Business branding, employer branding, personal branding, internal branding, etc. There are many members in the family tree of branding, but one concept that has recently gained increasing recognition and importance is employee branding. Your employees are the beating heart of your company and play a huge role in achieving organizational goals.
In today’s business world, there’s intense competition for top talents, as human resources can give businesses, big or small, a significant competitive advantage. Skilled professionals know their worth and prefer working for organizations that care about them. And employee branding is key to attracting and retaining top talents.
As you focus on coming up with branding strategies for your business, give some thought to employee branding. Let it be part of your larger branding strategy and not an afterthought. Below, we’ll discuss in detail what employee branding is, its importance, and how to achieve it.
What is Employee Branding?
Employee branding is a fairly recent term in the human resource field, and it involves helping your employees align with organizational values and goals. It’s about consciously influencing how employees perceive the company. Ideally, a business wants its employees to embody its goals, mission, vision, and goals while consciously shaping how employees perceive the company. The ultimate goal is to have employees embody the company’s mission, vision, and values, transforming them into effective brand ambassadors who deliver exceptional customer service.
Therefore, employee branding differs from employer branding as the former focuses on how potential hires perceive a company. Employee branding is about your current employees – your internal stakeholders – and creating a meaningful and engaging experience for them.
How to Build Your Employee Brand
A strong employee brand is crucial to retaining employees, inspiring loyalty, boosting morale, and achieving organizational goals. Defining organizational core values is the first step to building a strong employee brand. These values are the organization’s highest priorities and fundamental driving forces.
Your core values will heavily influence the company culture, comprising several components such as leadership style, communication, diversity and inclusion, recognition/reward systems, team dynamics, customer focus, etc. Upper management’s approach to leadership has a heavy impact on company culture and overall leadership style.
Recognition and reward systems can improve employee morale, engagement, and retention. There are several ways to reward employees beyond financial incentives. Custom award plaques, trophies, sticky notes, and different perks are ways to reward your employees. Some creativity and mixing up now and then means things remain fresh and interesting.
Effective communication is a struggle for many organizations but is important for strong employee branding and positive company culture. Employees feel disconnected when they feel they are missing out on company information. And this makes it important for companies to have a long-term strategy for internal communication.
Creating strong employee branding involves feedback from the very people you are prioritizing. Encourage employees to share honest opinions through surveys or one-on-one meetings with supervisors. Let them know the door is always open for them to share insights about values, goals, and policies.
Benefits of Employee Branding
Below are some of the benefits of employee branding:
- Increases Productivity
Employee branding aligns employees with brand goals and values, making them truly connect with a brand and feel like they are a part of something big and important. They’ll be more engaged and motivated to do their duties, making them more productive.
Strong employee branding also helps create a positive work culture and environment where employees feel valued and can expect rewards for their outstanding work. Morale will go through the roof as employees do their best.
- Better Employee Retention
Business owners and upper management know what a hassle high employee turnover is. It’s time-consuming and expensive to hire new employees regularly. Productivity may also temporarily reduce as new staff members need time to familiarize themselves with their roles. The simple solution? Find strategies to increase retention and reduce turnover.
Effective employee branding is a surefire way to increase retention, as your current staff members will be more satisfied. It’s a win-win situation for both the company and workers.
- Access to a Better Talent Pool
Job seekers usually want to know what working in a company is like before applying. They may reach out to your current or past employees or check out their opinions on their LinkedIn profile, Twitter page, etc. If your employees are happy with you, they’ll be eager to represent that to others and refer people to the company.
Recruiting quality talent becomes easier since they’ll approach you more often, providing access to a better talent pool and making talent acquisition much easier. The organization will also save money on job ads.