From the course: Employer Branding to Attract Talent

Factors that influence employer brands

From the course: Employer Branding to Attract Talent

Factors that influence employer brands

- Let me ask you something. You probably know of a company that has a reputation for churning people. If you received a call from a head hunter asking you to consider a job there, would you leap at that opportunity? I'm guessing your answer would be a no. There are lots of job openings out there. Record low levels of unemployment mean there aren't enough people to fill all the open jobs and candidates can be selective when it comes to choosing their next employer. So your employer brand, your reputation, has to be top notch if you want to hire top people. A company's turnover rate is just one internal factor that can have a huge influence on how a company's employer brand is perceived in the marketplace. Take time to review your hiring requirements. Have you become so desperate that you'll hire anyone who walks in the door? If so, stop. Filling jobs with warm bodies is never an effective strategy and will only lead to more turnover. Another internal factor that impacts employer brands is the hiring process itself. For example, does your company have a reputation for taking way too long to make a hiring decision? This can damage your employer brand. Look at who's involved in the hiring decisions and remove those people who aren't essential to the process. Employee absenteeism is another internal factor that influences employer brands. I used to work in a department where there were high levels of absenteeism, which meant each of us were basically doing two jobs. As a result, stress levels rose which in turn led to more absenteeism. There wasn't a single person in our department who was willing to recommend our workplace to others. While this company was investing heavily in their recruitment plans, they forgot one basic rule of employer branding. Take care of your current staff, and your employer brand will shine. If they had just attempted to fix the employee absenteeism problem, we would have done our share to help attract more new people. The employee experience impacts your employer brand a lot. All those stock photos of happy faces pasted on your career page won't be able to cover the negative employer reviews and chatter on social media that unhappy employees are posting. Companies who pay as much attention to the employee experience as they do the customer experience have stronger employer brands than those who don't. To improve the employee experience, ask your employees if they'd recommend your company as a place to work. If someone hesitates or says no, ask, why not? Make a list of the feedback you receive, then choose one or two things from the list that will have the most impact and move them forward a mile rather than selecting 10 things and only moving them forward an inch. Do this consistently and you'll increase employee satisfaction, improve retention, attract higher quality candidates, and your employer brand will grow stronger everyday.

Contents