A recent client had persistent trouble filling multiple open roles. Leadership felt that a sub-par applicant pool was to blame. Why was the company not attracting better candidates?
The answer lay in the company’s “employment brand,” its image among current and potential employees and the perception of the company’s culture and work environment. A negative employer brand was not only hurting the company’s chances for recruiting talent, it was contributing to stagnated production and lower revenue, thanks to low morale and high attrition.
The company needed an overhaul of its employment brand to turn its trajectory around.
How an organization is perceived both internally and externally, and its differentiation from other employers, can make an enormous difference in drawing talent. Its reputation will make or break how it attracts employees that are the best fit and, most importantly, who will propel it forward.
A poor reputation can repel prospective talent and even drive away current employees, negatively affecting the work product and diminishing the organization’s overall success.
In the current market, where employers are often desperate to fill positions, an organization’s employment brand is paramount for attracting and retaining the right talent. Learning the “don’ts” is just as important as the “do’s” when building the right brand.
In previous blogs in this series, we have discussed ways that organizations can improve their agility and resilience, including optimizing their people supply chain. Here, we outline the “do’s and don’ts” for cultivating an employer brand that helps form a successful team and builds an agile and resilient organization.
The organization mentioned above did not have a strategic plan for attracting and retaining talent. It made the following mistakes, and its employment brand suffered.
When crafting your employment brand, DO NOT follow this advice.
Recruiting and retaining employees will flounder if companies don’t look at the correct metrics when assessing their employer brand. Every organization is perceived in one way or another in the marketplace, and assessing perception is trickier than you might think.
Online reviews, internal systems and social media only present a limited (and sometimes inaccurate) picture of an organization’s culture and work environment.
Understanding your “first choice candidate acceptance rate” is an important data point to consider, while obtaining feedback from those who have turned down roles is even more insightful.
It is also necessary to perform an analysis of talent competitors within the market. Creating a “great place to work” is completely relative, and a “greater place to work” may be stealing your talent out from under you.
Organizations that don’t keep a pulse on online reviews, survey their employees or perform a competitive analysis will not have an accurate picture of the company’s reputation within the market.
An employment brand is a nuanced concept that companies should assess using detailed data, similar to tracking a product brand.
To build a reputation as an employer of choice, understand your brand perception and its competitive advantage. Only then can you create a strategic, data-supported plan to implement changes that will draw talent to your organization.
To evaluate your organization’s reputation:
Communicating the positive attributes of your culture and work environment isn’t bragging. It’s good sense.
A recent client blamed its recruitment problem on an uncompetitive compensation package. However, the overall “employee value proposition” they offered – the total benefits employees receive from an employer, including work environment and company culture, in addition to financial rewards – was quite strong.
Once people became employees at this company, they rarely left, indicating that other factors of the company’s benefits kept them satisfied. Highlighting the company’s positive attributes other than compensation helped get more candidates in the door.
To communicate your value proposition to prospective employees:
Ultimately, attracting good talent is dependent on retaining good talent. Organizations that do not live up to their employee value proposition – that don’t deliver on the promises they made to their employees – will lose employees, making it harder to attract new ones.
One recent client lost half of its directors within a 6-9 month time frame. As a result, the company’s applicant pool was reduced by 60% during that same period. If not handled properly, changes in leadership could be perceived as a failure to deliver the expected employee experience and could project a negative image.
Another client experiencing high turnover successfully hired employees, but each of them quit after a short period. Within two years, the company had exhausted nearly all eligible candidates in the area because it had become perceived as an undesirable workplace. The employee experience it projected did not match reality.
To ensure your brand makes good on its promises:
Crafting an alluring and efficacious employment brand is not as simple as offering the best compensation package. It requires a strategic approach that:
Not all EVPs are attractive to every segment of the workforce, and that is ok. No organization can be all things to all people. However, organizations that fail to follow this strategic approach can wind up with a negative reputation in the marketplace, drive away existing employees and dissuade prospective talent.
Those who seek expert help can create an employment brand that attracts new employees and keeps current ones excited about working there for the long haul.
Stay tuned for our upcoming blog on the five steps that employers should take in 2023 to cultivate a burnished employment brand.
hrQ has helped some of the most distressed – and even the most polished – organizations build their employment brand to garner respect and loyalty from employees and admiration in their communities.
Trust hrQ to help craft an employer brand that ensures your organization attracts – and retains – the best possible talent in 2023. Contact us today.
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