Employer Branding: 5 Steps to Success

A strong employer brand offers numerous benefits, including an improvement in your ability to attract and retain top talent. It may appear overwhelming at first, however, breaking the process down into five key phases will help you arrive at a finished product that supports employee engagement and attracts top talent.

Take a Cue From Marketing

The process outlined below reflects what marketers have known for decades: Your brand already exists, so in order to be credible you must “uncover” it through research versus trying to “create” what you think it should be.

1. Conduct Research: As noted above, your first step is to conduct research that will help reveal your employer brand. Start with current employees and find out what they like best about working with your organization. Why did they join? Why do they stay? What do they believe makes your organization different from other places where they have worked? (As an aside, you’ll also uncover things about your workplace that employees feel can be improved. Don’t bury these insights. Share them with leadership and work to address them. After all, your employer brand isn’t fixed—it should always evolve alongside your organization.) Next, gather input on external views people have of your organization. This is obviously more challenging logistically and will typically require an investment due to the need to provide incentives to participants. If you’re restricted by your budget consider interviewing candidates who recently declined an offer of employment.

2. Assess Your Findings: During this phase, you’ll analyze your research findings, condensing what you learn into key points about your employment experience. Consider using main categories, or “pillars” to frame your brand, such as those that align with the attributes that often influence an individual’s decision to join and to stay. For example, your framework might include pillars for Opportunities, Culture, People, Work and Benefits. Identify two to three aspects that provide insight about your experience as it pertains to each pillar. In addition, and this is always the tricky part, try to determine from the research the overarching key theme about why someone should work for your company that has the broadest appeal and reach across all employee segments. This will serve as your main message, one that is supported by your pillars in order to tell a more complete story to audiences.

3. Validate Your Framework: Now it’s time to take what you’ve compiled and run it past existing employees in the form of focus groups. Gather their input on what they believe is accurate and what falls short. Refine your articulation based on the input and then seek final approval for the revised framework from your organization’s leadership.

4. Develop Your Strategy: Here, you’ll want to develop your strategy in terms of both the messaging—the words and images you’ll use to convey your employer brand—and the and various channels or touchpoints that you will use to communicate the messaging to internal and external audiences.

5. Implement Your Program: It’s time to transition your process to a tactical rollout of your brand according to the strategy you developed in step four. While you’ll likely implement a range of employer brand communications during initial the launch, keep in mind that involving brand ambassadors (those who can serve as champions) and highlighting employee stories (to offer evidence of the brand’s validity) can be extremely effective in helping to embed your employer brand internally and externally.

Wait, You’re Not Quite Done…

Like any good marketer, you’ll want to measure the results of your employer branding efforts, shifting messages and tactics as appropriate to improve outcomes. Plus, you’ll need to revisit your messaging every few months, reflecting any changes in your organization that impact your employment experience and, thus, your employer brand.