How to Build a Strong Employer Brand That Attracts the Right People

Brand is as important to employees as it is to consumers, learn how to build an employer brand that brings in the right team members to drive your company culture.

Technology, process design, and marketing can make or break any business in today’s marketplace, but nothing would be possible without the right employees to execute it.

 

It’s imperative to create the work environment, company culture, and career opportunities that foster professional growth.

When brands succeed in doing this, they retain the talent they need to execute long-term plans effectively.

In this article, we’ll cover five important factors of a strong employer brand that attracts the right people.

Improve Your Employees’ Work-Life Balance

Employers often focus on offering employee perks and compensation as rewards for contributions to a business’s success, but the top factor for many is their work-life balance.

This concern is at the top of the list for many Gen X and Millennial professionals who want to live a healthy as well as a productive life.

Work-life balance involves flexible work schedules, the willingness to allow remote work arrangements, and making allowances for family events and needs.

Employers can also create a healthy work environment by promoting healthy employee lifestyles. Gym memberships, charity events, a smoke-free workplace, and meditation rooms are all ways that many employers do this.

It also helps to not expect more than employees are able to deliver in their work projects.

Forcing top talent to work excessive hours to meet unrealistic deadlines is a sure way to drive them away in the long run.

Compensate Employees Fairly

This principle goes without saying, but it also gets over-emphasized in the minds of employers who are battling growing overhead costs.

Employees expect a fair salary and benefits for their level of experience and profession.

Many workers also expect recognition for their achievements to come in the form of raises.

The mistake employers often make, however, is to assume they can compensate employees for a poor work environment by giving them a compensation premium.

This tactic rarely succeeds because work-life balance trumps salary for most people.

Compensation can take alternative forms other than salary and traditional benefits.

Rewards for meeting professional goals, both on the individual and team level, can fit into competitive or innovative company culture.

Such incentives can motivate employees to strive to think outside the box and discover new ways for your business to succeed. Such rewards need to be carefully managed, though, to avoid incentivizing unintended behaviors.

Promote and Hire inside the Company

Talented employees expect to have opportunities for advancement inside of a company, especially if they begin in entry-level positions.

When their contributions don’t lead to promotions or openings aren’t available inside the company, they will eventually take their skills and experience somewhere else.

The best way to combat this pattern is to regularly offer new positions to candidates inside the company before or concurrently with talent searches outside of the company.

Promotions to positions that give employees new responsibilities and challenges are also an avenue for professional growth for those with less experience.

As they gain experience and professional skills, they need to take on new challenges to advance to the next level.

Companies that leave employees in the same entry-level positions for years will lose those who have the drive to improve themselves, which is the opposite of any good HR policy.

Create a Company Culture that Promotes Your Mission

Company culture is a social phenomenon that is easy to perceive when you begin working for a new employer, and yet it can also difficult to define.

Many companies lack an intentional and cohesive culture, so their workplace culture varies from location to location. What can be detrimental is a culture that doesn’t promote the company’s mission.

It’s important that management establishes the basic aspects of the company’s culture and promote them.

An effective way to do this is to build a professional culture around the mission of the business.

For example, a company that strives to provide the highest quality products to its customers should promote a culture of implementing ideas for improvement from its employees.

Companies that do this will be nimbler and naturally evolve towards the most effective and efficient way to operate.

By the same token, a business that needs to bring new ideas to the market should create a culture that promotes creativity to attract talent that thinks outside of the box.

 

Design a Workplace that Matches Your Culture

The physical workplace sets the tone for the day-to-day experience of a company’s employees.

That tone should dovetail with the company culture and brand. If it doesn’t, employees will feel the dissonance and lose morale over time.

On the other hand, a workplace that re-enforces a company’s culture will underscore the legitimacy of its brand. It’s a clear way of demonstrating that the company puts its philosophy into action.

A good example of this is the workplace design that Airbnb put into place to support its mission “to create a world where you belong anywhere.”

To support that mission, the company created a workplace that’s designed to make employees feel at home. The layout of their offices resembles that of homestead apartments.

Companies that give their workplaces a makeover with an intentional theme that fits their brand will improve employee engagement.

Final Thoughts

In today’s competitive employment market, companies that ensure that their employer brand attracts the talent they need are more likely to succeed.

Employee perks and compensation is how you begin defining a positive employer brand. The workplace’s culture and physical design are next and play an essential part in driving employee engagement.

When your current employees can settle into fulfilling careers, they’ll help create a positive reputation and employer brand that attracts new talent like themselves.

Every business plan begins with the people who execute it, and a company’s employer brand determine who they will be.