Your employer brand is one of the most important things that you can work on in order to get ahead and see great results with not only your customers but also with bringing on more of the employees that you need as you grow.
The right employer brand is able to reflect your reputation with potential job seekers, employees you already have, and key stakeholders. With so much to handle, you can see why creating a cohesive plan to maintain and manage that reputation can be so important.
Whether you have a good employer brand right now or you find that it needs some work, knowing your starting point can make a big difference. Some of the ways that you are able to improve the employer branding for your company include:
Be Transparent and Authentic
One of the best things that you can do is be transparent and authentic with the information that you share with others. Candidates are very smart; they are able to tell when you are not being truthful about your brand. You are more than welcome to highlight the best parts of your company, but you can do it in a way that is still true to you.
You can do this with reviews and surveys. This allows you to gather feedback from others and then gauge whether or not the employer brand is really reflecting the experience for your typical employee.
Another option is going to be onboarding and exist interviews so that you can get more feedback from those who are on the inside and really know your employer brand the best.
Improve Your Perks
When you work on an employer branding strategy, you need to make sure that you are really highlighting what makes you special compared to the competition. Knowing what your potential employees will want can make a big difference in attracting the top talent that you one.
The two things that candidates are going to consider when choosing their next role will be the salary and the benefits. And many will feel frustrated when the company they are applying for is not transparent with these two things either.
Benefits and perks are going to play a big role in how satisfied your employees are with working for you and in attracting the new recruits that you need. Take some time to look at some of the perks that you are able to offer to see if they are good enough. It may be time to change these up a bit and add some new ones. It may be just what you need to boost your retention rate.
Invest in Your Company Culture
Any type of employer brand that you work to create is going to really reflect the culture of your company. If you already have a bad company culture, it is going to reflect poorly on your employer brand and that will then affect all of the other aspects of your business.
If you take the time to build up a strong culture in your company, it is much easier for you to maintain the happiness of your current employees.
No matter what state your current culture is in, you should take the time to test out the new company culture and their ideas to help improve the experience that your team gets to have and entice new candidates to apply when they do come your way. Plus, the better you can get the company culture, the easier and more fun it is to create some of the great employer branding content that you need.
Establish Core Values and a Mission Statement
Many potential candidates are interested in the mission statement and the core values behind some of the companies they are applying to. People care about who they work for and how their work is not only going to impact their employer, but also the world around them.
If you haven’t taken the time to do this yet, write out your mission statement and your core values. If you have done this and it has been awhile, it is time to review them and make sure that they still match up with your current vision and company culture.
For companies who need to create or rewrite a new mission statement and values, a good idea is to gather a focus group of employees who have been around the company for some time. Ask them to write down some of the core elements that will make up your company and some of the vision. You can then hone in on the data to identify what is common about them.
Track Key Performance Indicators
To make sure that all of the efforts that you are doing right now can help move the needle to success, you will need to establish which metrics you would like to track. Once you review the current state for your employer brand, this will point you in the direction of improvements. Some of the recruiting metrics that you should consider when doing this includes:
- Retention rate
- Application rate
- Source of hire
- Employee satisfaction
Once you know which metrics to track, you can then work on creating your baseline and set a good schedule for tracking all of it. This will help you to measure the results of your efforts over the next few months and years.
If you are tracking the metrics and something does not seem to be working or you do not see the improvements that you need, then it is time to make changes. This is a constantly changing process that you get to enjoy.
Working on Employer Branding
When you want to make your current employees happy and would like to bring in more of the talent that is so important to you, it is time for you to work harder on your employer branding. Some of the steps above will be able to help you create a great employer brand that will serve you well in the future.
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