Building The Employer Brand

If you were given two pullovers of the same color, same material, and the same quality, but one with a brand name and the other without it, which one would you choose and why? 

No ifs and buts, you would go for the one which has a brand name on it. Even though the other one looked exactly similar, maybe it tempted you as high as the branded one, but one thing swayed your mind at the time you made the final call - the name! That is the power of a brand.

Brands create such a perception in the customers’ mind, that come what may, they would prefer a particular brand over everything else without giving it a second thought time and time again.

This is exactly how we make most of our choices. We get more attracted to something that is credible, trustworthy and has made a positive impact on our minds.

Brands are no longer restricted to just clothes, accessories, footwear, fragrances or your lifestyle. Rather everything you see around, everything you connect to, there is a perpetual process of brand building in them. Be it any sector or any organization, everyone is trying hard to stand out and build a brand.

This blog is about building The Employer Brand. An employer brand is defined as the identity and reputation of your company in the marketplace, offering a value proposition for employees in exchange for the employees’ talents and skillsets. It is also defined as what is the market’s perception of your company. The employer brand is one of the top key assets for organizations to attract the top candidates. 

Employer brand is also defined as the company's ability to create a certain level of brand equity among a defined group of candidates that they are interested in hiring. Before an employee makes his perception about your company, your employer brand should be able to create one for him.

According to the Harvard Business Review’s data, by the year 2020, Employer Branding will become one of the most important elements for a majority of recruitment and HR team’s long-term strategies. 

Building the employer brand is not as difficult as it seems. A lot lies in the hands of the company itself which can greatly influence candidates in deciding whether they should join that company or not. 

Here are 6 ways how companies can build their employer brand:

• Web content: The career tab on your company’s official website speaks out loud. And much before any person reaches the career insights, he would have already gone through the core values of your company and its mission and vision statements as well. What you say about your company, how precisely and confidently you say it, everything, is a reflection of your company. In this era of Millenials, everything is mobile optimized. They would go through a company’s website when they are sitting outside an office for an interview. You should also include employee videos on the landing page of the website as anything related to work becomes more authentic when employees are the ones telling about it. So make sure that whatever you offer the readers and visitors on your website to read, that is exactly what they will think about your company as. So keep updating your data on the web and tie up all the loose ends.

• Your company’s USP: Why would a candidate join your company if you don’t have anything different to offer? You have to stand out from the crowd and create your USP(Unique Selling Proposition). You can do a few things that can add to your USP. Let's discuss each, one by one:

a) Employee Policy: Employee policies are a set of rules and regulations that expects an employee to conduct himself in a particular manner when at work. This includes the code of conduct, compensation policies, workplace safety, attendance requirements, flexibility in timing, etc. The better and simple the employee policies are, the more are the chances of a person to join your organization.

b) Perks, rewards and recognition policy: When your employees work and make a mistake, someone from the higher authorities points it out to them so that they learn from it and don’t repeat their mistakes. Similarly, they also have to be rewarded and recognized when they achieve milestones at work. Your company can use online perks and R&R platforms like Advantage Club to appreciate, reward and recognize your employees as well as peers and make them eligible to redeem points and avail discounts over 10,000+ brands. Using tech-based platforms in this era shows how companies are tech-savvy and technologically advanced, creating a positive perception in the candidate’s mind. 

c) Work culture: There has been an increased emphasis on the importance of having a positive work culture. Work culture is directly proportional to the productivity of the employees. If the environment that the person is working in, is positive, the employees stay happy at work and enjoy the entire time they are there. On the other hand, if the environment is not positive, it leads to lower employee satisfaction levels and increases their disengagement with others at work. Thus, maintaining a positive work culture is very important for the candidates to consider joining your organization.

d) Compensation and benefits: This is a major factor that decides whether one should join a company or not. Providing them with good compensation and benefits is important. It covers everything from the salaries to promotions to increments to incentives and leaves adjustments etc. The more beneficial the policy is for the employees, the more it tends to attract the candidates.

• Application process: If the application process to apply to your company is online, try keeping it short and concise rather than keeping it pages after pages long. If your application process is shorter, it won't disinterest the candidates. Whereas if it is longer, half of the candidates would quit in the middle. To avoid such a scenario always prefer the shorter application process.

• Selection process: Now this is important. How you treat your candidates in the selection process, whether you carefully listen to what they have to say, how you react to the queries they have, how politely you speak to them and how you make them feel are all essential parts that you should pay attention to. Also, never make your candidates wait for hours and hours before they finally go for their interview. This reflects that the organization does not respect and value the candidate’s time. The greater the experience in the selection process, the higher the chances of attracting candidates.  

• Ramping up the social media: Start using your social media platforms extensively to create awareness and spread information about your company and its whereabouts. Ramping up social media will also increase the chances of getting more traffic to your website and conveying your company’s core values and ethics etc.

• Tracking and responding positively to platforms like Glassdoor etc: Platforms like Glassdoor post reviews about organizations online. They take insights from the employees; both current and previous ones and then post whatever feedback they have about a particular organization. Be active on such platforms and always respond to anything that has been posted about your company positively. No matter how the comment or feedback is, always be polite and humble while replying. It reflects how you take criticism and whether or not you want to change certain things in your organization.

If you have other creative and innovative ideas for building the employer brand, comment below and let us know.