Employer Branding – Why Companies Should Invest?

Employer Branding provides a drive to work for your company, gives a reason to care. That’s why it is one of the cornerstones of any modern company. These days, it is even more critical than before.

Because of the global pandemic, economic crisis, and a general sense of uncertainty, companies need to communicate their employees’ confidence, essentially saying, “we are going to make it through together.”

But even without that, employer branding is one of the most challenging aspects of managing the company.

In this article, we will explain why companies should invest in Employer Branding and what kinds of benefits it brings.

Why invest in Employer Branding?

There is a common misconception that corporate brand and employer brand are the same. While they are related, they represent two different sides of one coin.

1. One is about presenting the value of the company’s output to the target audience (clients, users, et al.).
2. The other is about showcasing the value of the company’s input to the target audience (i.e., employees, candidates, applicants, job seekers, etc.).

According to Talentadore’s study, 94% of the candidates state that the reason they apply for a position in a particular company is because of the credible and engaging employer brand. It convinces them that this company is the place to be. That’s the main reason to put an extra effort into employer branding.

Let’s look at the benefits of investing in Employer Branding.

1 Employer Brand Makes You Stand Out in the Niche

Every company has its unique selling point, a competitive advantage, something that distinguishes itself from the rest of the competition in the market segment. The same goes for EVP.

However, it is hard to make the company stand out as an employer. You don’t have the luxury of pointing at a unique business solution. That’s a beacon people are coming to, but it is an employer brand that makes them stay. Job seekers, applicants, and candidates care about different things. That’s were many companies stumble and lose potential applicants.

The most common mistake companies do is that they trivialize their employee value proposition with borderline nondescript stuff like “comfortable office,” “friendly collective,” “pizza Fridays,” “awesome projects,” and so on. If your pitch generates “so what?” instead of “I want to know more,” – that’s a clear miss.

What makes an employer brand to stand out? There are a few things to note:

• Information accessibility makes it easier for job seekers to understand the key points about your company. A dedicated “About” and “Career” pages are must-have.
• Also, the presentation requires Clearly-structured information regarding the company, its vision, mission, values, working condition, hiring process, etc.
• Each aspect of the brand narrative points out the benefits of working for the company. For example, working with seasoned professionals, personal development through challenging projects, internal projects, upskilling, performance bonuses for extra efforts, etc.
• The overall employer presentation speaks to the needs of the job seeker from the employee’s point of view.
• The description of benefits needs to be relevant and relatable to the target audience. For example, Microsoft VMWare engineers would appreciate assistance with certification and upskilling.

2 Taking Employer Narrative Under Control

What is the employer narrative? It is a tendency of the trend in public opinion regarding the company as the employer.

If the news about your company and the overall response is neutral or positive – the employer narrative is on the right side. Controversies, public criticism, bad reviews, and other reputation hits turn the tide towards the negative.

The question is, who is leading the employer narrative charge? Is it your company or reviewers, industry pundits, and the likes?

You can’t let this narrative go on on its own. In this scenario – you are left to reacting to public opinion swings instead of setting the tone of the conversation.

How to take the Employer narrative under control? There are several worthwhile practices:

• Talk about the company. Make content that communicates different aspects of employee value proposition, company’s values, and culture.
• Let employers express their opinions. Job seekers are looking for a relatable perspective regarding what it is like to work for a particular company. Employee testimonials (if unbiased) can help with persuading the job seeker to apply.
• Share your success stories and other milestones with the public. Such reflective content showcases to candidates the possibilities of growing and succeeding in the company.
• Provide the public with valuable information about the niche you are in. For example, if you are working on machine learning projects – tell about all the awesome things ML can do.
• Keep an eye on feedback. Sites like Glassdoor or Clutch give a good look at how the company treats its employees and clients.
• Maintain an active social media presence. There are two reasons for that. First, it is a good way to maintain a background engagement with the target audience. Second, social media gives you more flexibility to react swiftly if necessary. 

3 Good Employer Brand Equals Lower Hiring Costs

IT Recruiting is an expensive investment, both monetary and time-wise. Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) study states that talent acquisition costs $4,425 per hire on average. Now multiple that figure when you need to fill several positions at once or to compose an R&D office.

Well, fine-tuned employer branding can make hiring costs considerably lower and help with keeping cost-per-hire figures under control. (By the way, we have the whole expenses of recruitment thing sorted out here).

Here’s how hiring costs get lower with employer branding:

• Employer Branding marketing effort generates brand awareness. In other words, people know about your company, what it is doing, why, and so on.
• Ultimately, brand awareness results in developing the following throughout digital channels (most common are social media and newsletters). In addition to the following, the brand is much more visible in organic search results. For instance, a career page can work as a candidate magnet.
• Because of that, the visibility of brand content, including job postings, are much more visible. Thus it is more likely that people will apply.
• In addition to that, better brand awareness results in the growth of the referral factor in recruitment. People will share vacancies and recommend people to apply.
• There is also another upside to high brand awareness. It provides a solid ground to communicate an Employee Value Proposition and the benefits of working for the company.
• Clear-cut engaging EVP makes it easier for job seekers to decide whether it is worth applying or not. In cases of anonymous job postings, EVP and its delivery are the only tools you have to engage an applicant.

In Conclusion

When done right, employer branding brings gravitas to the company. It makes the company look credible as a workplace. In more practical terms, a fine-tuned employer brand is a feedback loop capable of generating momentum for the business operation. If you need help fine-tuning the employer branding strategy of your company – we can help you.