- January 8, 2020
- Posted by: Sharon Lam
- Categories: Brand Identity, Culture, Management Consulting, Marketing & Sales, Operations, People, Planning, Psychology
Employee Branding should be a part of your overall branding strategy. Good branding gives your business the ability to share just how your company stands out from the rest to give you that extra edge above your competition. Company Branding is a way to establish your business as being knowledgeable in your industry, gain your customer’s support and build trust in your products and services. The benefits of good branding are definitely attractive.
Most consumers would be familiar with company branding – familiar slogans slung around until they’re hopefully household names. But branding doesn’t need to stop here. There have been recorded benefits of building a strong employer brand as well. A strong employer brand can also boost and define your company culture. E.g. Your boss and CEO being an altruistic good-guy with a great head on their shoulders and well-known for their respect for employee benefits. That just sends out an atmosphere of trust to job candidates, industry specialists, stakeholders, and the general public.
The question is, can you push the benefits of branding even deeper?
Employee Branding
What is employee branding? Is it merely how your company is perceived by your current and potential employees. It may extend to how your employee’s attitude toward your brand conveys to the public.
Like employer branding, employee branding is also involved in presenting the company in the best possible light in front of your stakeholders. This could mean future employees, current employees, job candidates, your customers, sponsors; everyone involved in your business can be affected by your employee brand.
That’s because employee branding is the process of getting your employees to believe who your company is, and what your company represents. They breathe your values, connect to your mission, judge their job, live in your company environment… and hopefully love it. Then, after absorbing your company mission and atmosphere, they go home and share it through their social circles and word of mouth. Your brand, therefore, spreads organically, creating feedback into how your company is seen by all the people invested in you.
Employee branding comes from the first-hand experience of your workers. Just like how the reviews and who we are sections of sites and brands are some of the most-viewed pages whenever a prospector wishes to feel out whether they want to invest or buy, your employee’s collective word-of-mouth can also boost the brand you want to build. Gossiping about your own life is something everyone does in some way or another – and employee branding means taking that into awareness and turning it into an employable strategy.
Of course, if your employee brand contrasts sharply with the public image you’re actively building (for example, you advertise great employee benefits that all your employees loudly disagree with), then your campaigns to advocate the opposite will definitely suffer, alongside a sharp decrease of trust. However, well-managed employee branding can’t be underestimated. Organisations with strong employee branding can turn each and every one of your employees (from interns to upper management) into powerful brand ambassadors.
How can I manage my Employee Brand?
Maintaining employee branding often comes alongside being fair, trustworthy, and doing what you preach. Taking care to fulfil promises, give benefits, provide an engaging work culture and environment keeps employee branding healthy. It also has a side-benefit for increasing motivation and productivity, improving employee loyalty, and attract and secure the best talent for your company.
An MIT Sloan Management Review article speaks of how social media posts by employees can be seen as more trustworthy by consumers and prospective talent than any official company campaign, and how many successful companies are now implementing employee branding programs to assist the process.
Top companies are already implementing official programs that assist employees on how to navigate their digital journeys, and assist them with how they communicate on social media. Social media isn’t going away anytime soon, nor are your employees likely to give it up after a good or hard day at work – so why not strategise around it?
Are your staff talking about you?
Furthermore, very few employees like to engage with brands on their personal social media. How many in your office can say they’ve followed the company on Facebook and LinkedIn, or like business posts on Instagram and Twitter in their spare time? Employee branding can help with that. Teach your employees about your brand – add posts relevant to employees on your pages. Keep them engaged with exciting events that are welcomed in your cohort, and emphasise your culture on your pages by posting photos and highlighting great employees on them.
Are they saying the right things?
There are many other things you can try as well, to keep your employees engaged and excited to continue with your business so that their very lifestyle shares the word of your values and beliefs. If you’re interested in gaining that extra competitive advantage through starting an employee branding initiative, why not call us on (02) 8774 2682 to have a chat with our experienced business consultants, or contact us via our chat on the Collappor8 page? We’re more than happy to collaboratively discuss how we can find creative solutions to boost your business the way you want it to!