Updating your employer brand messaging and communication strategy may help you connect more deeply with top talent and retain employees longer.
Employer brands matter now more than ever. Job seekers at all stages of life — mid-career and just out of college — care about working for companies who share their values and take care of their people. Many are even willing to sacrifice salary if it means working for a company they believe in. Harvard Business Review stated in 2018 that, “9 out of 10 people are willing to earn less money to do more meaningful work.”
So, job seekers want to work for companies who do good and value their employees and you might be thinking, “Well, that’s us! We still can’t find the right people to fill our roles.” Ask yourself this — Does what you know about your company correlate with what job seekers see? Answer a few more questions to assess your existing brand communication strategy before checking out our tips.
3 questions to consider about your employer brand
- Do you have good employer reviews? Are your company’s employer reviews (think Glassdoor) reflective of the company culture you promise? Are reviews by past employees overwhelmingly generic or satisfactory, or are they pointedly negative?
- Do your employees know what your company stands for? Do current employees have a good idea of what your company values?
- Is your company’s recruitment social media content engaging? Does your company’s social presence represent your values, employee experience and act as a hub for providing current employees and job seekers meaningful information?
If the answer to a lot of these questions is, “I don’t know,” don’t despair. Use our three tips to answer these questions and improve your employer brand to drive recruitment results and improve retention.
3 tips to improve your employer brand communication
- Poll your people and host focus groups. If you’re not sure how your employees feel about your company, consider sending a company-wide poll to learn what your current employees believe about your company’s values. This may reveal unexpected information that enables you to begin implementing a strategic brand messaging and communications audit. Host a focus group that’s representative of target talent to learn about what job seekers think when visiting your careers website. This will help you understand what your current employer brand is really saying to people. Your employer brand needs to speak to current employees and job seekers. Hosting a focus group will provide you with valuable insights you need to reach job seekers who fit the bill.
- Respond to reviews. Every company has negative reviews and you’ll learn a lot from your research to help improve both employee and candidate experience. Additionally, the insights you gain should help improve reviews moving forward, but there’s work to be done in the meantime to mitigate the effect reviews may be having on potential recruits. Although negative reviews are inevitable, the way your company responds says a lot about the value your company places on employee experience and feedback, which sends a positive message to job seekers. Respond to every review — good and bad — in a measured and thoughtful manner to show your company cares.
- Measure your email strategy. It may be time to audit your email campaigns as well — both your internal and external emails — to ensure the content you share is the content your audiences value. If consumers value your products and/or services enough to subscribe to your email but end up receiving email communication that is out of touch, it could affect brand trust and loyalty. The same goes for employees. If internal communications are just the facts, they may be leaving your staff cold. The purpose of email campaigns is to maintain connection and in order to do that, your content has to resonate.
There are thousands of ways to both improve your employer brand and improve the way your company communicates it, but it all starts with the careers site and branches off from there. Here are a few resources to help you along the way:
- Writing Winning Job Descriptions
- Candidates Are Always Online. Chatbots Are, Too.
- 3 Ways Your Career Site Can Save You Money
Want help updating or re-building your careers site, improving your recruitment marketing strategy, updating your employer brand, or facilitating primary research like focus groups? We can help. Let's talk about your recruitment challenge.