What Is The Need Of Employer Branding?

A company has an employer brand, whether they have actively pursued one or not. Due to this fact, any company signals what candidates can expect, gain and learn from working there. If Employer Branding is the process, the employer brand is the identity of a company as an employer of choice. As the digital age develops, talent attraction becomes not only more difficult, but also more important. In a world that constantly changes, HR departments are under pressure to navigate among new generations and techniques. Therefore, demolishing the old recruitment process. If that wasn’t enough, the digital environment means distractions and you need to focus in order to grab talents attention.

How it can help the business?

With the help of a strong employer brand, a company will be able to increase the number of quality applicants, reduce your costs per recruitment and differentiate yourself from competitors. To fully utilize the power of the brand, one needs to understand the fundamentals

Why Employer Branding is Important?

Employer branding is about defining and expressing the qualities that will make you the ideal choice for the talent one need to succeed. Translate talent insights into compelling employment propositions and creating communication strategies that will make the best candidates beat a path to your door.

Who should be involved in employer branding?

Based on the employer branding definition, one may think its human resources or your recruiting teams who will be running this initiative.

While that is partially true, these are the four key players  to include for successful employer brand:

• Human Resources: This one is a given as they are closely connected to finding candidates, hiring, employee engagement, and retention. Generally, the HR and recruiting groups will have more of the daily interaction and be the “face” of the initiative.
• CEO: As busy as the CEO might be, they are also imperative to ensuring company culture and employer brand is successful. Talent acquisition has shifted over the years and because it can be more strategic, a company leader should be involved in the conversation.
• Marketing: Employer branding needs some help from the marketing team. They will be valuable in delivering assets to HR and recruiting, as well as help spread the internal culture message. Typically this process is called “recruitment marketing.”
• Brand advocates: These are employees who are identified as people who share company content and already speak positively about the company. One shouldn’t jump into this right away if he is just getting started with employer branding. However, this can also be a great way to amplify recruiting messages, improve your company’s reputation and work culture to attract more top talent.

Why an Employer Branding Strategy Is Important?

The best way to truly understand why having an employer branding strategy matters for the company is to see some real world stats. When making a decision on where to apply for a job, 84% of job seekers say the reputation of a company as an employer is important. 9 out of 10 candidates would apply for a job when it’s from an employer brand that’s actively maintained. 50% of candidates say they wouldn’t work for a company with a bad reputation – even for a pay increase.

Why it matters for job recruiting & talent acquisition?

From those few stats above, you can start to formulate why an employer branding strategy is valuable for companies to focus on. But for recruiting and talent acquisition, a positive employer brand is everything. Here’s why:

• Increases the job pool of qualified candidates: This gives the corporate brand the best choices of who to effectively hire for a given position. When one have a company with a solid reputation, genuinely showcasing employee stories online, and keep a unique work culture, they’ll have no problem attracting the best people. Instead of spending a lot of time promoting and reaching out to people to apply, one can sit back and let the applications pour in.
• Saves your company money: Creating a positive employer brand can save the company money. How? For starters, having to spend less money promoting the open job positions on various career sites. Some can get pretty pricey and still do not always attract the best people. When a company identity is positive, a simple job page on the site or share to social will have one inundated with talent. It also can save on salaries. Of course, one wants to be fair in the offer, but if they have a bad reputation, they’ll probably have to pay a lot more to encourage great talent. Even then, it may still not be enough.
• Improves how your company is perceived on social media: ¼ of all job seekers use social media as their primary tool for job searching and research (source). And that number is growing. Additionally, people trust friends, colleagues, and family over other forms of information online. If people are talking negatively about a brand or work culture, that job candidates are coming across this info.

Final Thoughts

When it comes to employer branding, a  company needs to set time to focus on this. It’s important to understand why it matters and how a strategy can benefit a company in the long term. Like anything else, it is a team effort. Although human resources and recruiting may be the main players in this space, involving your CEO and marketing team is crucial for overall success. Of course, one can’t control everything with the employer brand. However, he can really begin to shape the narrative and ensure people have a positive view of the company’s identity. Not only will it benefit employee retention and fuel talented applicants, but can positively affect other aspects of a company as well.

KEYWORDS FOR SEOs:

• Employer Branding
• Job Seekers
• Potential Candidates
• Branding Strategy
• Business Development
• Social media engagement
• Employer benefit
• Branding