Your employees play a crucial role in both internal and external company branding.
They can either be advocates of your brand, helping you retain the best talent, or harsh critics, undermining your reputation with potential employees.
This impact on reputation is paramount: statistically, 95% of candidates consider a company’s reputation when looking for new opportunities. However, employees are only one part of an employer’s internal and external branding. What other factors are involved, how are they related, and why is it essential for a thriving business to prioritize employer branding?
In this article, we’ll cover all of these topics. Let’s dive in.
What is the employer brand?
Employer brand is about others’ perception of the organization – from current employees to potential hires. It encompasses culture, authenticity, diversity, use of technology, and concern for employee well-being. Together, these factors help create a positive business environment, both internally and externally. To achieve this, companies must engage in various activities to establish themselves as desirable employers, focusing on both internal and external employer branding.
What is external employer branding?
Let’s start with the basics. When it comes to external employer branding, it refers to how an organization positions itself in the job market and how it is seen by job seekers. Improving your external employer brand means utilizing the right platforms and tools to get your company noticed by potential candidates.
Below are the most important ways to do this.
Online activities
The internet serves as the main tool for showcasing your employer brand to prospective new employees. This includes your corporate website, recruitment-specific sites, social media platforms, video platforms, search engine optimization, and targeted advertising. Employee advocacy is critical here, as employees share their positive experiences on social media, extending the reach of your brand. This helps to:
- Turn employees into brand advocates.
- Entice top-tier talent.
- Improve company reputation.
- Increase employee retention.
In addition to content and employee sentiment, maintaining a strong presence on platforms like LinkedIn and similar is important. These platforms are often the first places potential employees look to learn about your company and determine if it’s a good fit for them.
Professional events and internship programs
These are valuable for building your employer brand and include both attending and hosting industry events.
- Attend events: Whether attending or hosting professional conferences, trade shows, or competitions, your company can stand out as an industry expert. This increases your chances of attracting the attention of qualified professionals. Effective participation, supported by appropriate marketing materials and a comprehensive PR strategy, can significantly enhance your employer’s reputation.
- Internship programs: Offering internships to future employees or students is a powerful tool for building a positive employer image. These programs attract young, ambitious talent and foster meaningful relationships between the company and potential candidates through shared experiences.
Outdoor advertising
It serves a major role in recruitment efforts by ensuring visibility, wide coverage, and consistent messaging and aesthetics. The key is to create not just any reaction, but a positive one that resonates with the audience and encourages them to engage with the message.
Smart recruiting
In 2024, companies will keep focusing on their external image to get top-tier talent. To do this, they need to position themselves well and connect effectively with potential hires. One way to accomplish this is to listen to job seekers and adjust the hiring process accordingly, as candidates want their hiring experience to match their skills, career goals and values.
This can be done by using advanced AI Software. It can speed up hiring and make sure the right people are chosen for the team. Also, using predictive analytics can help increase employee retention rates by up to 15%.
Once the right people are on board, internal employer branding comes into play.
What is internal employer branding?
This type of employer branding focuses on building a positive employer image among current employees, aligning them around corporate values, and retaining top talent by increasing their job satisfaction, motivation, and loyalty. When employees are happy in their jobs and share the company’s values, both the employees and the company benefit.
Here’s why:
- Happy employees tend to feel a strong connection to the company, which makes them more likely to come to work and take on responsibility. In such an environment, top talent is less likely to leave.
- Employees driven by motivation tend to perform better, helping the company reach its goals and operate more efficiently.
- A good employer reputation also benefits customers, partners, and investors, making them more interested in doing business with you.
Now, you may be wondering how you can ensure that your employees are satisfied with their working conditions. The answer lies in nurturing your internal employer brand. Let’s explore how you can do that.
Fostering corporate culture and spreading its principles among employees
Corporate culture influences the extent to which employees feel connected to the company, embrace its values, enjoy team relationships, and adhere to behavioral norms such as dress code and organization’s hierarchy. Improving corporate culture involves developing and implementing internal communication strategies to increase employee engagement, loyalty, and job satisfaction.
Maintain an open communication environment within the company
All employees should receive timely and thorough updates on company news, including internal matters and external activities such as social events, charitable initiatives, conferences and rankings. In addition, each individual should feel empowered to voice their opinions and have them heard.
Provide training opportunities for employees within the company
This includes both professional training and the creation of personal development plans for each employee. Employees need to know that the company values their growth, invests in their education, and supports their development. By providing internal training opportunities, your people are less likely to leave the company.
Offer additional employee benefits
These can range from classic perks like gym memberships or health insurance to modern incentives like extra time off, shorter workweeks, remote work options, or even allowing pets in the office.
Internal employer branding also includes organizing team-building events and celebrations outside of the workplace.
All of these efforts help employees bond and feel more connected to the company, fostering cohesiveness and productivity. Consider this: Companies with engaged employees outperform those without by up to 202%.
Internal vs external employer branding: How do they relate?
Internal and external employer branding are interrelated and complementary. They are essential to shaping the company’s image and cannot exist independently.
Internal branding happens naturally as employees interact with the company and each other. The key is to manage this interaction effectively.
Similarly, external branding occurs through interactions with job seekers, whether intentional or not.
To shape your employer image, you must actively work on both internal and external branding. In this article, we’ve looked at how to effectively align these efforts.
Unlocking the power of employer branding reveals an important truth: Happy employees drive success. By turning your employees into brand ambassadors, fostering a positive workplace culture, and promoting your company’s strengths both internally and externally, you not only retain talent, but you attract top candidates. It’s about creating a workplace where people want to be and shouting it from the rooftops.
Now it’s your turn to make your company the place where everyone wants to work.
