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How to build an effective employer brand to attract talent

Building a great culture helps you retain talent and attract great new talent

Great culture has great employee referral programmes and actively endorse their cultures externally as a Great Place to Work. File photograph: Getty
Great culture has great employee referral programmes and actively endorse their cultures externally as a Great Place to Work. File photograph: Getty
Thu Aug 26 2021 - 15:00

It is important to take a strategic approach to building an employer brand and once you are clear on your strategy and targets you can build an effective employer value proposition

When remote working first came in ‘It felt in some ways like the world was falling apart,’ says Yvonne Frost of Poppulo
When remote working first came in ‘It felt in some ways like the world was falling apart,’ says Yvonne Frost of Poppulo

The war to get and retain talent in the tech industry is raging and employers need to be on their game to win that war. 

[ The Irish Times ePaper ]

Defining a strategy

First of all you need to know your target audience and the talent segment you want to attract along with where your talent audience is located.

Once you know your talent target you can develop compelling reasons why this talent should come and work for you – this is your employee value proposition. Is it that you provide great developing programmes? Is it that you have a great wellbeing strategy for people?

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Once you have the reasons you can figure out the ideal medium to target the talent, social media, grad fairs etc.

HR and marketing should work with each other to develop this approach

Building clear and accurate metrics are important for your strategy to ensure you are hiring talent at the right quantity and the right quality.

As talent attraction is such an important need for your organisation, do you have someone responsible for its success?

Building a compelling employee value proposition for talent

Given the war for talent out there and the digital overload, how can you ensure that your employer brand stands out against competitors, how can we ensure that you reach your talent audience with what your company offers. Creating a compelling “why” talent should choose your organisation is a must.

Your EVP, or your employee value proposition, can act as this “why” for attracting talent so how do you create this.

So how do you develop your EVP?

Look internally, look at what you currently do well for your existing employees – do you have a good wellbeing approach, do you have good progression opportunities, do you have an exciting portfolio of clients that talent will work with.

An employee experience survey such as the Great Place to Work survey will highlight your key strengths and help you develop your EVP. It is typical for great workplaces to have defined three or four key attributes to make up their EVP. Once you have your employee value proposition defined you can then communicate and storytell externally your unique employer offering to the talent market.

Your employer brand promise needs to match the reality of your culture

It is so important that when talent joins your organisation they experience a culture that they were promised at the talent attraction stage. If we say that we are an innovative workplace then it is important that creativity is harnessed. If we say that we offer great development opportunities for talent then talent must experience opportunities to grow and be stimulated. The welcome and onboarding needs to be a great experience for talent as first impressions last.

Remember your organisation does not need to be perfect (there is no such thing) but talent should experience an organisation that is on an improvement journey and actively working on its culture.

Employee Advocacy

Over 90 per cent of new talent research online their future workplace long before application or any interview. Great cultures create great ambassadors who actively promote their work culture online.

Talent does not want to hear from chief executive’s talking about how great the company is, they want to hear from their peers about their lived work experience.

This is an important step in how talent forms a view about their potential new employer. Talent actively checks linkedin and glassdoor for posts. They also look for third party validations such as whether an organisation is a best workplace or not.

If your existing employees are happy with their current experience in work than they could become your greatest ambassadors to attract talent

Great culture has great employee referral programmes and actively endorse their cultures externally as a Great Place to Work.

Best workplaces are based on the actual lived employee experience of employees, they use the Great Place to Work framework to measure and improve their culture. This allows them to go to the talent market with an authentic employer brand promise and helps them win in the war for talent.

Great employer brands are developed out of the lived employee experience of current employees and can flex and adapt overtime as talent requirements change.