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Regularly, organizations call us to ask if we can measure their employer brand. We measure things like the awareness and preference as an employer. We also look at how much the values (EVP) within the employer brand of the organization are recognized by the labor market. Here we ask the client to articulate their values in the employer brand, but also how they came to these values.
The answer is often confrontational.
The most heard answer is 'that was determined by the communication agency at the time'. Here, communication agencies seem to follow a process in which they speak to a number of managers and request various PowerPoints with policy points. Based on these 'insights', they develop three creative scenarios from which the client can choose.
The disadvantage of this method is that there is actually no thought-out strategy being designed, but a creative concept where little or no input is gathered. As a result, there is actually a 'hollow' employer brand, because there is no or a weak strategy behind it. This makes the employer brand unsuccessful in the market and is often replaced after a year.
How do you build an employer branding strategy? At Brandchart, we always follow four steps in formulating an employer branding strategy:
Research
In the first step you will investigate the current employer brand. You do this by first researching internally what the current and desired experience with the employer brand is. In addition, you will investigate the external experience with your employer brand (labor market image) and also with that of your labor market competitors.
Positioning
Based on the insights from the research, you will determine with key stakeholders (not just the management) from the organization which values will make you recognizable in the labor market (and thus also distinguishable from competitors).
Validate
After you have determined the core values, you want to test these among your employees. Do they recognize the chosen values or do you need to refine them?
Create
In the last step, you create the 'creative rationale' and develop it in text/image on, for example, a job site.
Experience shows that most organizations skip steps 1 to 3 and only develop the creative rationale, resulting in a 'talk/picture' and not an employer branding strategy.
Where are you with the employer brand of your organization; strategy or 'talk/picture'?
This blog was written by Sandor Snoeren
Once discussing where you are with your employer brand?
Sandor Cords
Managing director
