Employer Brand – Definition, Strategy, Positioning, and Examples [Ultimate Guide]

If you were pressed to talk about your employer brand, would you be able to do so?

Sure, it’s something you know is important, but if you think about it honestly, do you actually know what your employer brand is and how you can infiltrate this through your company culture?

Companies often lose sight of this aspect of their business since they are too focused on their target audience and selling the product or service.

However, employees, job seekers, and talents form a significant target audience for a company too. They require a different approach and messaging, and every company needs to position itself positively in the minds of its current and future employees.

For that reason, we have crafted this ultimate guide on employer brand and branding, in which we will walk you through:

What is an employer brand?
What is an EVP or employer value proposition?
Why is employer brand important, or the benefits of the employer brand.
Who should be in charge of the employer brand?
How to develop the employer brand – the in-depth process of employer branding.
Roadblocks to employer brand success.
Examples of some of the greatest employer brands.
And excellent tools that can help you to improve your employer branding.

Let’s begin!

What is an employer brand?

An employer brand is effectively the way that both your potential employers and key stakeholders see your company. It’s all about what ideas conjure up in their mind when they think about your company and what views they have of it.

Just because it says, “ethical” on your internal values document doesn’t mean that’s what Mr. Joe Bloggs thinks when you ask him what you’re about – and that’s the point.

It’s about understanding how you’re perceived as an employer and taking steps to align with how you want to be perceived.

Think of yourself as a close-knit community in which everyone’s valued, but your Glassdoor reviews say otherwise? I’m afraid, in the world of employer branding, they’re right, and you’re wrong.

What you think really doesn’t matter. What your current and future employees think, en masse, does. They define who you are.

What is an EVP – employer value proposition

Simply put, the employer value proposition tells the employees why they should work for you.

It showcases everything that you can offer as an employer in exchange for all the skills, experience, contacts, and knowledge that employees can bring to you.

EVP should effectively communicate the company’s values, mission and vision, and culture.

A well-crafted, strong employer value proposition can help companies not only attract but also engage potential employees, as well as re-engage and motivate the existing workforce.

Developing EVP is not easy, and your company needs to have well-established and defined culture, benefits, and mission to create it. And even then, EVP shouldn’t just bluntly state the benefits and other things the company offers. It should be crafted into a compelling story that will attract people to work for the company.

Here’s a small checklist of things you should keep in mind when creating the EVP:

Company culture
Values
Mission and Vision
Management style
Employee benefits, like healthcare, insurance, vacations, childcare, paid meals during the work time.
Worktime flexibility
Company’s location
Quality of work
Work-life balance
Bonuses
Job security
Salary
Career development options

Why is employer brand important?

Companies with strong employer brands will always find they have a higher number of applicants per job role, meaning a higher number of top candidates.

You are then at the advantage of having a large selection of candidates to choose from, and you can afford to be pickier when it comes to selecting which candidate is right for you.

The research claims that through effective employer-branding, businesses can improve the quality of the group of candidates they have by 54% and the quality of those they hire by 9%.

A strong company brand can be the difference between your customers choosing to work with you or them seeking to look for opportunities elsewhere.

Increasing your budget on recruitment campaigns is brilliant for the short term, but long term, you need to put measures in place to ensure you don’t lose out on the top candidates to companies with stronger employer brands.

68% say they’d accept a lower salary if the employer created a great impression through the hiring process. The inherent challenge is that 29% of job seekers don’t think employers do a good job of reinforcing why their companies are an excellent place to work.

Moreover, 83% of employees said that they would leave their current positions if they were offered to work at a company with a better reputation.

Investing in employer brand can cut down your recruiting costs