How Can We Enhance Our Company's Brand Image in the Eyes of Employees and Potential Hires?

Dear Groupies,

A popular definition by CIPD states, "Employment branding has been defined as the 'company's image as seen through the eyes of its associates and potential hires'." The issue is, how to improve the brand image? I'd be really glad if someone could share their ideas here!

Thanks in advance.

Employment branding in the UK

Employment branding is very popular in the UK. However, a recent article in Incomes Data Studies by Duncan Brown questioned whether there was much point to it.

Steps to promote your Employee Value Proposition (EVP)

Step 1: Figure out what your employee value proposition is.
Step 2: Use marketing and advertising to promote your EVP to prospective employees.

What is your Employee Value Proposition?

It is the total reward employees receive for working for your organization. If your firm is a fun place to work, promote that. If you offer the best salaries, promote that. If you provide great career development or if your workforce is mostly young or older people, promote that. Additionally, if you offer work-life balance, promote that. Don't forget about mentors, coaching, training, education, and more.

For further information, visit www.colbrown.co.uk/Employee_Value_Proposition.

Regards,
Col

Have you decided on your brand identity?

If so, begin incorporating it into every aspect of your recruiting processes. Integrate it into your tagline. Any type of print material you have, such as departmental letterheads and memos (whether internal or external), should bear your tagline. Branding is an attitude that must first reside within your staff before you can consistently and genuinely convey that message to the world. Once that foundation is established, ensure that everything you send out—whether correspondence, business cards, or media advertisements—contains your message. Branding takes time and repetition, so it must be consistent, and that is where the key to success lies. Happy Branding!

Hi Col & Co, Thanks for the response. However, I need to add that my company is just 2 years old. So the obvious "big boys" kind of show can't be done... certainly not on expensive notes. Any cost-effective methods will be more than welcome.

During the dot-com era, I also had my own recruiting firm. It was small, and I was competing against the "big boys," so I understand the challenges you're facing. There were a couple of things I did well that really helped me.

Networking and Building Connections

I networked a lot! I know that when you're small, you have to wear all the hats, and it is really hard to do everything you need to do, but you need to fit it in wherever you can. I looked for networking opportunities with venture capitalists because my targets were the startup dot-coms. You'll have your own targets based on whoever your market is, and you should look for networking opportunities there. Trust me, if you get some influential individuals or companies to refer to you frequently, it does wonders for your brand. It starts regionally and grows from there. One of the nice opportunities I had actually came from a vendor.

Leveraging Technology and Media Exposure

I worked very hard to find a resume database I could access through the web. Now that's a routine application, but when I was doing this, it was novel. I worked with the vendors and made some good contacts in the selection process. When a leading trade reporter contacted these vendors for a story they were doing on technology and wanted someone they could interview with perspective, I was recommended. I got quoted in the Industry Standard, which during the dot-com era was the mark that you'd made it. Of course, that got added to my "In the News" section on my website and I got as much mileage out of that exposure as I could.

The point here is that you want to work with everyone. Don't consider yourself above anyone simply because you pay them and they are offering you a service. Everyone has connections, and if you're known as someone who is a good resource by everyone, even if the route isn't immediately apparent, opportunities for branding open up tenfold, and are opportunities you couldn't have opened the door for yourself.

Hope this is useful.

Certainly! Here is the revised version of the text with corrections:

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Introduction to Employment Branding

Srikrish, could you tell us a little about your company? So far, we know it is 2 years old and your work is in e-recruitment, as far as I can gather. Employment branding concerns potential recruits. So, I am assuming you are looking to hire more people for your firm. Some of the best employment brands are actually fairly small firms—St. Luke's in London, Semco in Brazil (probably still bigger than yours but).

Strategies for Employment Branding

You could go down the Employer of Choice route or offer profit-related pay, flexible working, and work-life balance. To be honest, I'm not sure I understand what you are after. Are you looking for ways to advertise? Or ways to improve your employee value proposition? If you offer your employees a better deal than they can get elsewhere, I imagine you will get a queue of people wanting to work for you. The firm "Happy," formerly Happy Training, got a lot of press coverage for its approach regarding employees.

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I consolidated the text into proper paragraphs and corrected spelling and grammar errors.