When people talk about 'brand', they're usually referring to how a business is perceived externally (or how it wants to be perceived) to customers. It's right that your external image and voice should form a crucial part of your brand strategy, but to focus on this alone suggests that no other factors influence your brand. Whilst this has been true in the past, when consumers were more easily influenced by marketing messages, it is no longer applicable today.
In today's world, information is in abundance and consumers are demanding more transparency from the brands they engage with. It's not enough to rely solely on external communications to build your brand – consumers also want to know about the inner workings of your business, your reputation as a place of work, your culture and your values.
Building this employer brand is integral to having a successful brand strategy overall, but what are the tangible benefits you can stand to gain from focussing some time and energy inward?
The businesses that have caught on to today's consumer and their demand for transparency are using it to their advantage. By giving equal importance to internal image and employer brand and showing this to consumers, you give your audience other reasons to love your brand, above and beyond the product or service you're providing. You can use this to bolster your external reputation, winning brand loyalty and improving your business' success in the process.
Recent studies suggest that after location and opportunities for career development, the external image of an employer is the third most important factor to candidates when choosing their next role. As talent is becoming harder to attract and even harder to retain, having a solid employer brand helps to ensure you attract employees who appreciate your internal culture and are much more likely to be the right fit from the start.
Being an attractive brand for prospective employees means you're naturally going to attract a larger pool of skilled individuals. This means you can have your pick of the bunch – candidates will have to work harder to earn a place in your business. A strong employer brand also gives you bargaining power, arming you with other benefits to leverage when negotiating with candidates. It no longer becomes a conversation simply about hygiene factors like salary and holiday entitlement, and instead about getting to work for a brand with an amazing internal culture and workplace.
A crucial benefit of investing in your employer brand is cost savings. Having an audience of candidates who are already aware of you and your employer brand means you're naturally going to spend less on expensive recruitment processes, as they will come to you direct.
When a business completely understands its employees and builds a platform for them to thrive and an employer brand for them to invest in, you will earn their loyalty. Loyalty is crucial in motivating your employees to keep performing and give their best at all times. Lower staff attrition also helps to keep teams consistent, build skill and retain faith in your brand and business.
Whether you're a business with only a small team, or a large organisation with multiple teams, you need to be thinking about your employer brand as part of your overall brand strategy. Hopefully we've given you some reasons to do it, and if you'd like to learn more about our process or talk to us about one of our free brand audits, get in touch with us here.