April 28, 2016
Your Employees and Potential Candidates Know It. Do You?
In an earlier post, I outlined five steps that organizations can take to identify their unique employer brand. In this post, I’ll discuss how to articulate that brand and communicate it consistently with both potential candidates and current employees.
Once you’ve collected insight into your employer brand, you’ll need to distill quite a bit of information and data into the essence of what it’s like to work for your organization. Here are four things to keep in mind:
1. Include your communications, HR and marketing teams
Employer brands include internal and external audiences and cut across functions. You’ll need a cross-functional approach to create one.
2. Make sure you can deliver on what you promise
Sites like Glassdoor and Great Rated have increased transparency. Potential candidates can read reviews and ratings from existing employees, interns and even people who have interviewed with your organization. If you create an employer brand that doesn’t reflect the actual experience, it will become clear quickly.
3. Showcase your organization’s passion and emotion
Every organization, regardless of industry, location or size, has a passion about who it is, what it does or what it enables its customers to do. Whatever your organization’s passion make sure it’s front and center in your employer brand.
4. Make sure your employer brand reflects the brand of your overall organization
Your employer brand does need to resonate with your company’s overall brand. If your organization is known for precision and quality, your employer brand probably should not feature a laid-back environment.
Once your employer brand is articulated, it’s important to ensure that it’s consistently shared both internally and externally. It may be time to update the careers page of your website or revamp your organization’s Facebook and LinkedIn profile. You may also want to collaborate more closely with HR to develop internal communications with your employees.
Regardless of your next steps, think about how you can show your employer brand in addition to talking about it. Leverage video, infographics, photos and other visual elements as often as possible.
If you’re thinking you might need to refresh your employer brand, send me an email. Let’s talk about what makes sense for your organization.
