After four installments about Employer Branding, we are halfway on the road to a successful Employer Brand. At this point, we thought it would be good to zoom in on the steps you need to take when designing the Employer Brand.
We define five stages of building the Employer Brand. It’s comparable to building a house. The first step to take is the foundation. This is a critical step since you can’t build on quicksand. After that, you are able to design, plan and actually build the Employer Brand. The last step is maintaining your carefully built Employer Brand. Easier said then done, so we’ll walk you through the steps.
Stage 1. Making the foundation for your Employer Brand
The foundation will define the solid grounds of your Employer Brand. Start with searching for support within the organization and create an Employer Brand Task Force. As said in installment 2, alignment is key; therefore, make sure your task force consists of representatives from HR, Internal Comms and Marketing. Within large organizations, we recommend to also invite line managers to join the task force. But, the task force shouldn’t be bigger than 6 individuals. Make monthly appointments and discuss your goals and actions.
Stage 2. Designing the Employer Brand
After making the foundation for your new Employer Brand, we continue with the actual design.
Answer the following questions with your task force:
– What is your organization’s current situation and what are you aiming to reach?
– How do you want to position yourself in comparison to other organizations?
– What is your Employer Brand Identity? And how will it be part of the Company Brand?
– Who will be your target group(s)?
Stage 3. Planning
At this point, you’ll need to make the last preparations before actually launching campaigns. It means you’ll have to make a detailed planning, gain access to budget, describe KPIs and make a base measurement. Only then you can track your successes later on.
Stage 4. Start building the Employer Brand
Let the fun begin! This is the phase in which you actually start with building your Employer Brand by setting your plans in motion. A kickoff event will immediately create excitement among your current employees but, in order to succeed, your other communication channels need to be game strong as well. In our next installment, we’ll discuss the optimal communication mix to make the most out of your Employer Brand.
Stage 5. Employer Brand Management
Now, it’s time to measure your results, evaluate and optimize your employer branding strategy. Measure if you’ve reached your goals. If your goal was increasing employee engagement, measure the results by doing interviews and the NPS (as discussed in blog KPIs for Employer Branding). Also take a look at what the media published about your organization in relation to the employer brand campaign. After this you can take actions in order to optimize future campaigns.
We hope the roadmap to a successful Employer Brand is clear. In our next installment, we discuss the communication mix to make the most out of your Employer Brand.
