality won’t move on so quickly as they might have otherwise.

Developing staff skills is an easy solution to the age-old problem of workplace boredom. Perhaps it’s strange then that still employees cite lack of challenges as the primary reason to leave, and organisations aren’t responding.

Employer branding begins at home

Current employees will be your best advocates, provided they’re happy. Candidates frequently use testimonials from current employees in the research as to whether to join a company or not.

Use testimonials on your website or encourage employees to leave reviews on sites where staff talk about where they work. Recruitment company Glassdoor is one of the most widely used in terms of encouraging testimonials.

Encourage staff to use social media to post about fun events that have taken place in the company. Staff posting about these things, whether corporate team building or a night out, will show your company as an exciting place to be and a vibrant place to work. If someone likes it enough to post about it in their spare time it shows you to be an employer that promotes a happy workplace.

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Employer branding measurement

This is important. Test and refine – success is only measured against goals or targets. Doing all the above is imperative but measuring the effectiveness of your employer branding marketing is the only way to know if it’s working. The list below should help with how to measure employer branding in your business.

Useful employer branding metrics

Quality of hire 

It’s hard to measure, but the quality of hire defines the value a new employee brings to the company by performing and improving tasks and helping others. It is one of the most important metrics if you can get the data.

The value or performance of an employee generally drops when dissatisfaction kicks in so it’s a good indicator of the effectiveness of your employer brand. Unhappy employees are less productive and will not stay with you for long.

Job offer acceptance rate

Keep track of how many applicants reject your job offers and ask for feedback on why you’re not their employer of choice. Also, try to find out which company they have chosen instead and note at what stage of the process they dropped out.

Employee referral rate

Employees recommending your organisation to their family, friends and network as a great place to work means they like your employer brand. Employee referrals are a great source of talent. So if you don’t have a referral programme in place it’s probably time to start one.

Employee retention rate

There is no such thing as a static workforce. Employees will leave. However, the lower your voluntary attrition rate, the better because happy employees will want to stay and keep working for you. It also reduces the amount of confusion and disruption to daily projects and delivery.

It’s a powerful indicator of a strong employer brand and the savings in having a reduced staff turnover are great. Be sure to conduct exit interviews, as you can get valuable feedback.

Giveaway/takeaway ratio

This measures how many of your applicants come from direct competitors and how many of your current employees leave to join the competition. It’s a good direct comparison of employer brands.

Hiring manager satisfaction 

Companies often overlook the hiring managers, but their feedback is valuable in determining the strength of your employer brand and the candidates it attracts. Are these managers satisfied with the number and quality of applicants, their fit with role expectations and company culture?

Number of open applications

Open applications are those received for no specific job opening but more to express interest in the organisation. Candidates are applying to you as a company because they feel there is a good cultural fit. If you’ve got a high number of open applications, it’s a good indicator of a strong employer brand.

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More ways on how to improve employer branding

For many prospective employees, the first engagement with a company’s culture is often their website. An attractive and engaging website remains a powerful tool in an employer’s arsenal when it comes to attracting new talent.

Modern progressive companies use their site to set themselves apart, fostering a positive, welcoming employer brand through their inclusive approach, open engagement and simplicity in navigation and application. They demonstrate care for their employees, a pride in their image and cultivating a desire in candidates that this is a company worth working for.

The careers hub

Beyond simple job ads and application procedures, a careers hub offers space and scope to introduce the candidate to additional content that supports the positive employer brand message. Think testimonials, links to your employee value proposition and company values. These should all make a good case as to why candidates should come and work for your organisation.

Staff contributed blogs

Just as happy staff are your greatest advocates; staff blogs can offer a glimpse of the company culture too. Having employees share positive stories is often directed towards social media. But populating staff-led content on your website shouldn’t be overlooked.

For example, look at the following themes:

Contributions on industry issues – shows that you trust your employees’ levels of expertise and value their opinions enough to publish them under the corporate banner.

Contributions around ‘out of work’ topics – employee biographies, stories of fundraising or personal achievements foster an inclusive culture. The organisation cares about the person beyond their job.

Prospective employees are immediately being offered an environment of inclusivity, engaging them in the culture of the organisation even before they’ve started their application process.

Brand-promoting content

It’s worth remembering that your website offers you complete control when it comes to building a positive employer brand. Again, this can be achieved by incorporating inclusivity into the content used on the site, as well as creative use of video and new media technology.

It’s a chance to blend the corporate nature of the business with the personal side. On the one hand, you have space to deliver video presentations that take candidates on the journey from application to successful career. While ‘off-setting’ this with supporting content from throughout the company, creating the rounded view that everyone has bought into the company philosophy.

Translating your global employer brand

Having campaigns that are country-specific isn’t just about having the copy in the correct language. There is culturally appropriate imagery, legal details, contact information, colour palettes, logo considerations and a whole host of factors to think about. Trying to make one campaign apply to multiple countries by tweaking it slightly won’t land well with prospective and existing employees.

If you don’t have a tool like BAM by Papirfly™ in place where all of this is made easy, you should consider involving team members that are based in the country you’re promoting in. Ultimately you will need to make sure your employer brand is consistent but the insight will need to come from someone that truly understands the market.

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Employer branding and social media

Employer branding online goes beyond just posting company updates and recruitment drives on LinkedIn. Sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Quora and Pinterest can all be excellent places to represent your employer brand.

But it is easy to get social media wrong. When using your employer branding through social media remember it’s a conversation, not a soapbox. Your first step should be to understand the conversation people are already having about your company. Then join in.

Here are some tools that can help you find out what people are already saying about your company:

• Social Mention – These tools look at what people have been saying about you on social media and provides useful data such as the number of comments which are generally positive compared to those which are negative.
• Google Alerts – The free Google Alerts service is a great way to find out what is being said about your company and have it delivered straight to your inbox.

Sites like Reddit and Quora can also be great for discovering what employees want from an employer in general. Here people are more than happy to express opinions about their experiences in detail.

Your communication should be friendly and open while still maintaining a sense of professionalism. Having your employees contribute to your organisation’s Facebook fan page is another great way to create content and show a human face for your company.

LinkedIn groups and company pages are another good way to develop your employee brand. Potential employees who follow your company page will receive updates into their news feed. This is a good way to share videos, articles and other content which helps people understand what your company is about. Pinterest is less used than the other major social networks but is perfect for showing the fun and creative side of your business.

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Employer branding for Generation X

Candidates from this group want idea sharing and innovation. Remember the co-founder of Google, Larry Page, is a Gen X, so don’t think digital is lost on this generation of employees. They’ve seen how digital has changed the working world.

They’ll visit your website and they’re sometimes on social media too. They’re looking for work-life balance and forward-thinking organisations, so ensure your messaging really reflects this where you offer it. Remember to tailor your recruitment campaigns depending on your audience’s needs. While you can’t generalise every person in a generation, you can use guides to steer your strategy, such as the one below:

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What is employer branding in HR?

Employer branding is definitely as much HR as PR.

A focus on employer branding reflects a change in the hiring market. Employees want to work for companies that have an excellent reputation, for example where a company has a particular corporate social responsibility in place.

Graduates are becoming more discerning when choosing a company to work for.

This means there’s an opportunity for a new approach for HR departments. Maintaining brand reputation becomes more of a consideration when building HR policies, because it has important implications for how HR departments recruit and retain staff.

The HR function becomes an extension of a brand achieving dominance in the market. They can get more access to, for example, marketing or other areas where traditionally they might have struggled to be an influence.

For HR practitioners, the focus on employer and employee branding is all part of an overall goal of getting existing employees and potential employees to identify with the brand. It’s not a ‘facing out’ process. It’s facing both in and out.

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Trends in employer branding

Consider the three following things:

This Reputation Management Study from global recruiters MRINetwork, shows 35% of job candidates think that a strong employer brand is important and a further 34% regard it as ‘very important’. Employees want to see a strong, definable identity – and if it is not there, they will likely look elsewhere.

In tech, the skills gap is huge. Talent shortages are a global phenomenon – affecting sectors as diverse as construction through to healthcare. So, when it comes to talent, it’s most definitely a seller’s market.

And resource management is becoming more difficult. One estimate suggests that 85% of the jobs that will exist in 2030 have not yet been invented.

It’s becoming increasingly hard to predict precisely what type of roles you will need to fill in a few years’ time – and you may need to redeploy or recruit staff into new roles at short notice. If you have already built up a definite employer brand identity, you have a head start in attracting the right people into those new positions.

Trends to consider

Authenticity and employee authorship

Whether candidates are thinking of joining a company or mulling over whether it’s time to move on, people want to hear what real people have to say. And your employees are your most valuable asset.

Consider snippets of info that showcase the working environment, updates on projects they are involved with, individual career progression updates, fly on the wall videos, news relating to internal redeployments. Collectively, they provide an incredibly compelling and authentic picture.

Companies need to get creative – but stay consistent

How do you make sure that your central brand message stays consistent? If companies are doing more campaigns and content types this year, they will also need to look very carefully at ways to overcome this challenge.

For this, you need a clear set of rules, governing everything from what you can and cannot say in individual Tweets – right through to how and where your logo and straplines should appear.

The continued rise of VR

Virtual Reality makes it possible for new candidates to dive right into the workplace environment and to help employees get to grips with an organisation’s unique culture.

If you are considering making immersive digital experiences part of your branding strategy this year, just make sure that these experiences are authentic.

Doing more with less

Faced with the pressure of reduced budgets the focus is on doing more with less. For instance, is it possible to reduce your agency spend and still produce effective employer branding initiatives?

That’s why this is the year to equip your people with employer branding solutions that enable them to produce amazing assets – even without specialist knowledge.

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Why employer branding?

You can understand why employer branding initiatives are important in an organisation. If a company’s biggest asset truly is the staff, then the quality of the staff is the same as the quality of the business itself. And therefore, investment should be put into getting the best.

But it’s not just about employer branding and talent acquisition, it’s about retaining that talent too.

Your culture is fast becoming the main reason candidates take on a role. So make sure your values are clear and communicated in everything you do.

Get feedback from both successful and unsuccessful candidates and ensure that your selection process is engaging. Career development and growth opportunities matter to employees. Review your pay and benefits where possible.

In summary

• Involve, not just marketing, but HR, the CEO and find brand champions within the organisation. The combined efforts of all involved will reap benefits.
• As an organisation you’ll find the speed of recruiting is increased, costs are decreased and staff churn is reduced.
• And measure what you do to track its success. Even the smallest piece of data can lead to an improvement.

Employer brand building. If it’s not your present, it needs to be your future.

We spend over a third of our lives working so it’s no wonder that when we go in search of a career, we want to make sure the company we work for is the right fit. Not just in terms of the career itself, but also what they stand for, the employer benefits, reputation, and work-life balance – amongst other considerations.

We have compiled the most common factors when deciding whether a brand is an employer of choice. 

Salary, compensation and benefits

While money isn’t everything to everyone, it is usually the first and most important consideration for most candidates. If the salary doesn’t meet or exceed the industry standard or the candidate’s personal expectations, they may deselect themselves without investigating any further. It’s important to stay competitive to attract the right people, but also remain realistic.

On top of salary, candidates are attracted to other financial incentives. This could be anything from discounts at particular retailers, right through to a structured bonus scheme or shadow shares. If your company isn’t able to offer a great candidate the salary they want, having a clear path to progression and a pay review in place after a set number of months could be enough to entice them on board – coupled with other areas that make you an employer of choice.

Creating a strong culture and working environment

The ‘culture’ of a company is often something that’s formed and solidified over time. It’s usually made up of the types of behaviours and values that are expected to be upheld by employees.

For example, a branding agency in London may have a more relaxed approach to work, encourage flexible hours, have regular extended lunches and frequent social events. They may promote an open, informal environment. A more corporate culture may be found at a financial firm, looking to keep hours fixed, only encourage social outings at set times of the year such as Christmas, and require all issues to be raised formally.    

These are very broad generalisations, but no matter what type of company and brand you are, expectations on culture are changing across the board. High-pressure, stressful and formal environments are having a largely negative impact on employer reputation.

Striking the right cultural balance isn’t just about this though – while the best talent does often want to have a sense of autonomy and agility in their everyday life, they also require a level of structure for their progression. The lighter, fluffier stuff is what attracts people in the first place; having a clear path to success is a benefit to retain employees.

Reputation, values and employer brand

No matter how great the perks are, there are very few people who would be willing to work for a company with an abysmal reputation. While word of mouth is powerful, you can’t always trust what you hear second-hand, so many candidates will either still continue with their interview to make an informed decision for themselves or explore what people are saying online.

Review sites such as Glassdoor or those shared on Indeed are a digital window into what current and ex-employees really think about an organisation. While these sites are monitored, some unfair depictions of a workplace may still make it through the net.

Having some bad reviews isn’t the be-all and end-all for candidates; they will understand that different people have different needs and each company will have varied employer attractiveness to different types of people. However, how a company reacts to these reviews will help them form their opinion further.

Becoming an employer of choice isn’t something that happens overnight. There are many learning curves to endure, and unfortunately, negative reviews come part and parcel of this.

What you should do is:

• Respond calmly and constructively while keeping a cool head
• Ensure points raised on bad reviews are recorded and discussed
• Investigate any recurring themes and take the appropriate action
• Accept that some people will hold negative opinions and only report the reviews that go against the site guidelines

Building a positive reputation that puts you on the path to becoming an employer of choice is achieved through having a strong employer brand. While many companies complete work piecemeal on their employer brand, others dedicate entire teams and departments to this incredibly important marketing strand.

Having a global presence is all very well and good, but for any growing company, talent is at the heart of everything. Attracting and retaining good people is critical to any brand’s ongoing success. Having a dedicated team creating localised campaigns to attract the right type of talent across the globe is an invaluable resource. 

Creating a positive candidate experience

While this will form part of your wider employer brand strategy, it’s important to give special consideration to the overall candidate experience – whether they are offered the job or not. Your company’s reputation is important and during the recruiting and onboarding stage is when first impressions will count and opinions will be formed.

Here are some things you can do to ensure a smooth candidate experience:

Communication leading up to the interview

Ensure you provide information to the individual on what to expect. While it’s important for them to show they can think on their feet, intentionally withholding information could jeopardise what would have been an otherwise successful interview. Being purposely ambiguous could cause unnecessary nerves and give them a bad first perception.

Perfecting the interview 

If the interview doesn’t take place virtually, it’s important to use a space that’s representative of the working environment. Offer the candidate a drink upon arrival, introduce yourself and any accompanying interviewers and, if the interview room is not yet ready, find a comfortable spot for them to wait in.

Post-interview, ensure you follow-up, even if they were unsuccessful. Not hearing from a company after the interview can leave a sour taste in the mouths of candidates and cause them to vent their frustrations online.

First day and welcome pack

There’s nothing worse than being ‘left to it’ on your first day. If the team is too busy to complete a comprehensive induction, make sure you assign the new recruit a ‘buddy’ to have lunch with and who can answer any questions throughout the day.

Many companies that have a strong employer brand ensure new recruits have some kind of branded welcome pack. This usually consists of a notebook and mug or similar. This helps to instil employee brand advocacy from day one. 

Learning and development for employees 

One-to-ones and development plans come in many different forms but, however you choose to progress your employees, it’s important they have access to consistent communication in regards to their development.

Staff can become complacent or unsettled if they feel they aren’t moving forward. Likewise, making tools available within your perk package can provide a much-needed boost. For example, you may install a physical book library, or allow a training budget each year.

Becoming an employer of choice in your industry

While you can’t always become the best employer of choice overnight, there are many strategies you can implement both right away and in the longer term to make great strides. Having an all-in-one brand management tool like the Papirfly Platform puts you in great stead for becoming an employer of choice. With access to a suite of creation tools for quick, on-brand marketing assets, your team can deliver on time, every time regardless of skill level. With a dedicated education section, your team has access to all the guidelines, documentation and assets they need to understand your employer brand and offering. Users can also manage campaigns with a range of tools and store and share assets within their dedicated DAM. Tailor access for files to countries, regions, subdivisions and sub-brands. Discover the power of a an all-in-one brand management platform and start your journey to becoming an employer of choice.

When you’re in charge of a business, regardless of size, industry or location, a feeling that you quickly get used to is losing good employees.

Research has shown that 43% of all Millennials in employment plan to leave their current role within 2 years, while only 28% plan to stay past 5 years. With future generations expected to share similar tendencies, the employee turnover trend shows no sign of slowing. 

Of course, it would be naïve for any company to believe that they can achieve a near-100% retention rate; statistics collated by LinkedIn in 2018 suggest that a 10.9% turnover rate is approximately the norm (although this varies from industry to industry and role to role – e.g. the hospitality sector experienced a 90% turnover rate in recent years in response to Brexit). 

And, in many cases, these are the result of reasons not caused by their company itself:

• A change in their personal life
• They are looking for a different challenge
• They received a better offer
• They feel they’ve achieved all they can in your team

Again, losing talented employees is something that will happen invariably. However, numerous reasons behind top talent quitting come as a direct result of them being unhappy with aspects of their work.

If you are concerned that your company’s turnover is unwantedly high, here are 14 notable causes why you may be turning off top talent from staying with your organisation.

Why companies lose good employees

1. Lack of trust/autonomy 

Few people enjoy being micromanaged or working in a restrictive environment due to management’s lack of faith in them. Top talent will typically thrive in atmospheres where they feel trusted to deliver their work to a high-quality standard. Placing too many oversights and barriers in the way of their autonomy is a dangerous path to a high turnover of staff.

2. You lack a competitive offer

While money isn’t everything to all employees, it will likely be a key factor in their decision to stay or move on from your company. Employees need to know that they’re valued for their hard work, and whether it’s an increase in their salary or other incentives, if you fail to give them compelling reasons to stay, they may have their heads turned by your competition.

3. You don’t have an onboarding strategy

The process of retaining employees to stay starts from day one. If you don’t have an established onboarding strategy or process, it can result in new members of staff feeling disorientated and unwelcomed immediately. First impressions count as much for the hiring company as they do for the person just hired – leaving a bad taste in the mouth from the get-go could leave people thinking about the exit in a couple of months time.

4. They feel underutilised

If your employees don’t feel that their distinct skills and expertise aren’t being put to good use in their current role, they will start to look for a company that will. The moment they feel they are not being utilised effectively is when good employees stop caring, hurting your productivity and increasing the likelihood of high performers leaving your team.

5. They feel underappreciated

If your best talent produces great work, it’s important that you tell them. Employees whose work is hardly (if ever) recognised will feel more disheartened and disillusioned in their role. It will potentially lead them to question why they’re working as hard as they are if they will never receive recognition or reward. By failing to appreciate the great talent available to you, you risk losing them over time.

6. They feel disrespected

Similar to the above reason, your employees don’t want to come to work and feel that they aren’t respected or valued. This extends to their good work being recognised to the overall workplace culture – if their fellow team members are not treating them fairly or kindly, this will motivate them to find somewhere else to work for the sake of their own wellbeing.

7. They are poorly managed

Over a third of UK workers plan to leave their company imminently due to not feeling any kind of inspiration or motivation from their employer. Poor management is a powerful indicator of dysfunctional employee turnover – without clear direction, guidance and encouragement from the top, employees will lack the structure and impetus to perform effectively and progress in their career.

8. There’s little communication

Communication is key to whether you lose good talent or not. Employees will want to feel comfortable bringing issues to their manager or co-workers and receive a fitting response. If that communication is lacking or is practically non-existent, your talent will feel unsupported and that their suggestions aren’t meaningful. When people spend much of their day at work, most would prefer not to spend it in silence.

9. An unhealthy company culture

A poor company culture will quickly turn away your top talent. Whether that is a structure that is too rigid, one that lacks drive and passion, or simply an atmosphere that is overwhelmingly negative and toxic, if an employee doesn’t feel comfortable or welcome in their workplace, they will be encouraged to actively find one that is more suitable. 

10. They don’t connect with your company values

Your employer brand plays an increasingly powerful role whether you retain or lose good employees. A brand that is consistent, authentic and built on strong values will minimise the risk of employees quitting. Conversely, if your workers don’t buy into your goals, missions and principles, they won’t form a connection to your organisation and won’t feel a compulsion to stay when another opportunity comes along.

11. There’s no room for growth or development

One of the core reasons people look at alternate job opportunities is to advance in their career. If your company does not present a clear path for promotion or development, your good, ambitious talent will find chances to take on more responsibility somewhere else. Leaving little room for career progression within your workforce loses engagement, loses motivation, and eventually loses talented employees.

12. They feel overworked

Stress is something that comes in most workplace environments, but an excessive amount can be a strong motivator to leave. If your top employees feel like they are being burdened with too much to do with little support or recognition, work will become incredibly uncomfortable for them. At that point, they might decide to choose their own wellbeing over their employment, and look to find somewhere more conducive to their needs.

13. You don’t consider their work-life balance

Did you know 22% of UK workers have changed company or departments in pursuit of better flexibility? Especially as employees become older and develop responsibilities outside of work, priorities shift towards a better work-life balance. If you lack the flexibility to accommodate their wider needs or operate in an “all work, no play” culture, you will lose top talent looking to avoid burnout.

14. They see other good employees leaving

Finally, witnessing other talented employees leave your company can make people question their own position and happiness in your organisation, often regardless of the reason behind their departure. Losing talented employees can damage the overall culture and atmosphere in your workforce, and cause others in your team to consider their own future. If you already have a high turnover, this can be an even more pressing concern.

What is the cost of losing good employees?

While the answer to this question varies from company to company, a great deal of research has gone into the costs of losing employees. Studies by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) predict that it can cost anywhere between 6 and 9 months’ salary of the departing team member to replace their role. 

For example, let’s consider someone earning the average annual salary, estimated to be £27,271. To replace an employee on these wages would cost between £13,600 and £20,500, a significant amount for any organisation to dedicate to recruitment.

Considering that 41% of employers have reported difficulties in filling vacancies over the previous year in CIPD’s Labour Market Outlook Report (Spring 2019), the cost of losing good employees can be even dearer. 

And that is only the immediate financial impact. Losing top talent in your workforce would cause any business to struggle short-term without their expertise, input and familiarity with your company, and longer-term if they bring their skills to support your competition. 

Having too many experienced employees walk away can damage your productivity and overall company culture in a significant way, and require a substantial investment in time and money to train people up to fill the void left by these departures.

How to retain a good employee who wants to leave

Now you have greater clarity over some of the key reasons why good employees leave companies, your next step is to implement techniques and approaches that heighten your ability to retain your top talent and prevent them from moving to your competitors.

Here are a few initiatives you should consider incorporating: 

Regularly check your employees’ wellbeing

Whether this is through frequent employee reviews or discussions with their supervisors, regular communication with your employees helps them realise they are connected and supported at work, and allows you to spot and address any signs of discontent early.

Encourage their desire to learn and grow

For good talent that wants to develop and harness their skills at every opportunity, provide them with the chances to improve both inside and outside of work. And, when they do excel and show signs of progress, recognise it and celebrate it.

Provide a flexible working environment

Flexible working is quickly becoming the norm, and those that don’t adapt to these circumstances risk losing a high turnover of staff. By giving your workforce flexibility, they will likely be more productive and reassured, as well as less likely to suffer burnout.

Work on your employer branding strategy

Your employer branding strategy can play a big factor in not only the way you recruit new talent, but keep your existing team members around. Foster a collective culture behind your company’s values, one that allows your workforce to develop a deep, meaningful connection to your brand and its unique identity.

Train your management teams effectively

As a bad relationship with management is a primary reason why employees choose to leave their company, take time to develop your management team to welcome and support new and existing talent. This minimises the risk of culture clashes and encourages employees that they are being supported.

Demonstrate clear paths to career progression

Finally, with most employees not content to stay in one place or role for their whole lives, you need to illustrate that your organisation can support their ambitions beyond their current responsibilities. For high-performance employees, this will motivate them to climb the ladder in-house rather than seek greener pastures.

Avoid losing good employees with strong employer branding 

Working with Papirfly directly supports your organisation’s ability to retain and recruit top talent. Whether it is empowering team members to take initiative and produce high-quality marketing materials with little training, to help producing effective employer brand assets and communications that project your company values across your global teams, we help you maximise the power of your employer brand.

Discover BAM by Papirfly™ today and unlock your ability to create, educate, manage, store and share your brand like never before.

As a company, you’re always looking to uncover, recruit and retain the best talent out there. People who will work to achieve your goals. Fit into your culture. Have that drive for success.

But there’s a problem – your competitors have the exact same aspiration. And with the reputation of a company more visible than ever before, be it through a jobseeker’s Google search or reviews on comparator sites like Glassdoor and Indeed, presenting a powerful, compelling employer proposition is more crucial and more challenging than ever before.

With a finite pool of truly exceptional individuals that can make a difference to your organisation, it is essential that you can stand out from the crowd in attracting the talent that’s out there, as well as keeping hold of the people you already have.

That is where your employer branding strategy comes in. It sets you on the journey to locating prospects that fit with your organisation’s ambitions and clearly demonstrating why they would feel right at home in your teams.

Here, we’re going to delve into greater detail on what your employer branding strategy is and outline thirteen critical steps to developing one that connects you with the best talent available.

What is an employer branding strategy?

At its core, the definition of an employer brand strategy is a documented, universal approach to translating your organisation’s values, approaches and personality to your audience. It’s a comprehensive offering of everything you have to offer as a workplace to benefit your most important asset – your employees.

It’s how you project your employer brand – how you are viewed by your current workforce and people you hope to one day recruit. Your employer branding strategy needs to transparently and consistently promote these aspects to both your existing team and those you intend to recruit in order to achieve three salient goals:

• Positively distinguish your offering from your competitors’
• Demonstrate why someone would want to work in your organisation
• Illustrate how your brand is developing and strengthening over time

Not all employer branding strategies are created equal, and creating one that ticks all the right boxes requires clear thinking, total buy-in from your team members and refinements over time. By utilising the following best practices, you’ll find yourself in an ideal position to attract the talent that can drive your brand forward.

How important is an employer branding strategy?

As mentioned earlier, Glassdoor and Indeed are just two examples of platforms that highlight your company’s culture and processes. There’s your website and other marketing channels to consider, and word of mouth from employees spreading on forums.

If your negatives outweigh your positives, or you are not dedicating the same attention to your employer branding strategy as your competitors, you stand to miss out on top talent, and even losing current team members in the process.

Developing a brand that appeals and connects with today’s increasingly web-savvy job candidate is vital, and can result in numerous benefits, including:

• Improved employer attractiveness to talented individuals interested in working in your industry
• Greater motivation among your existing employees by feeling more connected and in-sync with your brand values
• Tangible drops in the costs associated with hiring new talent and retaining them long-term
• A workforce that actively advocates and promotes your brand, extending your reach to other candidates and customers
• A clear, unified vision for your organisation to move towards, with all people associated with your company pushing it in that direction

13 steps to best practice with your employer branding strategy

Effective employer branding strategies can be the difference-maker in an ideal candidate’s decision to join your organisation over the other options available. Following these best practices gives you greater control over the messages you project, and the ability to influence how these individuals see your brand.

1. Audit the perception of your brand

Before developing your employer branding strategy, it is important you have a clear understanding of how people view your company initially. Otherwise, how will you know what adjustments are required?

A thorough audit of your current brand perception, both through the eyes of your employees and your external audiences, lets you understand if your current messaging and reputation is projecting the values and attractiveness you are aiming for. Especially in organisations with teams spread across the globe, it is easy for your values to be mistranslated, or be in needing refinement to connect with local audiences.

There are a host of places you should be examining, including:

• Employment review sites – most candidates will be researching these in detail before making a decision on their next employer. What are people saying about your company’s processes and culture? Do you get rated five stars? Do you come across as an attractive brand? Are there negative reviews? If so, have you addressed them effectively?
• Social media – investing in social listening tools can help you track mentions of your organisation over social media, so you gain a deeper insight into how people view your brand.
• Employee feedback – conducting internal surveys or having open meetings with your teams helps you identify problems that might be affecting your ability to attract and retain talent, so they can be rectified as part of your unified employer brand strategy.
• Google alerts – like on social media, it is important to closely monitor the reputation your brand is presenting on Google and other search engines, and determine if this is in line with your objectives.
  
  

2. Build your employee persona

Who is your ideal candidate? Without a clear answer to this question, you are in no position to effectively develop an employer branding strategy that targets a person with the personality, aspirations and skills to seamlessly join your teams.

Dedicate time to breaking down the qualities your target audience possesses:

• What are their main personality traits?
• What causes do they care about?
• What motivates them day-to-day?
• Where do they research for information?
• What roles and responsibilities do they want?
• Who influences their decisions?

This is just a sample of the line of questioning you should be asking about what constitutes the right employee for your brand. Of course, these qualities will differ according to the specific staff role and location you are marketing to, but at a fundamental level there must be a template that helps you craft branding that appeals to the right candidate.

Furthermore, by clarifying your ideal candidate, it is more likely that their transition into joining your team and growing within your organisation will be more satisfying and fulfilling.

3. Establish your company’s differentiators

Knowing what makes your company unique goes a long way to crafting your brand story.

It’s your organisation’s mission statement. Its values. Its social responsibilities. Its culture.

This feeds into your employer branding strategy by determining why someone would choose to join or stay with your company over X competitor. To effectively establish your differentiators or USPs therefore, it is important to reassess your own values and compare these with potential alternatives for recruits.

What issues do you stand for that others don’t? What aspects of your work culture can you promote that others aren’t? Where does your brand excel and stand out against what your competitors can produce? The answers to these questions will define the unique characteristics your company has to boost your attractiveness to recruits.

86% of HR professionals believe recruitment is now on an equal footing with ‘marketing’. In the same way your marketing efforts are geared to set your products and services apart from the crowd, your employer brand strategy needs to working just as hard to keep you in the minds of candidates and improve your current teams’ sense of belonging.

4. Determine and utilise your primary marketing channels

How are you going to reach your prospective recruits, or best engage with your existing employees worldwide?

As part of establishing your audience persona, you should have a clearer understanding of what channels are going to connect with the candidates you’re seeking. But it is vital to have these defined as part of your employer branding initiatives, and that consistency is maintained across all platforms you choose to utilise.

By choosing the most effective channels, be it through a careers page on your website, paid media campaigns, or taking your employer branding to social media, you are in a position to tailor and target your audiences far more successfully. Ask employees how they first encountered your brand. Research the most popular platforms and forums for people working in your industry.

Once you’ve identified where you will engage with, use these platforms to frequently translate the inclusivity, vision and development of your brand and your employees. These images, blogs, testimonials and more across the most popular channels for your audience will drive a clear connection with what your brand stands for.

However, it is essential that your collateral feels in no way forced or fabricated. Authenticity is essential in truly appealing to your target audience. Without this genuine aspect, people will see through your attempts and will likely distrust you going forward.

5. Create your Employer Value Proposition

Your Employer Value Proposition (EVP) is your promise to current and future employees. It’s what you offer that will make them passionate about being part of your team, and as such is a lynchpin of your employer branding strategy.

At the centre of your EVP should be your employee – their motivations, their interests, their goals. Ideally your proposition will cover everything they are looking for to connect them to your company in a positive, fulfilling way. To this end, you should consider what matters to staff:

• Professional development?
• Holiday allowance?
• A thriving workplace culture?
• Healthcare benefits?
• Flexible working opportunities?
• A strong work-life balance?
• Bonuses?
• A comfortable environment?
• Unique perks like gym memberships and social outings?
• Charity work and corporate responsibility initiatives?

Most employer branding strategies should contain an assortment of these. But on top of these perks, you also need to consider the core values of your business. How highly your employees are valued. How committed you are to being the best in your industry. How much you care about supporting your customers.

Your Employee Value Proposition is central to how attractive your brand is to recruits, and how effectively you can retain the staff you already have on board. It should be kept transparent and in easy reach of any member of your organisation at all times to reinforce these messages, which is why our BAM by Papirfly™ solution’s capacity to ‘educate’ employees allows our clients to house core brand documents that can be accessed at any opportunity.

6.Develop your brand guidelines and assets or review your existing ones 

Your company already likely has overarching brand guidelines, assets and logos – but what about your employer brand? Has this been properly defined?

In order to effectively implement your employer brand strategy, you need to have assets in place that sets your employer brand apart and the resources available to create and complement your campaigns.

This includes anything from country-specific guidelines, culturally appropriate imagery, colour palettes, logo variations, audience breakdowns by country, dos and don’ts for different territories and anything in between.

7. Invest in your current team’s development

One of the core reasons behind bad employee retention is a lack of career development and learning opportunities. Without a feeling of progression or investment in their growth, it is likely a member of your team will seek greener pastures to achieve their aims.

Remember, employees who feel they’re progressing are 20% more likely to still be at their companies in a year’s time. By presenting these training and development opportunities to your team, you’re demonstrating you’re committed to helping them realise their ambitions as part of your brand. This not only provides you with a more highly-skilled and motivated workforce, but a workforce that is engaged and appreciative to your organisation.

On top of this reduction in workplace boredom and increase in motivation, staff that feel more in-tune and connected to a brand are much more likely to become brand advocates. They will share your marketing materials on social media. Tell friends and family about how positive your environment is. Actively encourage people to join when vacancies become available.

With that, you are in a position to harness powerful employee branding that increases your trustworthiness and attractiveness to both potential recruits and customers.

8. Internal review and alignment

Anything you plan to implement in terms of strategy, particularly initially, should have buy-in from all appropriate stakeholders. This may include HR professionals in the business, internal recruiters, management and more. You may also want to get opinions from existing or new employees to make sure what you have developed fits in with internal perceptions.

Likewise, you may pick up on an insight internally that you may not have had access to without holding these conversations. Once everyone is happy on the direction you are taking for the employer brand strategy, you can begin developing the tools and resources to educate the wider teams and make sure everyone is on the same page moving forward.

9. Assess your strategy’s success

Finally, once you have your employer branding strategy in place, it is important that you are regularly assessing, fine-tuning and adapting it as your business and your industry landscape evolves. It is rare anything this important is nailed first time around, so it is critical that you over time analyse the results of your efforts and see where improvements can be made.

Examine the success of your employer branding initiatives against your pre-defined KPIs, which may include:

• Time-to-hire
• Cost-per-hire
• Number of applicants to each vacancy
• Improved brand reputation
• Frequency of employer brand marketing

If any of these are falling short of your aspirations, it is time to reassess, correct the course and tweak your approach until you see the results you’re looking for. Your employer branding strategy should never feel set in stone – as your overall business strategy changes to reflect new trends, patterns or requirements, your employer brand strategy should follow suit.

10. Talk to employees regularly

An employer brand strategy is never completely finished. This is because not only does the internal workforce demands evolve so rapidly, but as a brand grows so does what it’s trying to portray.

By having regular meetings or focus groups with a select few people you can ensure you don’t become subjective and stay rooted in what really matters to employees. Particularly if you are responsible for campaigns overseas, don’t rely on conversations with employees in your own location.

Ideally, teams would be looking after their own materials in their own country, but this isn’t always possible, so ensuring you get relevant, on-the-ground insight will be critical to your success.

11. Invest in video

Whether it’s for organic or paid for advertising, video is a powerful medium to get across your company’s true values. Potential candidates can read handbooks and website pages until their hearts are content but the truth is only video or a face-to-face visit can truly convey the experience of working somewhere.

This is particularly important for larger businesses, whose success has seen them become so vast that potential candidates may perceive them as a faceless corporation. Hearing from real people with real stories helps to humanise your brand in ways that written content can’t always achieve.

12. Create advocacy internally

If your existing employees don’t believe in your employer brand strategy, how can you expect prospective candidates to feel anything? Having members of the workforce on board is one thing, but having them actively promote your brand and company as a positive place to work can be more powerful than many other methods.

There’s an element of authenticity that candidates connect with. As long as your content isn’t forced or dishonest, the genuine passion should shine through. And if it does, you could be on to a winner.

13. Work out the logistics of your localisation

Working across multiple territories can be a nightmare to navigate. Having processes in place to ensure that any culturally sensitive content or translations are up to scratch is important for maintaining consistency and retaining a decent reputation, both internally and externally.

Anything deemed insensitive would not only ruin your chances of a successful recruitment campaign but also demoralise employees working in that region. It’s important that no matter in the world where they are, they feel connected and represented as part of the brand.

6 companies that have nailed their employer branding strategy

We’ve discussed the key steps to building an employer branding strategy, but what do these mean in practice? Below we discuss several companies across the globe that are maximising their potential to attract, recruit and retain the best talent available through their messaging, and what lessons you can pick up from them.

Vodafone

Vodafone is a prime example of a brand that felt it was doing everything right, but after careful analysis determined they were lacking in some areas. They quickly rectified this by conducting a thorough survey across 40,000 people to find out how people felt about the Vodafone brand.

This feedback became the heart of a new employer value proposition, which has proven far more effective in appealing to new and existing talent. At the core of this is something called the “two-way deal”, which promises team members that they will get as much out of their career at Vodafone as they’re willing to put in.

We’re proud of the role that our BAM solutions have played in supporting Vodafone’s employer branding strategy, helping them deliver greater campaign materials on a global scale.

Unilever

Another of our clients, Unilever, has built the strength and success of their employer brand through their status as a leader in their industry. By focusing on materials that emphasise their notable reputation in their employment brand strategy, they present an aspirational image to potential recruits, as well as improve the motivation of their existing employees.

Plus, Unilever in recent years adopted an approach of responding to every testimonial left for their company on Glassdoor, positive or negative. This willingness to respond to employee concerns and use their reviews to improve conditions has consistently kept the company among the “Best Place to Work in the UK” rankings.

L’Oréal

L’Oréal back in 2013 demonstrated the value of placing your employees at the centre of your employer branding strategy. After passing 300,000 followers on LinkedIn, they used this as an opportunity to highlight the stories and skills of their team members across the globe, emphasising the opportunities available at their business to potential jobseekers.

As it’s well-established that people trust other people over brands, L’Oréal’s approach was an effective way to build confidence in their brand through the voices of their own employees.

Zappos

While many fashion brands utilise their social media accounts for their products, Zappos pairs this with content demonstrating the benefits of joining their team. On Instagram in particular they share a substantial amount of CSR work, employee stories and company-wide events to help their brand feel more appealing to both jobseekers and the wider public.

Furthermore, their Insider Program has been a great innovation for their employer branding strategy. This allows anyone interested in joining their team one day access to information relevant to the company, allowing Zappos to source from the best available talent.

Hubspot

When Hubspot came under increased scrutiny after being named one of the Best Places to Work in 2018, this investigation simply shone a bigger spotlight on their commitment to listen to their employees and take their feedback and suggestions on board.

This extends to Hubspot’s social media presence, where they have regularly encouraged followers to leave comments that can act as jumping points for future content. It also champions its dedication to a fun company culture, with flexible work hours and tuition reimbursement.

Heineken

Pushing a strong visual element to their employer branding strategies, Heineken in early 2019 launched their “Going Places” campaign, focusing on celebrating the stories and development of 33 of their employees across the globe.

After conducting research into the values their brand represent, the company honed in on three pillars: authenticity, transcendence and longer-term brand management. These were combined into the campaign, inspiring their existing workforce and encouraging prospective employees about the potential they can unlock at Heineken.

The future of your employer branding strategy

We hope that this insight into the best practices of employer branding strategies will help guide your way to presenting a more attractive, comprehensive proposition to prospective candidates, as well as keep your current team members engaged with your brand.

The importance of employer branding can never go understated in how it drives the future of your organisation, and establishes a workforce that is motivated, committed and inspired to be part of your company. Achieving this on a global scale is far from straightforward, but through our market-leading BAM software, your team is able to efficiently execute your employer brand strategy.

Start empowering your team with BAM today.