5 Employer Branding Tips to Help You Attract and Retain Talent

Kristen Cooksley and Brian Wilkerson

The elements that make an organization attractive to potential new hires are often the same ones that keep current employees engaged, challenged, and satisfied.

To accomplish these goals, try the following steps:

Step 1: Emphasize your sense of purpose. People want to work for an organization that makes a difference in the world.

  • Be explicit about how what you do and how you do it makes a difference in the world
  • Tie your organization’s philanthropic work to its mission, vision, and corporate culture.

Step 2: Develop your organizational culture through leadership. Leaders must deliver on cultural expectations of integrity, trust, flexibility, inclusivity, and support for their employees.

  • Make a plan to ensure that your leadership encourages these values throughout all levels of the organization.
  • Distribute regular communication that reinforces the desired culture using a multi-media approach
  • Ensure your processes and rewards reinforce the desired culture

Step 3: Articulate professional development and growth opportunities. A top reason people leave an organization is a lack of opportunities for growth and advancement. In some cases, employees may have upward or lateral mobility prospects within the company. Still, they are not aware of those opportunities because they are difficult to find, or leadership has not adequately articulated them.

  • Ensure career and development opportunities are widely known through broad and targeted internal communication, as well as external messaging.

Make sure to promote internal talent mobility and growth opportunities within employees’ existing jobs such as cross-training and participation in stretch assignments and projects. Remember that growth does not necessarily mean getting a promotion! One of our clients, a payroll organization in a niche industry, was located directly across the street from a larger competitor. Talent would go back and forth between the two organizations, depending on which offered better compensation. We focused on talent development as a differentiator and built a comprehensive training program for all levels of employees, mapping out career paths within the organization. We also drew attention to the fun company culture.

Ultimately, even though the organization was smaller and didn’t pay as well as its competitor, it achieved much better retention rates and overall employee experience scores. After revamping its employer brand, the company did a better job of retaining and satisfying talent.

Employer Branding - Attract and Retain Talent
Step: 4: Communicate your total rewards benefits internally. Having the right compensation, work structure, and performance evaluation systems is crucial for getting candidates in the door, but it is also important for current employees to understand the relationships between those factors across various departments.

  • Share information about which skills could transfer to other roles, and help employees look for bridge jobs to transition to other positions.
  • Have richer conversations with supervisors to target specific development opportunities for employees’ career mobility. More than simply offering training courses, provide resources for employees to navigate their path within the organization so you can lengthen their tenure.
  • Use tools like role profile matrices to assess transferable skills and competencies, and help employees understand what is required to be successful in any job, both within your organization and in other companies. Keeping employees fully engaged and prepared for the next opportunity will go a long way in maintaining a positive employment brand – and will result in healthy turnover for your team.

Step 5: Communicate your external employment brand. Think strategically about building your brand in the marketplace and be creative about broadcasting that brand to the world.

One client in Poland was opening a new location in a competitive environment. We focused on whom the organization wanted to be as an employer, spending time on local media and publicity to create a welcoming experience for prospective employees. Our outreach mirrored the company’s forward-thinking and “cool” customer brand, which enticed people to work there. After imaginative initial recruiting, the company has retained great talent.

  • Audit talent competitors. To attract the best talent, first complete an audit of your competition, paying close attention to how they portray themselves in their social media, websites, and other outward-facing materials.
  • Align your external image. From the most basic of messaging, like the Careers section of your website, to more nuanced imagery like social media posts, ensure that the vision of your organization aligns with what you claim to be and do for your employees.
  • Tell your employment story. News articles on your website and in the media that feature employees’ successes can help communicate the value of working for your organization.
  • Creatively publicize your value. The more innovative and forward-thinking your organization can be in its publicity programs, the more those efforts will enhance your employee value proposition. Alumni programs, for example, can keep former employees connected and keep the door open for them to come back. They also show that your organization creates and maintains a positive experience for employees in the future.
  • Deliver consistent and targeted messaging. Create a messaging map to tailor communications to the right stakeholder groups. Tell the same story about your organization but use different soundbites for distinct audiences.
  • Prioritize critical talent. Spend time and money on tailoring messaging to the segments of talent that are critical to your workforce and remember that not every personality might be successful in your organization.

Organizations must strategically identify the best areas to make changes and invest in them. Rather than broad sweeps, targeted moves can make incremental differences in the efficacy of your employment brand.

Communicate and Cultivate Your Brand

At the end of the day, talent acquisition and retention involve much more than just communication. Incentive programs, favorable policies, a flexible work environment, reward strategies, and the daily delivery of a good employee experience are all critical to avoid hollow branding.

Managers may have a solid communications strategy but understanding how these pieces work together is difficult. It takes an outsider to fully analyze an organization’s needs and create and implement a strategic plan for improving an employment brand.

How you portray your organization to the world is fundamental to surviving – and thriving – through these challenging times. hrQ understands the best ways to manage your employer brand, from repairing a damaged reputation to planning new strategies for putting your best face forward.

Contact hrQ today to build an employment brand that attracts and retains the best talent in your market.

Top Strategies for Effective Headcount Planning in the Modern Workplace >

Headcount planning is a critical component in achieving business success, yet it presents a challenge in balancing workforce requirements with financial constraints. Headcount planning, the strategic alignment of staff numbers and skills with organizational goals, is essential for operational efficiency and budget management. HR, finance, and business leaders must collaborate to forecast needs and maintain agility. Read on to discover actionable strategies and best practices that will guide you in…

read more >

The 5 Essential Skills of Top HR Professionals >

From new technology to complex reporting to ever-changing regulations – keeping pace with today’s HR functions can be overwhelming. However, a few key skills are perennially sought after, and the most effective HR practitioners use them daily. Since HR is the primary connection between a business and its employees, having HR professionals with these crucial skills goes a long way to ensuring smooth operations, happy teams, and overall business success.…

read more >

How to Excel with an Effective Internal Talent Mobility Strategy >

Are you struggling to keep your best talent engaged while aiming to elevate your team’s capabilities? Solving the challenge of internal talent mobility is pivotal for fostering a thriving workplace that promotes employee growth and satisfaction.  Effective internal talent mobility strategies, as outlined by authoritative sources like SHRM, are key to aligning employee development with organizational goals, enhancing satisfaction, and boosting retention.   In our guide below, we outline the specifics…

read more >

Fractional CPOs: What They Are and Why You Need Them >

When a business has a big HR challenge but a limited budget or cannot commit to a long-term C-level hire, it may be time to call in a fractional executive. These HR leaders assist the business with strategy and can be asked to solve any number of problems. They can assess infrastructure, manage a project with the company’s board, get a department set up and running effectively, or help the…

read more >