Employer brand has become a key strategic lever for attracting, motivating, and retaining talent. In an increasingly competitive labour market, a strong employer brand must not only reflect the company’s values and culture, but also attract candidates. Once the employer brand has been defined, the hard part begins: ensuring that internal teams embody the employee experience.
A well-defined employer brand is key
Defining the employer brand is about more than just creating a catchy slogan and launching a recruitment campaign. It is a powerful approach that, when well-executed, provides a detailed view of the perks and drawbacks of the organization as an employer, including:
- Main attraction factors
- Strengths and limitations of the current employee experience
- Employer positioning—your vision of the employee experience (your promise)
- Preferred HR communication channels
- Employer brand (slogan and related concepts)
- Components to maximize attraction, engagement, and retention
- Real-life evidence that supports your statements and positions (practices, processes, activities, etc.)
The employer brand and positioning serve as a framework for HR, guiding the consolidation or implementation of practices that are aligned with the employee experience.
The real challenge
The desired employee experience will only come to life once most members of the organization embody it.
While certain aspects of this are already in practice, they need to be implemented throughout the organization. Common causes of discrepancies include:
- Diversity of departments and entities that make up the organization
- Different management styles
- Types of positions within the organization
- Inconsistencies in past practices or policies
The importance of coherence
Even though the employer brand and positioning represent the employee experience of the majority of your team, key steps must still be taken to ensure that the positioning is consistent and trustworthy:
- Ensure that the entire organization takes ownership of the employer brand and positioning so that its members can become ambassadors.
- Ensure that leaders adapt their management style to align the employee experience with the organization’s ambitions.
- Plan necessary adjustments to current HR practices that relate to the employee experience. This process typically takes several years.
- Create or strengthen moments of truth by adapting them to your employer brand.
Far from being a superficial approach, identifying the employer brand should be the first step in developing an HR strategy to improve an organization’s attraction, mobilization, and retention of talent. This will impact every practice within the organization, as investments to improve the employee experience will have tangible results across the board. Thus, a strong employer brand helps strengthen the organization’s performance and ensure its sustainability.
