Should small or mid-size companies invest in building a strong employer brand? The answer is absolutely yes.
Small and mid-sized businesses face many challenges. One of the most overlooked challenges involves the recruitment of high-quality employees. Identifying highly skilled and competent individuals should be easy. It only involves promoting your open position on the top job sites and getting great applicants right? Not exactly.
Despite the high unemployment rates, there still exists a talent shortage and companies are finding it increasingly hard to acquire employees with the right skill and fit. With a well defined and promoted employer brand and attractive employer value proposition, your organization can compete with the big brands and attract the best pool of talent in the market.
As a business, you should always aim to consistently market and communicate your employer brand with your other recruitment marketing initiatives. Consider that 48.9 percent of all companies surveyed in the Entelo 2017 Annual Recruiting Trends Report plan to increase spending on employer branding to make their companies and open positions easier to find by candidates. Without an active employer branding program in place, 50% of the respondents say their companies risk high volumes of applicants who do not meet even the basic requirements for their jobs. Competition for highly skilled talent is at an all-time high, simply having your employer brand and employer value proposition is not enough.
Regardless of the size of your firm, or the budget allocated towards employer branding, there are a number of simple but effective tactics you can implement in the workplace to build upon and have a strong employer brand. These initiatives revolve around getting your employer brand out there more effectively for the benefit of your company. Some of these tactics include:
1. Enable Your Employees to Express Their Work Day in Real Time
A simple but effective employer brand building technique is to create a platform for employees to express and share their workday activities through social media. This sharing can be through videos, photos and messages that reveal how present employees live the brand. This dynamic content will enable potential candidates to experience the employer brand from a different perspective other than that of the employee.
2. Use More Photos to Promote Your Brand
Photos are a marketer’s best friend. They have proven to have a large impact on marketing and branding efforts due to the high levels of interaction and traffic they generate. They are a simple and inexpensive social engagement magnet like no other and you should definitely integrate them in your employer branding initiatives especially with social media marketing.
If you need more urging, consider Pinterest. The photo-based social media platform is currently the fastest growing social network and engages all generations. Additionally, Facebook posts that include a picture or album have been proven to have greater engagement levels than those without. Start today and integrate more photo’s in your communications and spread them across your social media channels.
3. Find Out What Your Employees Are Currently Saying
Find out what your current employees have to say about working for you. If it is something positive, package it and start communicating it in your recruitment marketing efforts. Should you uncover however that your employees have less than favorable reviews, seek their advice on what would make the company better for them, and improve upon your brand even further. As you are seeking to attract the best candidates to come work for you, make sure your employer brand and employee value proposition aligns to your employees perception. What they have to say about you as an Employer will hold the most weight when trying to attract and engage top candidates.
4. Promote Employee Ambassadorship
Publishing content on your companies career page or blog is essential to employer brand development, but so is actively pursuing potential candidates wherever they may be. Different industry communities exist both online and offline and present a perfect example of where talent pools can be found. Understand the persona of your target audience and know which communities they hang out at. Find out if your employees are actively involved in these communities too as they can be great ambassadors to help promote your employer brand and help you build a pool of quality talent.
5. Leverage an Employer Brand Advisor
Employer branding for small and mid-size companies have been known to be time consuming and expensive. However, that’s not entirely true. If you really want to identify and communicate your unique employer brand and increase the quality of talent applying to your jobs, there are much more cost effective options. For example, hiring a Talent Advisor who can guide you and your team in the development of your employer brand is a great way to leverage expertise and keep costs down or consider participating in a personalized employer brand workshop where you and your key stakeholders will define your unique Employer Value Proposition in just one day.
The importance of a good employer brand cannot be emphasized enough, especially in this day and age. Even though job openings today continue to increase, the unemployment rate keeps rising as the workforce supply is greater than the demand. CBC News reports that Canada’s economy created 55,000 jobs in May – tripling analysts’ forecast – yet the unemployment rate still rose to 6.6%. With a unique,, and attractive employer value proposition that aligns to your company’s mission and vision, you will be on track to attract and engage the right talent your organization needs to grow your business.
If you want to learn more about these simple and effective tactics or other cost effective ideas to build your employer brand and attract top talent, contact ADVANCE Human Capital Solutions today.
Written and published by Colette O’Neill