An employer brand is the key to attracting candidates and retaining employees.
As a small business leader or communications professional, you're probably familiar with the importance of a strong brand strategy that grows revenue and improves customer retention. But what about an employer brand to attract top talent?
Many small businesses need help to hire and retain talented individuals—especially for competitive, specialized roles—and having an employer brand in place is the key to attracting and retaining top talent.
In this article, we'll discuss the importance of an employer branding strategy and its role in your recruitment process.
What is employer branding?
Employer branding is the reputation you have among current employees, potential workers, and the overall industry. It's the image your organization cultivates and maintains and is directly related to your company culture, values, work environment, employee benefits, and more.
For small to midsize businesses, employer branding is an opportunity to craft a distinct, memorable place in the minds of your employees and potential talent. A strong employer brand allows smaller businesses to compete for top talent because employees are attracted to their positive work environment, culture, and work-life balance.
Even with fewer resources, small businesses can effectively communicate their unique value and benefits, helping them attract and retain top talent and drive their overall success in the market.
Importance of employer branding
The benefits of employer branding are numerous—from increased productivity to cost savings to increased retention; employer branding focuses on your company's mission, vision, values, and culture. A well–formulated employer brand helps you stand out in the talent pool, encouraging high-quality applicants and, eventually, top-performing employees.
Increased retention
A strong employee brand helps foster employee engagement, allowing employees to become your company's best advocates. According to Capterra's 2024 Collaboration and Productivity Survey, 79% of respondents agree that their organization's culture directly affects the way they do their work.* Building an attractive culture is a popular perk for potential job seekers.
Improved recruitment
Attracting top candidates is critical, and a strong employer brand makes your business appealing to job seekers. It also allows your business to stay at the top of people's minds, so when individuals start their job search, they immediately see if your business is hiring. This gives you an edge over other businesses in the recruitment process.
Strong competitive advantage
A strong employer branding strategy allows you to stand out over larger companies with more resources and your competitors. You want to be well-known for a work culture that fosters growth and development while maintaining a positive environment. Not only does this help attract top talent that will propel your business forward, but it also offers an element of cost savings, increased productivity, and more.
Employer branding strategy
Now, it's time to work through building your employer branding strategy. Start by defining your company's unique value offering, conduct a brand audit, and formalize your employee value proposition. Then, it's time to create a distribution strategy to share your employer branding with current and future employees.
Define your unique value proposition
An employer value proposition identifies your strategic direction and outlines the benefits you offer employees. It's a distinct component of your recruiting strategy and embodies how you want to be perceived by employees. Consider your company values and what you hold dear; for example, these could be a commitment to long–term professional development, inclusivity, excellence, and other values.
Conduct an employer brand audit
To begin, consider what is on your careers page on your website and external job sites. Analyze what your company is posting about on social media, your company blog, and other outlets. It's also helpful to survey employees about their impressions of your employer brand. This will give you a strong baseline of what already exists and how current employees perceive your employer brand.
Create your employee value proposition
According to Gartner, a misaligned employer brand and the company’s overall brand can start to detract from your hiring and recruiting efforts and create confusion in the minds of employees and job seekers.[1] This is the unique offering to employees in return for their experience, skills, and time and is a key component of bringing what employees want to them. Utilize your employee value proposition to guide your internal efforts, align the team, and enhance your distribution strategy.
Execute your employee branding strategy
This is where you can get creative and leverage different channels like recruitment websites, your company website, your blog, social media, and more. You can also work your employer brand into a larger part of your content marketing strategy, utilizing video interviews with employees, blog posts, and social media content to show what working for your company is like.
Your career page is an excellent place to highlight your employer brand, company values, perks and activities, and open roles. You can also introduce your employer brand to your onboarding process for new employees. On social media, experiment with employee takeovers, allowing future job seekers to see different departments and their day-to-day lives and responsibilities.
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Employer branding examples
Duolingo: During the rise of TikTok, Duolingo, a learning language app, created a character and mascot to interact with its audience on social media. The owl mascot makes jokes, interacts with employees at the office, and showcases what it's like to work at Duolingo. The funny, lighthearted character embodied the employer brand and gained massive popularity on TikTok with 8 million followers.
Google: Another top employer brand is Google. A long-standing history of a positive work environment, great employee perks, and passionate employees make Google a distinct employer brand in the minds of job seekers. Self–proclaimed "Googlers" are open to advocating for the brand and sharing videos and clips of what it's like to work at Google on social media.
Once Upon a Farm: A consumer food brand, Once Upon a Farm, is a baby and kid's food company created by actress Jennifer Garner. Employees frequently share clips and videos of working at the brand on social media, and they're passionate about their company's mission. On its website, Once Upon a Farm also showcases its parental perks like extended leave, emphasizing its commitment to family.
Software to help your employer brand strategy
In Capterra's 2023 Brand Monitoring Survey, 67% of respondents say their company uses brand reputation management software, and 69% say their company uses brand reputation management services.*
Reputation management software can help make your employer brand audit process more streamlined. These platforms help monitor, manage, and respond to customers and external audience members, allowing you to humanize your employer brand. You can also aggregate content, feedback, comments, and engagement to understand what your audience says about you online.
Improve your employer brand, increase your retention and attract talent
For small businesses, a robust and recognizable employer brand can be one of the biggest competitive advantages in recruitment and retention.
To start building your unique employer branding strategy, define your value proposition, conduct a brand audit, and execute your employee branding strategy by leveraging current employees, online reviews, video and blog content, and more.
Employer branding is paramount in competitive industries and job markets, and it's a unique opportunity for your business to improve retention and attract top talent.
For a deeper dive into employer branding strategy, check out the related resources below: