When I was younger, I was really interested in working with internal communication. It was fun but over the years I moved more and more towards external and digital communication. Lately I have been drawn back to a similar field – employer branding.
I have worked with branding of course for years, having been a marketer in global companies with well established branding guidelines but also as a small business owner, I got to create the branding from scratch. Mostly however my job has been more about protecting the brand, educating others about its importance and the design system used and finding ways to apply it in new situations/conditions.
Branding however is not only about the visuals. It is also about what you say and do. It’s about the impression it leaves in the minds of others that you come in contact with. Even though corporate and product branding can bring in a lot of money, your business can fall like a house of cards if your employer branding is off. After all, the team behind each business is what makes the wheels go around.
I find employer branding so important and interesting because it concerns so many people and such big parts of our lives. You can have the coolest toothbrush and love the branding around it but you can easily just switch it out tomorrow without thinking twice. But work – that is something that takes up more than a third of our waking hours and changing work can be a time and energy consuming hassle. Does branding fix working conditions? Probably not. But can it help assemble and retain a well fitting team? I truly believe it can.
Employer branding is so much more than recruitment marketing though it is a part of it. It is also what happens after you have signed a contract. Does the first impression as an employee match what was portrayed before? What about when you are a seasoned team member already? Or when you have decided to move on? Does it still feel like the same company that you joined with high hopes? Are they nice all the way?
To me employer branding is very much connected to integrity and belonging. It is about a company standing for its communicated values and keeping its promises. It is about treating everyone the same with respect. Employers can be very different but the important thing is staying true to yourself to find your people. There is no point in branding your company as warm and fuzzy when you really are a rather straight to the point team. And there is also no reason to advertise yourself as daredevils if you try to consider every possible scenario and get everyone on board before making any decision.
Maybe you will get lucky and your new team members are positively surprised by the difference of advertisement vs reality but more likely you will waste a lot of time and money on recruitment and re-recruitment.
I would really like to dig deeper into companies’ values. Not just what the bosses think but what do the middle managers feel and what do the assistants and customer facing staff find as best and worse parts of the workplace. Understanding that would be super valuable though I am sure that hearing the truth might not be easily achieved nor digested. It is however the starting point of creating an authentic employer brand as well as a guide for improvements. Perhaps it is about all loving the company’s mission or the owner’s passion? Or the fun activities and helpful teammates? Friendly competition? But perhaps all that also means long hours and a threath of burning out?
We are all different and that is a good thing but different things attract different people. We might value a variety of things as well as be stressed about different issues. I would rather keep the communication honest but hopeful and let potential new team members know about the company’s strengths as well as weaknesses and how they are dealt with so that they can get a good idea of what they are getting into.