Irresistible through employer branding

After all, it is the sum of all the experiences and expressions spread by the organisation and its employees over the past few years. After all, an employer brand is the same as a corporate brand. Only focusing on the employer brand as experienced by current, new, future and former employees.

So you don't create a brand, you already have one. So does an employer brand. A strong employer brand stands out and activates. It is authentic: matching the organisation's work values and everyday reality. A distinctive employer brand gives an organisation its own voice and sound. It creates an extra strong recognisability in the labour market. It is the magnet for attracting and retaining the right kind of talent. Your brand comes to life in all your communication with this target group. Of course, you may express a certain ambition. However, the gap with reality should not be too big.

Employer branding is not an end in itself. It is a means to attract and retain talent. Building a distinctive employer brand therefore helps organisations find, win and retain the right employees in an authentic and eye-catching way. You show future employees why it is nice to work for you. In addition, it gives current employees a clear direction and motivation to develop themselves within your organisation and contribute to company objectives.

It is not only interesting in times of scarcity or for organisations in a tight labour market. Even when the supply of talent is high, as an organisation you still want to recruit the best and right candidates. Matching the culture and ambition level of the organisation. A pool that, by definition, is not very wide. And even in times when work has to be done with fewer people, keeping your talent engaged and inspired is of enormous importance. A strong employer brand increases the engagement of current employees and reduces staff turnover to 28% (LinkedIn business, 2011).

Promoting your organisation through roadside bus shelters. Attracting talent via job ads in the newspaper. Valuable routes, but these days not enough to attract the right talent. The Dutchman (about 94%) lives online and this usage will only increase in the coming years (CBS, 2019). As a result, online employer branding and online job marketing are indispensable components of your overall labour market campaign. Besides the enormous reach, online campaigning offers you several advantages. For instance, you can target certain target groups very specifically, proactively seek interaction with talent and adapt your message for each target group or moment.

A good online campaign requires specialism. And even targeted job marketing cannot do without knowledge of various online channels and knowing where active and latent candidates are in that online world. After all, you load and maintain an employer brand on multiple moments and channels. It goes beyond simply putting a post on your LinkedIn page or posting a vacancy on a career site. Of course these things help, but loading your employer brand requires continuous attention and visibility with all target groups. Focusing only on active jobseekers is insufficient to attract real talent and become an employer of choice. If you are regularly positively visible as an employer, the acceptance rate is higher at the time of application.

By using the right online channels and layering communication, you don't just communicate. You also activate. We recommend applying three levels for employer branding communication: attention, interaction and proof. This way, you create relevance for the target group and get them moving. It thus has a direct effect on the success of your job marketing activities.

So too for Detron, where we managed to win over the hard-to-reach IT target group for Detron in an approachable and humorous way. In the first campaign quarter, more than 2,000 visitors were introduced to Detron's unique work values via the interactive tool. The number of applicants also increased significantly.

"To bind inside is to find outside". A quote we often use to illustrate the importance of loading your employer brand internally. Because pretty pictures and talk might help you find talent. But if you don't live up to it inside, you probably won't keep them for long. If you do succeed, you have a chance of creating real ambassadors. Colleagues who are so enthusiastic about the organisation that they are a magnet for other talent. Talent that can continue to develop within your organisation. Talent that, as mentioned, helps you achieve ambitious business objectives.

But how do you create true ambassadors? First of all by drawing up a good internal employer branding strategy, in which components such as an inspiring goal, goalsetting and team development are important elements. Next, the trick is to communicate this in the right way internally, because internal communication often turns out to be the critical success factor when it comes to increasing employee engagement and thus creating ambassadors within your organisation. Need help making such a plan? Check our Whitepaper Labour market communication plan on 1 A4.

Recruiting new talent through one's own ambassador network, or referral recruitment, is a very powerful tool within employer branding. The quality of the candidates presented is high, the recruitment costs and turnover of these employees lower. It is therefore of enormous importance to encourage ambassadors in your organisation. Often the willingness is high, but people lack the resources or knowledge to act as ambassadors. Importantly, people need to feel secure in that role. A good ambassador or referral programme helps with this.

The starting point of your employer brand is the 'work-at-home' website. The ultimate calling card for your organisation as an employer. A good work-at-home website is separate from your corporate website and ensures that you recruit the right people for your organisation. More and more organisations recognise the importance of such a website, but still do not use it enough to highlight their true employer of choice. In many cases, the site lacks the why, the real culture and the interesting, fascinating and surprising examples of working at the organisation. The emphasis is still too often on the vacancies with all the technical specifications such as primary and secondary benefits and what kind of tricks someone has to be able to do. Of course, this information should be correct (and our advice is to make it candidate and future-oriented), but it is not a priority when you want to communicate your attractive employer proposition. Therefore, use the honest and up-to-date image that employees have of the organisation and take a critical look at the 'working at' website. Assess the extent to which you sincerely and authentically entice new talent to join you. Let current employees 'have their say'. And finally, take a good look at the competition to discover what makes you distinctive.

A very interesting addition for your 'work-at-home' site is a recent development, in the form of a chatbot. Why? This virtual colleague works 24/7. This way, job applicants can get instant answers to frequently asked questions even on Saturday afternoons. It could hardly be more candidate-focused.