According to research by Ciphr, talent retention is the biggest challenge facing UK employers - underscoring the need for a compelling employer brand that positions your company as the employer of choice in an increasingly competitive market.
Like consumer brands, great employer brands require deep insight on audiences, core proposition, narrative and compelling communications. Here at Luminous, we use our Employer Brand Scorecard to assess five dimensions to understand what works well and where the gaps are. Below we explore these dimensions in more detail – from audience segmentation to measuring your employer brand.
The five dimensions of a strong employer brand
To effectively communicate your employer brand, it’s crucial to understand your target audience. And by target audience, we mean the people who have the ideal skills for your company, not just any random job seeker. By understanding what motivates your ideal employees, you can tailor your employer brand to the right candidates. It’s worthwhile spending time researching and analysing the demographics, preferences and motivations of the talent you want to attract. We find it useful to create detailed target candidate personas, as it not only helps you better understand the people you want to hire – it will also help you craft a compelling Employee Value Proposition (EVP) that stands out.
Your EVP is the foundation for your talent strategy, articulating the guiding principles that underpin your culture. It addresses questions such as ‘What makes us special?’, ‘Why join us?’, ‘Why stay with us?’ and ‘What we expect in return’. It should have a combination of financial compensation, benefits, work-life balance, career development opportunities and culture. In summary, it sets out ‘the deal’.
As you go through this exercise, you should ensure that it aligns with your external brand, too. And, if necessary, you may find that you need to review your external brand: who you are, your purpose and your narrative. Once this is clear, you can craft what this means to talent and answer the key question, ‘Why should someone choose us as an employer?’.
It’s essential that your employer brand projects the right tone, message and look. This starts with developing your tone of voice, messaging, design and imagery to frame your EVP and communication to ensure they stand out. Tone of voice and messaging are all about how you express your employer brand’s personality. Without guidance, your communication runs the risk of becoming unclear, inconsistent and – at worst – unengaging. Guidance full of examples is usually helpful – making it real and applicable to your organisation. When it comes to imagery, real employee images and stories are critical to communicating a strong employer brand.
Without good content, you can’t really tell your story, and that makes it difficult for talent to understand what life at your organisation is like.
You should consider a mix across digital, print, motion and physical assets, but beware of trying to do too much (a common pitfall). Having a content strategy that is guided by your employer brand strategy will help you create content that is relevant and aligned to your EVP. As a tip from us here at Luminous, we know that visual content is powerful as well as featuring real stories from your employees, offering a glimpse into your culture and ways of working.
Tracking and measuring your employer brand should be baked into the process from the beginning. You can do it by, for example, looking at levels of employee engagement, applications, acceptance rates and new hire retention rate. Long term, you can track levels of employer brand awareness, consideration and preference. Don’t assume that everything is static – your EVP, messaging and content will most likely need to be refreshed from time to time. Measurement helps you adapt to a changing marketplace, competition and talent preferences.
When it comes to building a strong employer brand, each of these five dimensions is important. The Luminous employer brand scorecard helps you determine how well you’re doing today and where you can improve. Take the survey here.
For more information, please contact Anna Tugetam.