5 Ingredients for Employment Branding

In our last article, we made a case for a strong employment brand.  This time we share ways to decrease your cost to hire, increase applications and position your organization as an employer of choice.

An effective employment branding strategy should be realistic and bold.  The goal is to stand out amongst the competition, while showcasing the organization’s best attributes.  It is important to analyze touch-points and consider the employee lifecycle, from applicant to tenured staff, when developing an employment brand.

The brand promise should match the experiences of both the employee and candidate (regardless if hired).  This is achieved by involving managers, recruiters and interviewers in the development and execution of the brand strategy.

The employment brand is comprised of five key ingredients:

1. Clear value proposition – What does the organization believe in and value most? Talk to the most valued members of the organization, at all levels, to determine the key attributes of the company.  Research industry trends in terms of benefits, new hire expectations and requests.  Also consider why the organization exists, including its heritage.

2. Authenticity – Review the hiring processes; solicit feedback from recent hires, recently departed employees, and candidates who did not accept offers to determine consistency and transparency within the organization. Do their experiences reflect the reputation of the organization?

3. Culture – Define the organization’s unique culture and how the organization commits to it. Knowledge gained from research done while creating a clear value proposition can be helpful when creating this definition.

4. Loyalty – Look for ways to be a good corporate citizen. This could include organization-wide volunteering efforts or allowing team members time away from work to give back in their communities.

5. Alignment of customer and employment brands – Share the brand message with those tasked with marketing the organization, and anyone in charge of hiring. Make it a priority to hire individuals who strongly identify with the employment brand.

A successful employment brand is built upon a clearly identified purpose, corporate culture, and values that are upheld and acted upon.  Building an employment brand is a wise investment in the future.  The time and effort invested in gathering information for the key ingredients will be beneficial not only in developing the brand, but in analyzing all areas of the organization from talent acquisition to employee retention and everything in-between.

Next time, we continue this series with a look at broadcasting and managing an employment brand.