At its core, an effective employer brand has a clear, compelling, and consistent promise so that in a crowded and noisy employment market, a meaningful message of differentiation can be heard.
Rob Silzer and Ben E. Dowell
Your employer brand is the creative outward expression of your internal Employee Value Proposition and it is critical to your bottom-line. A good employer brand can reduce turnover rates by 28%, and cut your costs-per-hire by half and it touches every part of your organization, from communicating with your employees, setting goals and morale to employee reviews and the desire to work for your organisation.
There are several steps you can take to improve your employer brand:
1. Understand your company's current value propositions.
The story you tell potential talent should revolve around your Employee Value Proposition and how it works at every stage of an employee’s lifecycle. Your employer brand should also communicate your organization’s leadership, values and culture.
To begin to define your employee value proposition, the question you have to ask is:
- What can your employees expect from your organization in exchange for their time, loyalty, efforts, and ongoing engagement?
A strong Employee Value Proposition consists of various elements. Together, these attributes determine how both your employees and candidates will perceive your organization as an employer.
Gartner distinguishes the following 5 key elements of an Employee Value Proposition:
- Compensation
- Work-life balance
- Stability
- Location
- Respect
At Hundred we add a 6th key element – personal and professional development opportunities – which are becoming ever more important according to recent data from Korn Ferry
2. Conduct an employer brand audit.
The next questions you have to ask when defining your employee value proposition are:
Is this what your prospective employees’ will value most?
Is this offer distinctive in comparison with our competitors?
Collecting data from internal employee engagement surveys, social media searches, review sites such as Glassdoor, and external brand reputation monitoring reports will help to answer these questions.
3. Write an employer value proposition.
An employer value proposition is a marketing message and a promise. It should be socialised with current employees and be able to be communicated on your website, recruitment materials, or LinkedIn company page.
Here are 3 great Employee Value Proposition examples.
1. Shell’s employee value proposition
The company has done a great job in defining four dimensions that according to their current workforce make them proud to work for Shell. These dimensions are: Discover, Together, Connected, Impact.
To help candidates better understand what it actually feels like to work for Shell, the company has summarized 20 key reasons within those four dimensions that make Shell a good place to build and develop their career:
2. Unilever’s employee value proposition
“When you join Unilever as an employee, you join a movement to create not only a better business, but also a better world, and a better you.” Like Shell, Unilever’s employee value proposition is also based on four pilars:
- Purpose Power
- Be the Catalyst
- Brilliantly Different Together
- Go Beyond
And like shell they have produced a video to explain it simply to potential candidates
3. Accenture’s employee value proposition
Accenture, a global management consulting and professional services firm, have their employer value proposition displayed prominently on their Careers page:
” At the heart of every great change is a great human. Every day our People of Change are doing incredible things by working together to pursue our shared purpose–to deliver on the promise of technology and human ingenuity. Come be part of our team–bring your ideas, ingenuity and determination to make a difference, and we’ll solve some of the world’s biggest challenges. Around the globe, we work with exceptional people, the latest and greatest tech and leading companies across industries to create value for our clients, people and communities. Choose a career with us, and together, let’s create positive, long-lasting value.”
It is worth noting that at no point do any of these brands mention specific compensation, but rather focus on the aspirations and culture of the organization.
It also helps that all of these brands have social CEOs who understand and utilise the power of social media in communicating more about their organizations leadership style, values and culture as well as the brands, projects and partnerships their organizations are involved with
4. Utilise current employees:
If you don’t take action to define your employer brand, there is a risk that others will do it for you which can have negative effects on your brand reputation. 86% of workers would not apply for, or continue to work for, a company that has a bad reputation with former employees or the general public.
Online review platforms and social media tools have given people the ability to share their experiences of day-to-day work life and views of senior level leadership anonymously. A recent report by Edelman Trust also showed that employees are 3x more likely to trust employees than CEOs and Leadership. Reviews on platforms like Glassdoor are often considered an important part of a person’s job research as Job seekers rank current employees as the most trusted source for information about a company. (CareerArc)
These reviews often include information on
- Onboarding processes
- Internal company training and continuous learning opportunities
- Mentoring and sponsorship programs
- Corporate culture programs
- Leadership communication and management skills
- Company networking events
- Company -specific experiences
More than 75% of candidates will take a business’ employer brand into consideration before they even send out an application.
(LinkedIN)
There are lots of different ways that you can ask your employees to help you promote your employer brand.
Obtaining testimonials, reviews and stories from your employees are great pieces of content to share on your website and social media. User-generated content such as a “Day in the life of” video shot by employees can informally highlight your internal culture whilst interviewing loyal employees who have remain engaged and passionate about their work and your organization are often powerful endorsements of your employer brand.
You can also empower employees to post on their social media accounts about the organization when you do a company event or competition. Asking employees to post a picture on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram or Facebook with an employer brand hashtag you’ve created is a fun yet powerful way for your employees to share your company’s culture with their own networks. This can be a great way to extend your reach into new networks as employee shared content often gets three times more engagement than content shared by brands (Edelman’s Trust Report Global Engagement Survey)
5. Cultivate a strong onboarding process.
A positive employer brand experience begins with a good onboarding process. People who have a negative experience are twice as likely to seek a different opportunity.
6. Have a strong diversity, equity and inclusion and sustainability message.
“For many candidates, DEI and sustainability are the top reasons that future talent comes and chooses to stay with us” says Tina Mylon, SVP Talent and Diversity at Schneider Electric “We know that especially for incoming generations, it’s part and parcel of the kind of work experience people want. We also believe that these priorities differentiate us within the sustainability and energy space. The way we make it more granular and practical is by truly taking a DEI lens to every stage of the employee experience—from the moment they are attracted to us and know about Schneider, to all the life stages that they experience with us. So overall, that is how we create more equity and a more equal chance of success for all our employees around the world: through their experiences, through processes, and through policies”
7. Promote your employer brand effectively
Once you’ve developed a employer brand that incorporates a strong employee value proposition there are several ways to build and promote your employer brand. Here are our Top 5:
- Your career site. Try to make it as personal as possible, with relevant company info as well as photos of the team, employ quotes and testimonials, and so on.
- Job boards and job descriptions. Job advertisements are a prime example to communicate your brand to applicants who are looking for new opportunities.
- Your LinkedIn company page – A recentRobert Walters whitepaper says 86% of employers view LinkedIn as the best channel for recruitment and according to LinkedIn 49% of people follow companies to stay aware of job alerts
- Employee referral programs. Building a strong internal brand that stimulates referrals is as just important as external branding. According to a recent survey 65% of respondents would consider a new job opportunity if they heard about it through a personal connection in their network. (Monster) and employee referrals have the highest applicant-to-hire conversion rate (Jobvite)
- Employees’ social media profile pages. Encourage your employees to share company news and updates on their personal LinkedIn pages as part of your employee advocacy program. Research suggest 98% of employees use at least one social media site for personal use, of which 50% are already posting about their company. (Weber Shandwick) and when asked which employee-shared content consumers found most relevant, recruiting rose to the top: 30% of consumers find job posting useful. (EveryoneSocial)
Thanks for reading and feel free to share! We love feedback so please send us your thoughts or questions and check out our other insights and brand solutions.