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 brand management solution’s capacity to ‘educate’ employees allows our clients to house core brand documents that can be accessed at any opportunity.

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 brand management 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 brand management software, your team is able to efficiently execute your employer brand strategy.

Start empowering your team with an all-in-one brand management platform today.

The graduates of today are the future leaders of tomorrow. So getting your company noticed at a pivotal time in the careers of these bright young prospects is crucial.

Gen Z and beyond have experienced turbulence much like any other generation. But when it comes to the outlook on careers, the environment and the future, they have been exposed to a much thicker wall of negativity, which employers will have a partial responsibility in helping them break through.

Employers need to not only work hard to bring their employer brand to this new wave of prospects – they need to inspire this generation into believing anything is possible once again. It’s a big challenge, but it’s a vital one to ensure that the right talent is nurtured, retained and driven in the right direction. 

Overcoming challenges with graduates

There are typically two main scenarios employers are finding themselves in with graduates.

• They are inundated with applications for certain roles
• For more specialised roles, there is a smaller pool of talent and competition is high

First let’s look at the most common situation: receiving too many applications.

This can be a problem for a number of reasons that will affect your ability to recruit quality graduates…

Problem…Too many people with similar skill sets are applying and it’s difficult to distinguish who might be most suitable based on their application alone, suggesting there’s a flaw in the application process.

Solution…If you are using an Applicant Tracking System (ATS), there should be options available to introduce more detailed screening questions. These answers should give you insight into an applicant’s personality, communication skills and general motivations for the role before considering their skill sets. 

Your team should also set some common rules for what a good applicant looks like. For example: they must include a cover letter, they must have tailored their cover letter to your company, they must have a nicely presented CV – those kinds of things. This sets parameters that can help you weed out those who haven’t made the effort. 

Additionally, ensure your employer brand’s mission and purpose are coming through enough on your job creatives – give candidates an accurate feeling of what it’s like to work for your brand, and they will likely deselect themselves if they don’t feel they are a good fit.

Problem…Too many applicants are under-qualified for the role they’re applying for – this may mean the application process is too easy or the information provided is misleading.

Solution…If you’ve been a victim of the ‘Indeed effect’, where applicants are just clicking apply to your role even if it’s not aligned to their skills, you can consider the following ways to reduce the amount of unsuitable applications you are receiving:

• Consider promoting your roles on more specialist jobs boards, as this will prevent the vacancy from being accessible to anyone and everyone 
• Review your advertising creatives – are they giving out the wrong message about the roles? Is the company’s expertise shining through? 
• Make sure the essential skills, experience and qualifications are clearly defined in the job description or landing page 

Problem…There’s no time to view the volume of applications coming through with any kind of detail – leaving you missing out on talent and those who don’t hear back feeling disconnected to your employer brand.

Solution…Again, this is where putting in some key filter questions can come in handy. You can use the answers to help determine the quality of the application before committing to reading the CV cover to cover.

For more high-level roles, you may ask the candidate to include a portfolio or include a short task as a first or second stage of application. Make sure this is clear in your job description, as plenty of people who don’t have the skills you need won’t want to proceed based on that request alone.

Lastly, ensure your ATS is set up to give automated responses to applicants. Make it clear that if they are unsuccessful they will not be contacted (providing that there’s no time to respond to each individual), but be sure to encourage them to apply for future roles again after 6 months, a year, or whatever time frame you choose. 

Next, let’s explore scenario two: small or hard-to-reach talent pools for specialist roles. 

This can also create an equally overwhelming amount of problems for your team.

Problem…Your specialist roles aren’t being filled because your offering isn’t strong enough. 

Solution…Graduates in niche industry areas are likely looking for the role that’s going to benefit them and their careers the most.

When looking at your employer brand, think beyond just the salary and benefits. What are the candidates actually going to benefit from by being your employee as opposed to another brand? 

Candidates need to feel excited about the future, not just the initial role they’re taking. Financial security and a decent roster of benefits are an expectation for many and alone are often not enough to inspire a big career move. 

Problem…You may be losing talent to competitors. 

Solution…When an applicant turns down your job offer for another opportunity elsewhere, it’s important to keep the window of opportunity open.

Ask them politely what your company can learn from their experience and what they could be doing differently, and add them to future candidate pools. Teams can then follow up in 6 months or a year via LinkedIn to make them aware of any new roles available. 

Problem…You are not receiving a decent quantity of applicants.

Solution…Reviewing the media placements of your employer brand advertising should be your number one priority. Are your teams promoting the roles in the right places? Are they targeting aspiring developers with ads on Facebook instead of Reddit? Or hiring for a remote role in very specific locations?

Consider putting out an incentivised survey on LinkedIn or appropriate channels to gather first-hand insight into where someone might look for a specific role. 

Problem…You are struggling to find the exact skills needed for your specialist roles.

Solution…Graduates aren’t going to come with the exact skills needed to join your organisation and hit the ground running from day one. In the longer term, it’s worth really thinking about how important these skill sets are to the business. Do they warrant creating a company-sponsored degree? Or an in-house training programme? 

These kinds of opportunities help to mould prospects into the kind of employee your brand needs, and give them on-the-job training and experience. It’s a very time-consuming commitment, so you need to be sure that the investment is worth the outlay and disruption. 

What are the priorities for graduates?

Depending on the industry and the individual, priorities for graduates will vary from person to person. A recent study by Bright Network did help to shine a light on what graduates as a whole are prioritising, some of which we’ll explore here…

They want to be upskilled

95% of members want to be upskilled directly by employers. Having a clear path of progression and training allowance can help graduates understand how your company can take their career to the next level.

They want a genuine commitment to inclusivity and diversity

Many employers preach about inclusivity but fail to live up to the reality. Having HR provide training on important subjects such as unconscious bias, celebrating a wide range of holidays, a commitment to fair pay and having dedicated strategic training programmes are all small steps every company can take towards becoming more inclusive and diverse. But a few gestures aren’t enough – the commitment must be ingrained in your employer brand.

They want to know that employee mental wellbeing is a priority

53% of Millennials were already burned out from work pre-pandemic, up to 59% today. Gen-Z is a close second, with 58% reporting burnout post-pandemic, up from 47% in 2020. While working from home orders and more flexible working have been introduced because of the pandemic, it doesn’t mean the workload has reduced in any way. Having a company show they put people before profit and prioritise mental health will be a key driver for many graduates.

They want to work for a company that’s actively reducing their environmental impact

If graduates are painstakingly separating their recycling each week, using metal straws and reducing their carbon footprint, they want to know that the company they work for is doing their bit, too. It’ll take more than an annual beach clean to impress candidates too – the products, services and practices your brand undertakes need to work hard to reduce short and long-term impact. This is increasingly becoming a dealbreaker for candidates. 

Does your employer brand need to work harder to accommodate graduates?

With only 42% of students saying they feel prepared to enter the world of work, being there for them at this confusing time can help them build a stronger connection to your employer brand.

Make sure the application process is clear and uncomplicated. Don’t avoid questions about salary and progression. Have your company’s mission dominate your employer brand. They are the talent of the future, and in many cases the talent of right now too. 

How you communicate your employer brand is vast – social media, emails, videos, adverts and more. Staying on top of your messaging and adapting your creatives with a constantly moving market can be a challenge – but BAM by Papirfly™ can help you digitise your employer brand, simplify your processes and help teams create infinite promotional materials every month. 

Find out more or book your demo today.

The world of work has been turned on its head several times over in the last few years. The roles of HR, recruitment and talent acquisition teams have been especially challenging as they’ve worked to navigate the complex nature of the pandemic and other changes taking place across the globe.
While the basic principles of your EVP won’t have shifted miles from where it was, there will be new considerations and an element of realignment that needs to take place as part of your employer brand management.

Whether you are continuing in a similar vein to pre-pandemic strategies and trying to realign your team, or have completely transformed the way you work over the last couple of years, revisiting your EVP is an important step.

Why is an EVP 2.0 so integral?

The purpose of your employee value proposition is to align the company’s offering to your employees’ needs, wants and expectations. Employees and companies have seen some unprecedented events take place, but many have thankfully made it out of the other side. This leaves your recruitment colleagues and employer branding team with the following challenges:

• Understanding the mindset and priorities of existing employees
• Discovering what’s motivating top talent 
• Differentiating your EVP from others in your industry

Your EVP 2.0 essentials

Take your purpose even further

It’s one thing joining a company because of its values, it’s another taking action to support those values. As people become more personally purpose-driven, it’s important that the brand they work for matches this.

For example, if your brand is known for its green credentials and helping the world become more sustainable, there should be an internal scheme that rewards ‘green’ behaviour – it’s all about building a great place to work. This could be vouchers towards owning a bike to encourage people not to drive to work, an internal recycling scheme, or special funding for sustainability projects (with additional holiday allowance to accommodate this).

Whatever your purpose, ensure you create a good workplace culture that is reflected in everyday working life as well as your initial promises – this includes ensuring that your internal communications are on-brand to show you’re committed to delivering them. 

Benefits that go beyond just the individual

Family and personal goals are a key career driver, but often employees spend so much time at work that these goals can be hard to fulfil. Explore benefits that will build a greater emotional bond with your employees to foster a positive and supportive  work environment.

This could be providing private health insurance for immediate family members or a training allowance to help the employee achieve new skills.

Get more flexible than ever before

If working from home mandates proved anything, it’s that employees can be trusted to work when and where they want or need to. Many companies are taking this one step further, and we’ve seen a range of working options and employee benefits including:

• Working from home permanently
• Hybrid working
• Flexible start and finish times
• Early closures in the summertime 
• Unlimited holidays (providing that work is completed)
• Extended maternity/paternity leave
• Paid sabbaticals after a specified amount of years

Prioritise mental health support

A supportive company culture will help instil positive mental attitudes, but that alone isn’t enough to ensure your employees remain happy.

Create a forum that encourages open conversations – this could be through the acquisition of a digital mental health platform that employees can engage with as and when needed, regular mental health workshops, the introduction of wellbeing champions, and training for existing managers to effectively support someone who is struggling. There are lots of mental health awareness courses that can be taken, including mental health first-aid.

EVP 2.0: Company culture checklist

Ensuring all bases are covered

Our hierarchy of needs as humans is different in employment than it is in everyday life. Your EVP will be unique to your brand – hopefully including many of the initiatives mentioned already – but there are four basic boxes that your EVP 2.0 needs to tick. If lacking in one of any four areas, you could see your brand lose good talent to competitors and increase your employee turnover. To become an employer of choice, consider the following:

Physical needs

• Health incentives such as gym memberships or on-site classes 
• Partner with apps that can support sleep and wellbeing, such as Calm or Headspace
• Provide access to private healthcare or nutrition services

Emotional needs

• A supportive and open work environment
• Access to therapy tools if needed
• Offer coaching for high-stress positions
• Conduct employee surveys to understand how people are feeling and what improvements could be made
  

Social needs

• Regular meet-ups virtually or in-person to ensure teams feel connected
• Embrace diversity
• Encourage cross-department collaboration
• Encourage giving back and volunteering days in line with your brand purpose

Financial needs

• Offer employees access to financial advisors where possible
• Provide interest-free loans for medium-sized purchases such as annual travel tickets, holidays or cars
• Ensure peace of mind for employees’ families with life assurance
• Conduct regular pay reviews

Communicating your EVP with Papirfly

A creative brand management solution can help to support the good workplace culture you are aiming to build. The platform we offer at Papirfly is used by some of the world’s most notable employer brand teams including Unilever, Vodafone and more. Teams are able to own and control their EVP in every aspect of marketing.

This gives your employer brand team the freedom to:

• Create an infinite amount of on-brand digital, print, social, video and email assets in a matter of minutes – no design skills are needed. These documents are stored in a centralised system and you can manage all campaign
• Store, edit, find and share every asset created in a centralised DAM system
• Access all educational brand and employer brand documents 
• Manage all campaign timelines, briefs and assets from a single portal. On the go. Anywhere in the world. 

So if you need agile talent acquisition, a brand management platform can help you keep consistency throughout your campaigns.

Discover our brand management platform for employer brand teams, check out our customer brand stories or book your demo today.