In recent years, Employer Branding has gained increasing attention, as employee loyalty has become more sought after. Consequently, employers are searching for workers who align to their values.
Why is retaining staff an emerging challenge for employers?
A result of the ever-transient job market, people are job-hopping more than ever, hoping to achieve career progression and pay rises.
A strong employee brand ensures that your company stands out and stays at the forefront of jobseekers’ minds. First impressions count! So, in a candidate-short market, it truly pays for employers to invest in professional branding to ensure their place against competitors is known.
This is where we come into our own!
In case you are in any doubt about the influence of Employer Branding, here are some statistics to demonstrate its importance:
- “60% of the general public will choose a place to work based on their beliefs and values.”[i]
- “92% of people consider changing jobs to a company with an excellent corporate reputation.”[ii]
- “73% of millennials found their last position through social media.”[iii]
Given the significance of Employer Branding, then, where should companies be investing time and attention?
Well, according to LinkedIn, the top three networks for improving Employer Branding are the company website, online professional networks, and social media (in this order).
At Unite People, we work our utmost to understand your brand and team so that we can communicate this to prospective hires, but our job also involves offering you the best advice to stand-out amongst your competitors. Developing a strong employer brand is one of the best strings you can add to your bow. We provide reactive and proactive recruitment solutions, but we also work with brands to offer strategic recruitment services that aim to attract and retain staff, which is where the impact of employer branding pays most value.
The ‘Brand Identity Prism’ is a well-established marketing model, also known as Kapferer’s Brand Identity Prism. It spotlights 6 key areas for consideration:
- Physique
- Personality
- Culture
- Relationship
- Reflection
- Self-Image
Physique
Your brand physique encompasses all the visual branding elements you would typically associate with your brand. For instance, the colour palette and fonts used, your logo, and iconography.
However, beyond these obvious branding elements which undoubtedly require great deliberation, other elements also form Employer Branding, which we explore further below.
Personality
The age-old phrase ‘people buy from people’ perfectly summarises why it is important to express your personality in your brand.
Personality refers to the ‘voice’ of your business. Professional brands sometimes fail to connect with their audience by opting to steer clear of controversy, humour, or sadness in branding. In fact, these difficult topics elicit emotional responses, meaning that they encourage audience interaction – something which business should rate highly, especially in today’s world of social media.
How can you demonstrate personality and authenticity in branding?
Ways include discussing current, relevant topics. For example, major sporting events, or trending news topics. Small adjustments like the use of emojis or sharing personal interests and social events enable the brand’s target audience to relate to the business on a human level.
Culture
Culture refers to the brand’s origins. What belief systems and values are associated with your company? At Unite People, we prioritise culture heavily, reflective of the fact that a strong internal culture centred around clear and consistent principles. Not only will creating a united workforce provide excellent benefits, but hires will feel like they are joining something bigger, being welcomed as part of a community.
Relationship
The Relationship factor denotes the engagement between a brand and its consumers. Between different businesses, this relationship will vary from in-person interaction to digital responses. Organisational structure plays an important role in businesses too – you may wish to consider how your organisational structure helps or hinders your employer brand.
Reflection
This dictates who you want as a customer. Who is your target audience?
Once you have accurately identified your ideal consumer, you can work to align your brand identity towards them when considering the other characteristics of the ‘Brand Identity Prism’.
In recruitment, this means reaching the candidate-short market by selling the benefits of your brand over competitors.
Do your benefits package align with their lifestyles? Unite People create positive candidate experiences which lead introductions to your brand. We always ensure the best staff are on hand to support your business.
Self-image
Self-image concerns the way customers view their ideal selves.
For recruiters, this might reflect how your brand makes new hires, clients, or existing staff feel. Be open to feedback, however hard it may be to hear. How you hope your employees feel, may differ from how they in fact perceive themselves as part of your brand. One of the best ways to collect this information is through exit-interviews, ideally from an HR department who does not directly manage the leaver.
[i] Edelman Trust 2022
[ii] CR Magazine
[iii] Aberdeen group
