Employer branding is one of those topics that never goes out of style. It’s always going to matter how talent perceives your brand. Last year, I offered some quick tips to build up your brand in a day or less.
But we’re in the 2020s now. Times are changing here in the roaring 20s. Everything’s different!
Well, that’s not exactly true. The foundations of a strong employer brand remain (and that advice can still help you rock your branding in just a few hours). But, there are other elements of employer branding worth exploring, and I’m going to dig into one of those elements today.
Have you ever thought about the answer to this question? Who DOES have ownership of your employer brand?
Marketing?
Leadership?
Your recruiters?
I won’t leave you hanging. While right now, one or more of these departments may feel like they have ownership of your employer brand, the truth is that everyone on your team has ownership.
From the C suite, to sales, support and everyone in between, ownership lies with your entire team!
In today’s hyper-connected society, we’re engaging, typing, speaking and listening to people across a sea of channels, devices and media. Which means that engaging with your administrative assistant in a Facebook group carries as much weight as interviewing with your CEO. Hearing your head of marketing on a podcast is as important as reading a blog post from one of your recruiters.
All of it builds, contradicts or nurtures your employer brand, whether conscious or not.
Now, that bombshell may have affected you in one of two ways:
Now, there is some wiggle room among these options. You may not have cursed. And you may not have audibly cheered. But you likely fall into one of the two camps here. You’re either happy and confident, or you’re stressed and worried.
Awareness here is critical. Really. Just knowing and understanding that employer branding is everyone’s job will impact how you approach this important part of business for your staffing firm.
To help you truly leverage this knowledge to build, grow and nurture a powerful employer brand, consider this advice:
Before you move forward with anything, you need to be sure your employer brand is clearly and concisely defined. What makes your staffing firm different? How do you create amazing experiences for talent? What makes your clients draw hearts on your picture?
It’s important to really get down and dirty on what makes you different. Every staffing firm says that they offer great talent. And provide excellent service. Truly, every one.
And that’s okay. If you really DO provide great service, you may want to focus instead on how you do that. What do you live and breathe that leads to you creating such incredible experiences for your clients and candidates? The more authentic you can be here, the better. Authenticity and transparency are huge today, and a “real” message is much more likely to resonate, especially with talent.
Using your new branding (visual and language) in marketing and recruiting pieces is an obvious step, but rolling out your branding to the entire company is equally as important. This could mean your CEO sends out a mass email to the entire team. Maybe in your next team meeting, senior-level execs talk about the brand.
Truth be told, though, a lot of times we’re so busy, we tune out singular messages. It’s actually a lot like how you engage with candidates.
A single email or LinkedIn message may get lost in the shuffle and your response rate ends up in the gutter. But, using an engagement platform to develop and implement a targeted engagement strategy can dramatically increase the likelihood of a response, a placement and a long-term consulting relationship.
The same benefit can be applied to your internal team. The right engagement platform (like Sense) can help you convey important information -- like your employer brand and ownership of that brand -- across various media and channels. This ensures your team see consistent messaging where they spend their time. You’ll still want to talk about your employer brand (and talk about how important it is for everyone to understand his or her ownership and responsibility), but following up with a strong engagement campaign reinforces the message and ensures it doesn’t get lost in the shuffle.
Plus, leveraging your engagement platform to build stronger relationships with your team can improve productivity and retention, and that’s just the start! (Shoot us a note if you’d like to see this in action.)
The trap many organizations (not just staffing firms) fall into is a desire to improve employer branding. They define the messaging, then blast it to their team and through their marketing. But the message they’ve crafted doesn’t align with the realities of working with or engaging with their organization (and its team members).
That’s why following through on your messaging and promises is key. If you’re not quite where you want to be when you define the message of how you want to be seen, take steps to get yourself there. Set goals to make your staffing firm better, and to keep your brand and candidate/client/employee experiences aligned.
Some people say measuring brand is hard. That’s because there’s no hard and fast metric that will directly state -- you are ROCKING it with your employer brand. But when you have improvements in key metrics at your fingertips that directly correlate to increased ROI -- metrics like redeployment rate, lower candidate attrition, increased referrals and high candidate, contractor and client NPS -- you know you've got a strong employer brand.
Oh and that's why it's important to choose an engagement platform that can show you staffing specific analytics (like Sense). 👍
To learn how Sense can help you leverage your employer brand (and SO much more), let’s connect. Our team of staffing industry experts will walk you through the Sense platform and show you exactly how Sense can help you reach your goals.
