Is your company in the 59 percent investing more in your employer brand compared to last year?
LinkedIn’s Global Recruiting Trends Report uncovered key trends worldwide that organizations should focus on for 2016. At the top of that list was employer branding — and for good reason. It is a key component to attracting new talent and retaining current rockstars. With 66 percent of companies surveyed having trouble finding the right talent and 65 percent admitted this is impacting their bottom line (ADP), now is the time to invest in your employer brand.
The employer brand is essentially how a company is seen through the eyes of potential candidates and employees.
Your employer brand is not simply a company logo or career page. Instead, it is ‘the emotional reaction people have to the idea of working for your company.’
—The Hidden Benefits of Employer Branding
Authenticity Leads to Alignment
Authentic employer branding accurately reflects a company’s culture and is clearly aligned with the brand story, strategy, and systems. Finding candidates that align with the company is one of the main benefits of investing in a strong employer brand.
By clearly communicating the employer brand, both the candidate and company can equally assess the culture fit. Not only will this result in attracting the best talent out there, but will also result in hires that perform better on the job.
GE’s “What’s the Matter with Owen?” campaign is designed to reintroduce the 123 year-old company as a place that young technology talent can do meaningful work. In the commercials, a newly hired programmer struggles to explain the importance of his role to friends and family who are far more impressed with the guy working on the “Zazzies” app.
“As a brand, we are constantly thinking about what’s new and next for the world with our technology, and to mirror that it in our marketing and the way we tell our story. It is representative of how we think as a company – it’s in our DNA.… This idea of how can we break this notion of ‘impossible.’ It is kind of a mission everyone who works at GE — particularly our scientists and engineers — wakes up and thinks about.”
— Linda Boff, GE CMO
New hires that don’t fill the position effectively cost companies time, money, and unnecessary mental stress. Most managers don’t enjoy firing employees; and interviewing candidates is taxing and takes valuable focus away from growing the bottom-line.
Tap into your Employees
When it comes to finding talent, employees are valuable brand advocates. Not only does it takes a shorter length of time to hire a qualified candidate via employee referral, but referred employees also have a longer tenure.
Employee referral is the best-recruiting channel I know. —Liz Ryan
Employee referrals typically mean that the candidate has been pre-screened and identified as a good culture fit. One employer brand that is on-point is MailChimp, an email marketing company here in Atlanta.
“I only hire weirdos, basically, and I just let them fail all the time. It just makes perfect sense to me.”
—Ben Chestnut, MailChimp CEO
By investing in your current employees and empowering them to do work that matters to them, you foster a loyal and dynamic team. Every MailChimp employee who has posted reviews on Glassdoor said they would recommend the company to a friend, and 100% approve of the CEO.
“We provide an environment that allows for, and encourages, acting on spontaneous creativity.”
—Dan Kurzius, MailChimp co-founder
To understand the general perception of your employer brand, external research can be conducted through applicant surveys, Internet searches, or social media. A telltale sign your employer brand needs work is a lack of employee referrals.
Simply stated, if the employees don’t feel good about the place, they’re not going to subject to their friends to the environment. What kind of friend does that?
—The Truth About Employee Referrals
Your employer brand has a great impact on the recruitment of potential candidates and retention and engagement of current employees, both of which are keystones to sustainable growth. It’s your responsibility to understand the current perception of candidates and clearly communicate your story.
Behind the Scenes on Social Media
A seemingly obvious channel in which to tell that story is social media. According to a recent Universumglobal study, in the next 5 years there will be a 70 percent increase in the use of social media for promoting employer brand.
Zappos is an excellent example of how to do employer branding right on social media. The company’s Instagram page, InsideZappos, gives a real inside look into what it is like working for the company. By sharing pictures, blogs, and videos through the company’s social media channels, Zappos is able to help positively shape its employer brand.
Every organization’s reputation as an employer — whether it’s positive, negative or meh — will become increasingly important to attracting and retaining the best and brightest minds. Your HR efforts have a direct result with your ability to move to the TopRight corner of your market.
To learn more about using your employer branding to drive sustainable growth, check out our new ebook: TRANSFORMATIONAL MARKETING: Moving to the TopRight.
Photo Credit: Flickr
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