The Eight Steps To Building Your Powerful Employer Brand

Employer branding is becoming increasingly important in strategic decisions. There are several global trends driving the increase, and some may require you to rethink your employer brand. Many of these trends are the same as those driving the global move toward Free Agents, or people who self-manage their careers without being permanently linked to an employer. Free Agents are typically the most skilled and valuable employees.

So what are the eight steps to building your powerful employer brand that will help you to attract and retain great staff and keep you ahead of the game?

1. Understand where your business is going: future direction of your company, where it will grow, and what markets you will enter.

2. Identify the employees you need to get there. Identify skill gaps and plan when you need employees. Too few employees will lead to stress on your current team and brand damage. Too many and you may need to retrench, which causes even greater brand damage.

3. Determine the key employer brand attributes—those that define the experience of working with you.

4. Maintain consistency with the corporate brand. It simply must be in harmony.

5. Develop a communications plan. Key considerations are budget, timing, markets, media and the priority you give to each. The options include the following:

• Internet: company intranet, e-marketing, direct marketing and promotions. This is particularly important for the under-30s. Ideally develop some simple online tools for them to interact with you or recruiters.

• Recruitment advertising: Internet, newsletter, radio, direct mail, cinema, and TV. Don’t waste money on big newspaper ads sold by recruiters in some countries.

• Event marketing: career fairs, company open house, trade shows, conferences, and special events.

• Campus recruiting: on-campus university promotions, sponsorships, and e-marketing.

• Employee communications: referral programme (pay for referrals; it is way cheaper than paying recruitment agencies and the calibre of recruit is usually higher), reward and recognition programme, induction programme, and intranet.

To get the rest of this free article and other free resources on this topic, visit http://www.abacusrecruit.com.au/library-of-articles/39-testimonial-article/92-employer-brands. nn