Every company wants to have a good reputation in the market among its customers. It helps in increasing their sales and revenues. Having a good image as a quality manufacturer also helps to sell new products quickly. But that is not the only image that a company must have. A company must be able to attract good people to work for it as it lures customers to its products. Building such a reputation is also crucial because getting the best hands to work for you is not easy. This is where employer branding helps.
What Is Employer Branding?
So, how do we define employer branding? Companies must have a positive image among those seeking jobs in a competitive job market. Getting good hands is not easy as many companies from both within the country and abroad offer them good salaries and benefits. But not all candidates look for only money. Many look at how the company treats its employees. People look at the working environment and the career prospects in the firm they wish to join.
All aspects, from salaries, benefits, development prospects and happy working conditions, play an active part in showcasing the image of a company as an employer. Such a positive image helps get good people to join the firm and retain productive employees. All companies need good workers to drive them forward and achieve their objectives. Employer branding plays an important role in getting and retaining good staff members and helping the company grow. It is the reputation that companies have among their future, present and past employees.
The human resource team’s job is to create a good reputation for the company among future employees. One can join the Post Graduate Certificate Course in Human Resources Management to learn how to create such an image. You can visit our website to learn how this course helps you in this job.
Why Build An Employer Brand?
Not investing in employer branding can be costly for the company. It increases recruitment costs and affects the HR and general budget of the company. To start with, a company with an image of a good employer can get twice the number of applications as a firm with no such image. That itself is a big benefit for building your reputation. The more applications you get, the more choice you have for hiring the right person. HR managers will find it easier to fill the skill gaps in the firm.
It has been observed from interviews with many candidates that they are not willing to work for a company that is viewed as a bad employer even if the compensation is better. Companies will have to spend much more to recruit good people to fill the vacancies. Even then, they will most probably not get the best hands for the job. Consequently, the organisation will take much longer to achieve its objectives. With good employer branding, the establishment becomes a magnet for the top people in the market.
Who Does The Employer Branding?
In smaller firms, the CEO might take up the job of building a good image as an employer. But in larger firms, the job is left to the HR managers, who will do it with support from the marketing department. That will help create a good message for future employees. The message that a firm communicates to improve its image as an employer is not what is seen on the company website. It is what the employees say about the firm. The message must come from the present workers of the organisation.
The employees may be unable to express their views as clearly as needed. This is where the HR and marketing departments come into action. They will help the employees use the right words that will tell those in the job market that the company is good to work for. But such messages must be supported by posts on the employees’ social media platforms. That is where candidates look to see a company’s image. Good employer branding can happen only if the company’s staff members are happy, and this can happen only if the establishment creates a good working environment.
Understanding The Employer Branding Process
It is not enough to want to create a good image as an employer. It takes a lot of work, and one must go about it systematically. Let us see how the employer branding process works.
- Know The Company
Before you go about trying to create a good reputation for your company among employees, you must be familiar with your company. This means that you must know what the firm stands for. It is necessary to understand its goals and what it tries to achieve by being a good employer. You must know what the company’s core business is. The person in charge of employer branding must also know the company’s culture, mission, and vision. Only someone familiar with all these can create an attractive employer value proposition.
- Know Your Employer Brand
Most people know the position of a company’s product or service in the market. But even the workers in a firm may not know where it stands as an employer. It is necessary to first understand this position before going ahead with the employer branding. This image comes from what the employees think about the organisation. The ideal way to understand this is to survey the company. One can also know the image of the company from social media platforms. Reviews left by former employees or those who have attended interviews tell a lot about the firm.
- Create An Attractive EVP
This is a critical step in the employer branding process. The employer value proposition is a message from the company to prospective employees. It talks about the benefits people gain by working for the firm. The message clearly states what they get for offering their skills and experience to the organisation. It doesn’t just talk about the monetary benefits but also about the culture and working environment of the company. An attractive EVP can make it much easier to attract the best talents in the market.
- Use Recruitment Marketing
In times when companies hunt for talent, it is necessary that your EVP is crisp and tells future employees exactly what they want to hear. This is where recruitment marketing helps. You must use the right words to attract top talent to your firm. People who are creative with words are the best people to construct the message. It is possible to find such talents in the firm’s marketing department. The process should start with knowing who the company is targeting and what it aims to achieve. Such a message must speak to the target audience.
- Engage Current Employees
A company’s employer branding will be incomplete without the participation of its employees. The words of a present worker are more trusted by those applying for a job than what is said by the firm’s CEO. It means that you must get your employees to talk about the firm on various platforms. The best place for this is their social media accounts. The HR department can help them with the way the posts must be written. Getting the staff members to write reviews on job sites is another way to get the attention of talents in the job market.
- Attractive Job Descriptions
Job descriptions are the first thing about a company that prospective employees see. Most people apply for a position based on what it says or how attractive it is. Even the most mundane jobs can be made to sound exciting with a good description. While it must convey exactly what the job is, you must also see that the one who reads knows a little about the company. Once the job description is posted in the most suitable forums, the company must optimise the search engine to words that the ideal candidates are likely to use when searching for a job.
These are a few ways for a business to improve its image as an employer. To learn more about it, you can join the Post Graduate Certificate Course In Human Resource Management. Our website will enlighten you on the details of the course and how you benefit from it.
Ways To Improve Employer Image
- Don’t Talk Too Much About Compensation
One of the ways to attract good hands to the company is to talk about various things about the firm and not focus too much on the compensation. This is especially important when trying to get younger candidates for a post. The employer value proposition must talk more about how the employee will find the work more satisfying. There must be enough about the company’s working environment and how the new person can easily fit into the job quickly. An important part of employer branding should be about how the organisation considers all employees equally for promotions.
- Create A Company Blog
Company blogs are often read by those who apply for a job in the firm. Creating a blog that talks about the company will certainly help to attract good hands to the organisation. Such blogs must talk about what is happening in the company. It can give news about events that involve employees. You can get staff members to write articles and post them on the blog. Such articles help prospective employees to know about the establishment and its culture. A blog that showcases the firm’s commitment to employee happiness is very useful in employer branding.
- Use Photos And Videos
Using a lot of media in the blog is great for improving the organisation’s reputation. You must try and post photos about the workplace. Videos of events involving the staff and their family will give the firm an image of being close to the workers. A video from the CEO talking about the firm and its policies can give a boost to the company’s image. Staff interviews talking about their working experience are excellent branding materials. This should be a regular part of the employer branding process, and a separate budget must be allocated for this.
- Ensure Diversity In Employees
When you hire, make sure that there is a mixture of people from all backgrounds. This is very important to show future candidates that the firm is inclusive. It is also good to have such a mix of people talk about how good the working environment in the company is. It is a good example of providing equal opportunity to all. Such action will do a lot of good to employer branding than just talking about it. Most youngsters prefer to work in a company that has people from every background and ethnicity.
Benefits Of Employer Branding
Now that we have seen how the process is completed, it is time to see how it benefits the company.
- Access To The Best Talents – When the company builds an image of being a good employer, good talents come looking for opportunities instead of the other way around.
- Reduces Cost Of Hiring – When you perform employer branding, you are creating a permanent image for the company. There is no need to do special marketing activities while hiring people.
- Brand Scores Over Compensation – Many young aspirants want to work for a firm that has a good working environment and favourable employee policies. These are qualities that they value more than compensation. It means that your spending on human resources will come down.
- Improves Your Business – Although employer branding doesn’t have a direct bearing on the company’s sales, customers are more likely to favour a firm that has a good employee policy and provides a good working environment.
To know everything about this process, join the Post Graduate Certificate Course in Human Resource Management by a reputed institution. You can learn about the course from our website.
Conclusion
Employees are the most valuable assets of any organisation. They help drive the company to its goals. A company must acquire the best talent available in the market. The way to achieve this is by improving the firm’s image as a good employer. Employer branding is an activity that helps create a good reputation for the establishment as a company that treats its employees well and provides them with a happy working environment. Every HR professional must learn this process and implement it in their companies.
More Information:
What is Human Resource Accounting?
HR Audit: Know its objectives, importance & limitations
