Ask a few people around you what it is like to work for Google. You will probably hear these words like “innovative, techie, open and relaxed. The crazy part here is that the people you asked have never worked at Google. The same test mainly works remarkably well for huge brands like Amazon, Southwest Airlines and Flipkart.

And mainly that is the most fantastic thing about employment branding—just like a corporate brand, the reputation can often precedent the experience. We do not need to work for an organization to have a deep understanding of their employment brand. Somehow, we know.

Also Read: Top 5 Business Development Marketing Tips

What is an employment brand?

An employment brand is the market approach of what it is like to work for a company. In other words, it is the image that your perspective, current and previous employees have in their minds about their employment experience at your company. This includes characteristics like the company’s culture, the work environment, employee value proposition and many employee benefits.

Why build an Employer Brand?

Research from the Bureau of Labor Statistics tells that more jobs are becoming available almost the same time that few candidates are entering the job market. As a result, the war for talented employees is increasing. So if your organization wants to keep its positions filled, you need to have a real strategic advantage. Otherwise, what is stopping your prospective and current employees from working for your competitors instead? By expanding and marketing your employment brand, you can assure that job seeker know why they should work for you.

What elements make a strong employment brand?

While any organization can create an employment brand, building one that is truly effective is very much challenging. It requires a lot of research on your target audience, reviews in your competitors’ employment brands, and then successfully executing and positioning the brand. However, the extra effort is no doubt always worth it. When you have a strategic and strong employment brand, it fulfills the following:

• Creates a sense of urgency and enthusiasm about working for your organization.
• Engages the mind, heart and dreams of the candidates.
• Complements your organization’s products and services.
• Provides a clear, captivating reason to work at your organization. 

Benefits of a strong Employment brand:

• Attract the right people to your company: 

Employers often talk about always willing to recruit the best talent or the best person for a particular organization. But the reality is that your candidates need to be the right fit for your company. For example, let’s say that we interview a software developer who seems to be the right fit for the job, mainly based on their knowledge and proficiency in programming languages. However, the candidate majorly prefers to work remotely and independently and your organization has a very collaborative culture. This interview may not be the right person for the job, after all.

By clearly stating who you are as a company and what do you offer, you will help job seekers understand what it is like to work for your company. Through this communication, you will be able to engage the right talent and unintentionally help unfit candidates select out. The stronger the employment brand, you will be more successful in hiring the right people.

• Set Expectations and remove the retention

By communicating upfront and precisely what it is like to work for your company, you set expectations about what it means to be a successful employee at your organization. You can showcase the traits and skills that are valued big time in your company so that new hires know how to behave upon starting.

This communication oscillates with the job seekers who are able and willing to meet these expectations. As a result, the ones who apply and get hired are less likely to leave your company. HRO today states that employer branding can decrease employee turnover by nearly two-thirds.

Your current employees are entirely a trusted source of information for potential employees. Branding is no longer solely the primary job of the marketing department. HR professionals must now accept their roles as private branders. Let us take a proper look at three aspects of that role: reward programs, communication and messaging, technology etc.

Aspects

• Reward Programs and Communication:

Just as marketers consider the customer experience when developing programs and products for their patrons, HR software keeps the employee experience at the forefront of reward and communication strategies.

Benefit provision is one of the most significant business costs for the majority of the companies and a significant driver of staff engagement. Giving the right rewards can be central to motivating participation and employee behaviour.

But there is a challenge for the employers to ensure that their employees genuinely utilize the benefits package offered and recognize the investment that the organization makes in its reward spend. That is when strong employee communication and branding becomes a key.

Internal communication programs and tools should be very much engaging, intuitive and also informative, with visuals and languages that help the staff better get an idea of the benefits that are available to them. They should also have a look and feel that is mainly consistent with the organization’s public image.

Employees who feel that their organizations offer competitive benefits packages are likely to share that opinion with others, which, of course, is excellent for your company brand.

• Culture and Consistent messaging:

Employees want always to feel connected to their company and its culture –  whether they work from the company’s headquarters or a remote location. Businesses looking to strengthen their brand among workers must communicate the organization’s values, employee expectations, core-culture, and the commitment.

A challenge facing many companies or businesses today, particularly the multinational organizations, is creating a unified global approach to communication and messaging. The employee branding, journey and messaging must always remain consistent and build a global identity. This is fulfilled through harmonizing, branded reward and communication programs with the same look, feel, and structure across all different locations.

• Technology:

The technology an employee uses at work mostly impacts his impression of the employer’s brand. Robust technology that is very much easy to use and engaging indicates that a company is innovative. Workplace technology that is recognized as fresh and cutting-edge among your employees will help position your brand as an industry leader that invests in its resources.

An engaging smartphone and a tablet-friendly portal that employees can access anytime, anywhere, anyplace can help strengthen the employee interaction, participation, and engagement with your brand.

Using the HR cloud-based technology solutions, that can be easily integrated, can also enhance the employee user experience big time. They give the employee the will to move between self-service applications seamlessly without even noticing the use of different software solutions.

The role of HR Solutions in branding will continue to be an essential one. The research has shown that an engrossed, productive and a motivated workforce of brand ambassadors can positively make your brand as well as any marketing or PR campaign that you put together.

With Darwin box, you will be able to Access the new world of talent and start your journey of becoming an expert in Employer Branding.

To know more about this, you can schedule your demo here.