How strong is your employer brand?

Attracting and keeping top talent is one of the biggest challenges for most companies, and now more so than ever. A Gallup analysis finds that 48% of America's working population is actively job searching or watching for opportunities. People are calling it the "Great Resignation," and as the Gallup data show, it's not an industry, role or pay issue. It's a workplace issue.

The highest quit rate is among not engaged and actively disengaged employees

So, if you want to attract and retain top talent, it’s important to get a perspective on what they think of your company and what it is like to work there. What do you stand for and how are you demonstrating your commitment to your vision, mission, and values? In essence, what is your company’s Employer Brand? Even though the term Employer Brand was coined in the 1990’s, few companies are doing an effective job at managing a unified brand – a brand platform that is universally applied internally as well as externally.

The same brand management principles applied to your customers, such as being authentic, consistent, and having a clear value proposition, need to be applied internally. Yet, companies often struggle with developing a unified brand.

Only Going To Get Harder

The changing employee landscape and the impact of Covid is only going to increase the need to be clearer about what it means to work at your company. Social media along with more millennials working in senior level positions is transforming companies and sometimes forcing them to become more transparent, whether they like it or not. 

What it’s like to truly work in a company is an important consideration for any prospective employee, and easy to find out.  Just as companies increasingly use social media in the hiring process, prospective employees are using sites like LinkedIn, Glassdoor, and profiles on The Muse to get a sense of what a company culture is really like as they conduct their due diligence.

Internal Brand Management

When companies think about their brand, they often focus on the external facing element of how customers perceive their brand. However, that is only part of what it takes to effectively manage your brand. In a similar fashion to how a company has a value proposition for its customers (or why should I give you my money and time), a company needs to develop and apply a clear value proposition for their employees.

The good news is that a company doesn’t need to rebrand themselves, they just need to ensure that they apply the same brand management principles internally as they do externally. 

Authenticity is key to attracting and keeping top employees as much. Things To Do:

• Start with the basics and find out how well your employees understand your company’s mission, vision, and most importantly, values. How well are new employees on-boarded and how well do current employees live the brand?

• Does your company have an employee value proposition? If not – think about what image your company wants to portray externally as a place to work. Also consider what your company needs to do to help promote that image. Social media is not only critical in these efforts, but should be a mandatory tool to help promote your Employer Brand.

• Investigate how well your employees make value-based decisions. In other words, if one of your top values is putting the client first, how is this value applied in every interaction with your customers? Or if work/life balance is a value, what is your company doing to communicate and manage to this value?  If your values are fully incorporated into how your employees work every day, they shouldn’t have to pull out an employee handbook to figure out what to do. It will be instinctual, because, “this is just how we do things around here.”

• Don’t leave this responsibility solely in the hands of the HR and marketing teams. It’s important that defining the Employer Brand and ensuring it is authentically implemented includes the CEO and the executive leadership team.

At the end of the day, having a clear employee value proposition is just plain good for business. 

It should be a no-brainer that attracting and keeping top talent will only lead to better financial results in the long term. Studies show that companies with a clear employee value proposition had nearly a 3:1 top line revenue performance difference compared to companies that didn’t have one. 

When your employees understand your brand, and if your brand is consistently applied internally as well as externally, employees will deliver upon your mission, vision, and values in every interaction with your customers. It’s simply a win for everyone and worth every effort required to make it happen.