In the modern age, businesses need to maintain their reputation online and in the community. This includes letting customers and potential employees know about things like your product line, services, community outreach, special events, history, and company leadership.

When it comes to recruiting the best employees, a company needs to be mindful of its perception within the labor pool. This includes facets of emotional, instinctive, and intellectual perception that consumers, current employees, and prospective new hires pick up on in your marketing messages, products, and services. All of this extends deeper into public opinion garnered from other outlets such as online reviews, consumer forums, and direct interactions with past or current employees.

This synergistic perception is part of your company’s brand image. While it is primarily meant for boosting sales, retaining loyal customers, and drawing in new ones, your brand can also be a powerful, force for drawing in new employees as well as retaining existing quality employees.

The competitive job market has a lot of the best potential employees looking for the most positive employer brand. They are often very skeptical of even the slightest blemishes on your brand reputation and might only apply for open positions with your company as a last resort.

Ultimately, if you want to attract and retain the best employees that the job market has to offer then you need to be vigilant about presenting the best possible employer branding messages.

Just like with all other forms of company branding, boosting your employer brand starts with good storytelling. You want every facet of your organization to be perceived in the job market as positive. Which calls for using specific messages to help attract the best employee prospects to fill your openings.

Just bear in mind that most prospective employees are savvy when it comes to sniffing out a false brand image or employer brand messages. So it’s not enough to simply say the right things in the right ways and have them mentioned in the right places. Effective, positive employer branding is also about living out that story.

This starts with maximizing satisfaction with your current employees, as their opinions have a way of echoing loudly into the job market. Especially if you are hoping to hire locally from the surrounding community. Employees also use a lot of social media outlets, which can also affect user-generated feedback to a degree that takes you out of complete control of your company’s reputation.

Fortunately, there are a lot of simple, small changes that just about any company can turn to for improving their employer branding image in the labor pool. These are things that can help you retain your best employees, as well as recruit the best talent from the open market. When done right you might even be able to win over great employees from your closest competitors.

Maximizing Employer Value Proposition

Maximizing your employer value proposition (EVP) requires you to strategically combine your organization’s mission, values, and culture, in a way that gives employees a good reason to work for you. This is everything your company has to offer a current or potential new employee. In a way that makes them want to bring their best skills and experience to the table.

A well-designed EVP helps to prioritize your goals and agendas throughout the company. This starts with human resources and workforce planning), helps re-engage a dispassionate workforce, and reduces hiring costs. Most of all, it contributes to a favorable and robust employer brand.

This goes beyond a simple bullet list of the perks and benefits you offer to your employees. It’s also a grander part of the employer branding storytelling process. A carefully crafted EVP is most effective when it is employee-centric.

It is essentially a resounding tale that’s been discovered, defined, and tested via the opinions of existing employees. Though the first step in the process of creating this employer brand proposition requires you to honestly examine your company’s benefits to ensure that they are well-established, well-defined, and have been proven to be truly successful with your current employees.

If your honest evaluation of your employee benefits finds that they aren’t as positive as you’ve hoped, then you need to revamp things before expanding your employer branding in larger messages meant for consumer and workforce consumption.

Things to Consider When Evaluating & Optimizing Your EVP

There are several critical facets to a well-crafted and honest EVP branding message. This includes an honest evaluation and making any necessary improvements in things like:

  • Your company values
  • Company culture
  • The accuracy of your mission statement
  • The company’s location(s) & available labor pool
  • The competitive compensation of current employees
  • Opportunities for career development
  • Overall business management style
  • Team caliber & quality
  • Active employee recognition
  • Insurance benefits
  • Available vacation time
  • On-the-job perks
  • Non-salary financial perks
  • Your company’s relationship with the community
  • Job security is real & perceived by current employees

Top Aspects of an Effective Employer Branding Strategy

There are several strategic benefits to an effective employer branding strategy. This includes several key elements such as:

Attracting Top Talent in the Labor Force

The best talent in the available labor force tends to be very selective and scrutinizing when looking for a new employer. They want to work for a company with a good reputation for treating employees well.

To the point that some of the most talented individuals will sometimes forego higher pay if you can offer critical non-monetary benefits. This includes things like positive company culture, growth opportunities, flexibility, and other less-tangible perks.

Reducing Hiring & Training Costs

When you optimize your EVP to enhance your employer brand, your talent pipeline of applicants gets richer, which makes it easier to vet candidates early. It also means that when you do have an opening in the future, you’ll also have a surplus of qualified candidates to begin interviewing,

Maintaining Positive Employee Morale

Boosting and maintaining positive morale with your current employees not only helps with productivity but also increases your perception of the outside labor market. As ultimately your employer brand is based on how well you treat your employees and how your employees then interact with your customers, as well as potential new hires in the community. a wonderful employee experience will of course boost employee morale.

Improved Employee Retention

When you boost your EVP and maintain strong, positive employee morale it also has the net effect of improving your employee retention rates. By making your company a place where employees love to come, you’ll see a dramatic improvement in turnover.

Enhancing Credibility with Your New & Loyal Customers

The overall strength of your employer brand will also greatly affect your business by improving your credibility with your loyal customers as well as potential new customers who are considering converting. Having the best team in place makes a difference in customer satisfaction, so if you’re not able to attract quality employees, you can expect a subpar customer experience.