Employer branding is not about gadgets and gifts…

Attract the right new hires with an employer brand.

Competition comes in all forms: your business isn’t just trying to get potential clients to notice you, it also needs to attract the attention of the best prospective employees, too.
How can you toot your horn the loudest or fly your flag the highest to get the attention of potential top talent? This is a job that calls for a strong and strategic employer brand!
You’ve likely heard of employer brands and branding but you’d still like more information. The good news is, your company likely already has the resources, ideas and energy necessary to create an employer brand that will attract new talent to your employee pool and take your organization to new heights of productivity and success.

What is an employer brand?

We all know about reputation management; think of an employer brand as reputation management in action.

• In a nutshell, employer branding is how your organization presents itself as a place where people want to work.
• An organization achieves a successful employer brand with:
  • valid metrics that show how it is viewed by clients and the public;
  • strong employee engagement, retention and recruitment measures;
  • first-hand employee accounts that show why the women and men you employ are proud to be part of your team;
  • a commitment to ensuring work/life balance that comprehensively supports employees.

If you are intrigued to learn more about employer branding, there are many helpful resources, for instance, The McQuaig Institute’s “Free tools to create and share employer brand content”^₁ and on LinkedIn, “What Is Employer Branding and How Can It Grow Your Business?”^₂

What is an employer brand strategy?

There is no single way to achieve a successful employer brand strategy but beginning with an employee value proposition (EVP) is essential.

• Think of an EVP as an employee-focused mission statement.
• It should capture your organization’s mandate, how it achieves success and the role employees play.
• Use the EVP to capture the employee benefits you offer, but it needs to be more than a list of items.
• Most importantly, the EVP shows why your organization is particularly attractive to potential new hires.

Can you sense the importance of an EVP but more information would be helpful? There are a number of useful online tools, including this example from TalentLyft.^₃

Spot-on employer branding

Check out how some top-tier companies use employer branding: a number of European companies are at the leading edge. Here are three examples of corporations that use employee stories and first-hand accounts to show how men and women connect with their work and their employer.

BMW

It starts with a simple greeting and builds on people power. BMW’s online employer branding features a “Hello” section⁴ , where short videos (one to three minutes long), provide employees with a platform to tell viewers about themselves, the work they do and what energizes and excites them to work for one of Europe’s largest automobile manufacturers.

Youth and vitality are emphasized in these engaging personal portraits of team members from across BMW’s workforce.

Unilever

Unilever draws on its position as a global consumer products company to showcase employees who power the company’s products and initiatives. Using LinkedIn as a foundation⁵ , Unilever uses text, photographs and video to highlight team members’ stories.

A product manager heading a fresh water initiative in Kenya and a brand manager balancing fulltime work with a passion for volunteering are examples of firsthand accounts that show Unilever’s deep and rich talent pool.

Bosch

You may associate Bosch with traditional home appliances like dishwashers and vacuums, but this company wants potential employees to know it is at the leading edge on many fronts. Job seekers are offered a deep dive with employee profiles that are six to 12 minutes long⁶ . Text and video shows individuals working on everything from self-driving cars to the company’s commitment to workplace diversity.

Where to begin?

You don’t need to spend a million Euro to produce employer brand materials that are engaging and professional. Social media is an essential information portal for up-and-coming employees. Think of creative ways to reach them using YouTube, Twitter and Instagram, and then let your employee’s stories flow!

¹ https://blog.mcquaig.com/free-tools-to-create-share-employer-brand-content

² https://business.linkedin.com/talent-solutions/blog/employer-brand/2018/employer-branding

³ https://www.talentlyft.com/en/blog/article/105/employee-value-proposition-evp-magnet-for-attracting-candidates

⁴ https://www.bmwgroup.jobs/default/en/experience-our-culture/hello.html

⁵ https://www.unilever.com/careers/why-work-for-unilever/

⁶ https://www.bosch.com/careers/#news-and-stories