Why an employer brand is becoming increasingly important

Why an employer brand is becoming increasingly important

A strong employer brand is a leading factor in keeping your organisation’s reputation strong – now and in the future. Jobs are becoming more and more alike: management, marketing and production functions differ less and less, which means that the mentality, spirit and engagement of employees are the key factor in realising what you promise to your customer. Recruiting and hiring the right people – people that match the organisation’s culture and values – is crucial to keeping up the organisation’s reputation among all its stakeholders.

A strong employer brand puts the organisation in the right place to recruit the right people using the right message; a message that matches the organisation’s identity. This creates engagement and aligns new hires with the organisation’s mission and goals. Organisations with a strong employer brand do this better than their competitors. New hires fit quickly into the organisation because both parties already know that they are the right match for each other. Less time is spent on onboarding, employee retention is higher and clients are happier.

Shared responsibility

Both the HR and the Communications department are responsible for an employer brand. HR takes care of the strategic personnel planning and all related marketing initiatives. Communications is responsible for the organisation’s reputation and all communication initiatives related to it. But ultimately, the employer brand should be an issue at C-level. Hiring the right talent contributes directly to the mission and strategic goals of an organisation.

Who you want to be as an employer, why, and what you need to do to achieve it, are the direct concern of HR and Communications managers, and I feel that many recruitment initiatives are too focussed on short-term gains. With the worldwide talent-shortage, hiring the right talent becomes of direct concern to the long-term vision of a company. Hiring the right people for the job contributes immensely to an organisation’s reputation.

From operational to strategy

In our field, we see a shift from tactical recruitment initiatives to strategically building on an employer brand  with a view to developing a good talent funnel. Creating and maintaining an employer brand helps achieve the desired recruitment of new hires, and supports retention initiatives and flexible employability in the long term. In the future, communication activities with new, current and old employees – Employee Relationship Management (ERM) – will be mandatory to recruit and retain the right talent. This relationship can be increasingly personalised as more and more information is gathered.

Elements like storytelling, content marketing and community management become more important when talking about an employer brand. Social media is compulsory. Employees, as ambassadors of the brand, become a key factor in all communication initiatives. They serve as living testimonials of your employer brand. The difference between temps and permanent employees will vanish, just as the internal and external job market.

More information?

I am happy to share our story. Visit us at PROOF and I’ll showcase some inspiring examples of what we have done and how you can create a strong and desirable employer brand.

Hanneke Meijer is Head of Strategy at PROOF (+31 6 29203295)