Engage, retain, attract, delight: How to use your employer brand to connect

Who are you as an employer, and why should people care?

These are the questions you ask yourself when you set out to showcase an authentic employer brand that helps your organisation facilitate positive interactions with top talent. Build your employer brand well, and you can create a thriving team, and an environment where the happy employees can do their best work. 

Wondering what it really takes to build a successful employer brand and what results you can expect for your team? Find out how you can prepare to engage, retain, attract, and delight great talent.

What is employer brand, and why is it so important?

Your employer brand exists in every facet of your business. It’s how your employees experience working for you. It’s how they feel. It’s culture, leadership, communication, and purpose combined. It is the voice of your employees and their stories.

Employer brand impacts engagement, retention, and critically, recruitment.

Even when you’re not hiring, your employer brand has recruitment power. A proactive and authentic employer brand creates connection, internally and externally. An authentic, well-managed employer brand gives people a reason to watch your organisation and apply next time a role becomes available. 

At the centre of  your employer brand is your employee value proposition, or EVP. What can you give your employees that they won’t find anywhere else? Why should they choose your organisation and this job?

The result? With a well-communicated employer brand, you’ll have plenty of choice when it’s time to grow your team, and in the meantime, you’ll benefit from motivated, collaborative people who care about outcomes.

Your employer brand purpose

Your employer brand is underpinned by four purpose pillars. Your goal is to build a brand that helps your organisation engage, retain, attract, and delight great talent. 

Engage

Did you know that only 17% of employees worldwide are engaged at work?

Lots of research points to the connection between engagement and important factors including morale, motivation, productivity, profitability and loyalty.

Retain

According to Gallup research, 52% of exiting employees believe their leader could have done something to keep them on board. 

Yet talent retention is a key concern for leaders around the world. Aside from the time and cost of employee turnover, better talent retention creates community and improves work and non-work outcomes.

How can you retain talent? Seek feedback from your employees, and listen to their needs. Act on employee concerns, and provide flexibility when it’s needed.

Attract

A proactive employer brand is your competitive advantage when it comes to talent attraction. But even before you need to hire, your employer brand can start marketing your organisation and appealing to the right people talent. With a strong employer brand, you can hire faster and get more qualified, appropriate applicants.

Effective employer brand and talent marketing will help you find skilled, engaged long-term employees who have what it takes to make a difference at your organisation. 
A key aspect of your employer brand is people stories. 

In an era when only 12% of candidates put trust in what employers say about themselves, companies must increasingly rely on their employees to be their spokespeople on the employee experience.

- Harvard Business Review

As many as 71% of workers rely on peer referrals when deciding where to pursue their next career opportunity..

Delight

Employee experience has the power to make or break your team’s performance, business outcomes and talent retention. When 80% of your employees feel that they work for purpose, you could see a 29% quality improvement!

When you proactively manage your employer brand in a way that is designed to delight the people who make your work possible, you can make the most of better employee engagement, as well as enhanced talent attraction and retention strategies. 

How can you delight employees? Provide a positive environment, and offer opportunities for people to make a difference. Give your employees the balance, flexibility, and support they need to achieve their full professional potential. 

Build your employer brand 

With major talent challenges facing leaders today, so don’t wait until you need talent. Start working on your brand now! 

If you’d like help curating your employer brand and talent marketing, contact Heart, and discover our new employer brand offer.