Why firms still overlook their employer brand

The impor­tance of cre­at­ing a pos­i­tive brand is well under­stood and a sophis­ti­cat­ed indus­try to help busi­ness­es achieve this in the mar­ket­place has flour­ished. But the idea of focus­ing on employ­er brand, through inter­nal com­mu­ni­ca­tion, is less well devel­oped.

Lisa Pan­tel­li, head of com­mu­ni­ty at sim­ply com­mu­ni­cate, a group for inter­nal com­mu­ni­ca­tion spe­cial­ists, explains: “There are two camps. Some organ­i­sa­tions put it at the heart of what they do, how they oper­ate, make busi­ness deci­sions and recruit and retain staff. But ‘employ­er brand’ has also become a bit of a buz­zphrase, so senior lead­ers often say they want to go down this path with­out under­stand­ing what it real­ly means.”

The con­cept of employ­er brand is essen­tial­ly the work­place ele­ment of the company’s over­all cor­po­rate brand rep­u­ta­tion. It refers to the company’s image and stand­ing as an employ­er, which includes its employ­er val­ue propo­si­tion (EVP) or the rea­sons peo­ple choose to work for the organ­i­sa­tion. The EVP incor­po­rates every­thing from ben­e­fits and rewards to com­pa­ny cul­ture and the over­all employ­ee expe­ri­ence.

As Pan­tel­li says: “There’s a con­ver­gence, or blur­ring of the lines, with rep­u­ta­tion man­age­ment because what hap­pens on the inside is reflect­ed on the out­side.” Unsur­pris­ing­ly then, employ­er brand­ing is per­ceived in some quar­ters as being increas­ing­ly impor­tant in attract­ing, engag­ing and retain­ing qual­i­ty staff.

Jen­ni Field, direc­tor of con­sul­tan­cy Redefin­ing Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and pres­i­dent of the Char­tered Insti­tute of Pub­lic Rela­tions, says: “Peo­ple are start­ing to pay more atten­tion as they realise they need to focus more on their employ­ees after hav­ing for­got­ten about them for years. It’s an area that’s been around for quite a while now, so it’s not in its infan­cy; it just hasn’t matured yet.”

But going down this route can pro­vide undoubt­ed ben­e­fits. First­ly, cre­at­ing a pos­i­tive employ­er brand helps organ­i­sa­tions dif­fer­en­ti­ate them­selves from their com­peti­tors, which can make all the dif­fer­ence in indus­tries strug­gling to cope with tal­ent short­ages.

Employee loyalty equals customer loyalty

Sec­ond­ly, a clear­ly com­mu­ni­cat­ed employ­er brand and brand val­ues strength­en staff loy­al­ty. This is because align­ment with the com­pa­ny pur­pose, as well as help­ing peo­ple to under­stand why their role is impor­tant and how they fit into the over­all pic­ture, is empow­er­ing. It enables staff to per­form more effec­tive­ly, which in turn helps boost pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and reten­tion.

Height­ened lev­els of employ­ee loy­al­ty also enhance exter­nal brand recog­ni­tion and cus­tomer loy­al­ty, says Susy Roberts, founder of peo­ple devel­op­ment con­sul­tan­cy Hunter Roberts, as it means staff present the brand at a per­son­al lev­el, which in turn gen­er­ates feel­ings of con­nec­tion and famil­iar­i­ty.

In oth­er words, a sound inter­nal com­mu­ni­ca­tion strat­e­gy is just as impor­tant for brand recog­ni­tion as any exter­nal activ­i­ty. As a result, it is vital the organisation’s cul­ture reflects what the brand stands for, there­by enabling employ­ees to rep­re­sent it effec­tive­ly. For instance, if employ­ee areas in the offices of a lux­u­ry brand are tat­ty and low qual­i­ty, “peo­ple won’t be going into the cus­tomer envi­ron­ment with the mind­set to deliv­er a pre­mi­um ser­vice”, says Roberts.

“Every­thing about the cus­tomer jour­ney needs to be mir­rored in the employ­ee jour­ney, from the moment of recruit­ment to the point of sale.”

For exam­ple, the core brand mes­sage of Brunel­care, a char­i­ty with more than 2,200 employ­ees that pro­vides hous­ing and sup­port for old­er peo­ple in the south west of Eng­land, is that care is at the heart of what it does. The aim, there­fore, is to demon­strate this ethos not just among its client pop­u­la­tions, but also among its work­force.

One way of achiev­ing this goal is to take inter­nal com­mu­ni­ca­tion activ­i­ties seri­ous­ly as “keep­ing staff informed makes them feel more val­ued”, says Stacey Byles, the charity’s pub­lic rela­tions and mar­ket­ing co-ordi­na­tor. This includes recog­nis­ing and writ­ing about its unsung heroes, in the shape of house­keep­ers, chefs and recep­tion­ists, “who are the vital cogs that keep the organ­i­sa­tion tick­ing”, she adds.

Aligning company culture with employer brand

Anoth­er approach includes exten­sive skills train­ing for all employ­ees, into which the organisation’s brand mes­sag­ing is embed­ded. Every­one is also encour­aged to devel­op a pitch about what they and the char­i­ty do.

“It’s impor­tant we answer the ques­tion ‘so what do you do at Brunel­care?’ with poise and con­fi­dence,” says Byles. “We want peo­ple to be impressed, but also sense the pas­sion from each and every per­son who works here.”

To ensure employ­er brand­ing activ­i­ties work effec­tive­ly though involves a four-step process, says Pan­tel­li at sim­ply­commu­ni­cate. The first entails talk­ing to stake­hold­ers, which includes employ­ees and cus­tomers, to obtain a clear pic­ture of how the organ­i­sa­tion is being described and talked about.

The sec­ond is about under­stand­ing the com­mon thread from such dis­cus­sions as it is this theme that will form the basis of your employ­er brand. As a result, it is impor­tant to present your find­ings back to employ­ees for feed­back both to under­stand how rep­re­sen­ta­tive they tru­ly are and also to ensure staff feel involved.

The third, enable­ment phase focus­es on devel­op­ing and imple­ment­ing the req­ui­site busi­ness objec­tives, oper­a­tional process­es, poli­cies and cul­ture to make your clear and con­cise nar­ra­tive stick. Ongo­ing inter­nal com­mu­ni­ca­tion is vital as is employ­ee advo­ca­cy.

The final stage, mean­while, con­sists of con­tin­u­al lis­ten­ing and mea­sure­ment as “employ­er brand­ing should nev­er be tak­en for grant­ed”, Pan­tel­li adds.

Roberts at con­sul­tan­cy Hunter Roberts agrees, but says ulti­mate­ly suc­cess depends on a num­ber of key fac­tors, notably lead­er­ship com­mit­ment and the neces­si­ty of role-mod­el­ling the employ­er brand from the top down. Anoth­er is staff buy-in.