While many businesses focus on building a brand and a reputation to maximise customer awareness and, ultimately, drive sales, it’s just as important to build a strong employer brand identity in order to attract the best talent. After all, it’s the people that work for a company that fuels the success of the business – and the best of those have a choice of companies to work for!
To be a successful employer, it’s your job to make the cream of the talent out there want to work for your business, instead of the competition. As a result, not only will your organisation do better in the marketplace, but you’ll also cut the time it takes to hire, slash your recruitment costs and create an employer brand that fosters pride in your workforce, thereby motivating and retaining existing staff.
Creating a great brand personality
Creating a great employer brand isn’t easy; it takes time and effort. Simply offering a good wage isn’t enough to win over potential candidates. Indeed, some candidates are willing to sacrifice a higher wage for a company that has offered more in terms of brand personality. They need to believe in your company, what it does and the work environment you offer. They want variety in their day-to-day role and the opportunity to learn and grow professionally. It’s all of these things you need to reinforce to get across your message to build your employer brand.
Find out what attracts people to your company. Ask current employees what they like about the organisation and what you could do better. Find out what makes your company unique and what you can do to stand out even more. Once you have that information, you can create an action plan to consolidate your strengths and work on getting that message out to potential employees. Make sure you explain your values and the benefits of working there in all your marketing materials and online media.
Become an employer of choice
Of course, a good compensation package will help too. Benchmark salaries and benefits at your organisation against your competitors. To compete for the best available talent, the package you offer needs to be competitive. Don’t forget to create and advertise perks that could be significantly relevant to some potential applicants, especially those relating to work-life balance!
Think like a candidate. What would be important to you when it comes to interacting with the company brand? What would leave you with a positive impression? And don’t forget to measure the effectiveness of your efforts to improve further. Use KPI such as feedback from new starters, speed, and cost of hire, number of applicants and job acceptance rates as metrics to find out what works for your brand and what doesn’t.
At a time when three-quarters of all employees in the UK are planning to hire in the coming year and 92% are experiencing skills shortages, organisations have to use every tool available to attract the best talent. In a competitive marketplace, one of the best ways to do that is to work on your brand and employer personality to make sure you become an employer of choice.
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