Employer Branding Tips
Employees are the backbone of any organization. Yet businesses focus more on building external branding and miss the focus on internal branding. In reality, employees are the first point of contact, and by putting employees first, the business will improve and flourish.
Employer branding always exists as your employees do. Every business has employer branding as a part of their HR structure, but if you are not using it to the fullest, it’s time to onboard employer branding once again.
Companies with bad employer branding lose employees the most, while positive employer branding helps reduce the cost of hiring new talents as well as retain and nurture the existing ones. Happy employees are your brand advocates. They work smarter, produce great results, and act as a support system for other employees.
Let’s look at how internal communication has a direct effect on employer branding.
Understand brand values
Brand values help organizations in every decision they make. Brands with ethical and clear values are stronger and trustworthy. When brands have a pre-defined list of values but never follow them or use them, you get a negative feeling about the brand. If the same level of inactivity is seen in customer experience, it’s a disaster.
To strengthen your employer brand values, focus on values that matter the most, and follow them throughout and across the organization. If one of the values is open and honest communication at the workplace, you need to replicate the same thoughts with your employees for them to respond similarly.
By prioritizing employer values, you’ll get a sense of what you should include in your internal communications. When your employees come across international communication meant for them, they will relate to it, and see the value coming through.
Ask for feedback
When building a robust employer brand, you’ll need to check how your employees feel and experience your efforts. It’s easy to assume and hope that your efforts will work. Instead, ask for feedback as much as possible. There are multiple ways to incorporate internal communication and create an easy and efficient survey system.
Creating a flexible work culture through internal communication and respect for others can solve many problems. You can conduct online surveys, polls, assessments, anonymous surveys and encourage employees to participate. Assure them their identity will be kept secret. It’s a great way to know about sensitive topics and cover issues that are wrapped under the carpet.
The easiest way to get employee feedback is through an employee satisfaction survey. It’s a quick and best way to know what your employee is going through and immediately act on feedback. With the help of accurate data, you’ll get a comprehensive view of what your employees think about you.
Recognize and appreciate employees
Does employer branding also talk about how you deal with employees’ achievement? How do you appreciate them? The majority of the people leave the job citing lack of appreciation and recognition. Taking the time and effort to recognize and appreciate your employees to hard work is the way best to boost employee morale.
Don’t keep achievements internal. Let people outside your organization also know about your great work culture. Newsletters and social media posts help spread information faster. You can publish employees’ achievements internally as well as externally. It shows that you care for your employee’s work-life balance and value them as a resource.
While recognizing employees, do consider the support staff. It will balance internal communication. Moreover, it will show that your organization isn’t biased in appreciating employees from the support department. Recognizing employees at the right time also helps in employee retention.
Build measurable goals
There are ways to communicate with employees. Internal communication through emails, newsletters, or polls is an essential metric to deliver instant messaging. Keeping track of all these metrics will help you understand what’s working and what’s not working. You can A/B test each of the metrics to see which subject line performed and which didn’t.
To set a classic employer branding to attract new employees, you might want to build measurable goals. It could be either employee engagement activities, one-to-one feedback channels, or anything that can increase employee engagement. When you’ve set-up goals for yourself, you can work towards them and enhance it further.
You can improve internal communications by tracking it either through Gmail, or Outlook. Another way to improve is through an online survey, polls, or newsletters tracking.
Keep employees informed
Keeping your employees abreast of what’s happening within the organization and outside is an essential factor in employer branding. You can update your employees through different channels depending on their preferred mode of communication. You can use a single email message to all, or slack message to internal employees, or a different method to employees on the field.
To ensure information is cascaded to all employees every week, you can set a schedule weekly on Outlook or Gmail, or create a reminder the same day every week so that employees know what’s happening internally. Part of internal communication also means letting other employees know who joined, who left, and internal job postings.
If your employees are scattered across geographies, finding a common channel to let them know about the latest news in the organization will showcase how much you care for them.
Sync employer branding with internal communications
Building a steady employer brand that speaks highly about you will attract job-seekers and retain the existing ones. The cost of hiring and training a new employee is as good as three months’ salary paid to an existing employee. Not to forget the expense to let existing talent leave is also high and can mount pressure on the business revenue.
Internal communication breaks the ice between the employee and the management and fosters a better relationship. By inspiring and motivating your employees to participate in an open and non-judgmental environment, you will receive honest feedback. Such feedback will help you concentrate more on areas of improvement.
By linking employer branding to internal communications, employees feel a part of the organization. Appreciating them for even their smallest efforts will make them feel wow at the workplace.
Conclusion
Make employer branding as a part of your work culture. Know your brand values and their roles in shaping employee experience. Establish goals that will tell you what worked and what didn’t. Make feedback a two-way communication process. Encode and decode the internal messages for employee’s betterment. Keep employees aware of the latest news, information, or during crisis or pandemic. Keep a day or time every week to dispense information. Encourage employees to take part in open feedback forums actively. Ensure employees that feedback they share is confidential and anonymous. Accept and embrace employee recognition at all levels and wherever applicable.
About the Author
Rose Moore is a strategic HR generalist professional with expertise in HR Operations, Compensation & Benefits, Business Partnering, Labor Laws, Talent Acquisition and Development Activities. A voracious reader, you will almost always find me reading or digging information on the latest trends, collating articles on trending software and solutions, reading the why’s and how’s of a phenomenon.