Employer branding: win them all over!

By Nathalie Pouillard & Maëlys De Santis

Published: 12 November 2024

According to a recent StepStone study, 95% of candidates find out about a company's reputation and employer brand before applying.

That's why communication and marketing have become an integral part of inbound recruiting.

Companies need to appeal to their prospects and customers, but also succeed in attracting the best talent, who will then contribute to the company's development and future. employees, as well as those who will be recruited in the future (recruiter brand).

So is a company's success based on its human resources and the HR image it projects? Presentation of the employer brand, corporate communication 3.0.

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Definition of employer branding: what is it?

Employer branding is a concept at the heart of HR marketing and HR communication strategies, designed to promote :

the company's image
its organisation
its working conditions
its missions,
its raison d'être
its expertise,
its culture,
its values, etc.

It has multiple objectives. As a result, the employer brand influences a range of stakeholders:

internally: employees, who need to be kept loyal in order to retain talent within the company;
externally:
- Potential candidates, in the recruitment or proactive search phase, who need to be attracted by an attractive image,
- various partners (subcontractors, freelancers, media, schools, etc.), who also play a role in building reputation, and therefore in recruitment.

The role of employer branding

To understand how the employer brand manifests itself in practice, we need to understand the three main components around which it is built.

Employer identity

An employer's identity is made up of various concrete elements that make up its DNA. These include, for example

the products or services offered
the history of the company
the premises,
the geographical area,
professions,
the degree of innovation and use of new technologies, etc.

There is also a key and highly influential element in this identity: HR strategy. And with good reason, since it includes many aspects likely to retain current employees and attract potential recruits:

salaries
managerial practices
career development prospects,
the recruitment process,
integration of new employees, etc.

Internal image

In contrast to employer identity and human resources management practices, internal image is more a matter of perception. In other words, it is embodied in the mental image that current and former employees have of the company.

☝️ The internal image is therefore not directly a matter of the organisation's will, even if concrete actions and the values conveyed help to improve employees' perceptions.

External image

The external image can be defined by public opinion of the company. This "judgement" is all the more important as it has an impact on potential candidates and potential partners.

☝️ The company's external image is reflected in its reputation and e-reputation, which are largely the result of its communications strategy.

Why develop your employer brand?

Employee retention

Today's companies are faced with the growing volatility of employees, who are increasingly likely to leave a job that does not correspond to their values and their search for meaning... even for a lower-paid job! On the other hand, if employees feel good in their job and that the reality of the position matches the initial promises, there is less temptation to look elsewhere.

☝️ A good employer image also strengthens team and corporate spirit, which in turn boosts commitment and productivity.

Attracting talent

Companies with a strong employer brand save 43% on their recruitment costs. It also increases the number of highly qualified applicants by 50%.

PeopleDoc

These days, candidates find out more about a company before they apply. But with new practices and the omnipresence of digital technology, sharing experiences on the web is easy and plentiful... even the most negative ones.

What's more, in some sectors (IT, for example), the balance of power is reversed on the job market, because there is a real shortage of talent.

Working on your employer brand will ensure that you :

avoid a bad reputation or e-reputation ;
stand out from the competition;
attract the good graces of influencers involved in the success of future recruitment, such as schools or other companies.

Attracting customers

Finally, it should be noted that consumers are increasingly sensitive to the ethics of the companies they buy from.

A good employer brand therefore helps to reassure them in their purchasing decision.

Employer branding: 3 corporate examples

Here are three examples of HR communication around employer branding, to inspire you.

Example 1 - An article on Maddyness, about the decision taken by a hundred companies to extend the second parent's leave when a child is born.

Example 2 - A video about a recruitment campaign by Michel et Augustin:

Example 3 - Another video highlighting the development of human resources at Virgin Atlantic:

How can you develop your employer brand and become more attractive?

Step 1: define your objectives and personas

As with any strategy, the process of developing your employer brand involves knowing precisely why you are doing it.

For example, do you want to :

Attract more candidates to make recruitment easier?
Raise your profile? Your reputation?
Retain your best talent and reduce staff turnover?
Optimise your recruitment operations, particularly in terms of time and cost?

Once you have specified your objectives, you need to prioritise them in order of importance in order to determine which levers to activate as a priority and put them in place .

💡 A good HR marketing strategy also involves knowing who you want to attract. For example, when recruiting, we recommend that you define your candidate persona, so that you can use the right language and relevant arguments.

Step 2: Identify your strengths and weaknesses

Next, take the time to identify :

your strengths that you want to develop and/or communicate;
your weaknesses that need improving.

To do this, use feedback from your employees, for example, to establish your Employee Value Proposition (EVP ), and feedback from your partners and customers to get an outside perspective.

💡 Some people talk about employer brand personalities: extrovert, ethical, sincere, open... which one do you have?

Step 3: determine your acquisition and communication channels

What are the most relevant acquisition and communication channels for reaching the personas you've previously identified?

For example, to get people talking about you:

LinkedIn
trade fairs
blogs,
YouTube
the company website,
internal communication (such as the corporate social network ), etc.

☝️ Satisfied employees are proud to talk about the company and become ambassadors for the employer brand.

They then convey a positive brand image, which is beneficial for :

attracting the best candidates, as well as customers ;
contributing to a good social climate in-house, and therefore to employee loyalty.

What's more, it's free HR communication!

Step 4: Develop your strategy, in line with your objectives and values

To attract talent

Here are a few ways of attracting talent, developing your recruiter brand and promoting inbound recruiting:

build a careers page on your website ;
take care when writing your job offers;
adopt innovative recruitment techniques;
don't lose sight of the candidate experience and respond to each and every one of them. Recruitment tools make it possible to automate and personalise responses, and what an impact that can have on your image!

To retain your talent

Here are a few things you can do to reduce staff turnover:

adopt transparent HR communications ;
make the most of your human capital, especially your soft skills;
involve your employees in your decisions, especially when it comes to recruitment;
look after your relationship strategy and the employee experience, from onboarding to offboarding.

According to Welcome to the Jungle, 1 in 5 employees leave their company within the first 3 months because of a poor integration.

Step 5: Monitor your HR indicators

It is advisable to monitor relevant HR indicators using a dashboard:

retention percentage
staff turnover
absenteeism rate
number of unsolicited applications received
volume of visits to the career site
cost per hire, etc.

In this way, you can obtain reliable information about the effectiveness of your actions and whether or not you're achieving your objectives, so you can adjust your HR strategy.

Step 6: Digitise your HR tools and processes

Digitalising your HR tools and processes will help you to deploy your employer brand more effectively, as well as your actions relating to the well-being of employees in the workplace and the user experience of candidates, thanks in particular to :

automating processes (such as recruitment),
optimising employee monitoring and support,
improving HR communication,
compliance with regulations,
identifying strategic missions.

🏆 Success story: The Brest CHRU aims to attract rare talent in a highly competitive market. It won the HR Innovation Award for its use of the Beetween digital recruitment tool. A fine example of employer branding that conveys modern values and makes all the difference.

Other examples of software:

Beehire, the intuitive, easy-to-use software that facilitates your recruitment process. With more than 60 functions, you can collect applications in just a few clicks, post your vacancies on more than 200 job sites and gain in productivity with application management.
Flatchr, recruitment software, promotes the employer brand by enabling you to respond to 100% of applicants via automatic, personalised emails, by making it easier to arrange appointments with applicants and by offering an optimised, intuitive careers site.
softgarden, recruitment and HR marketing software, gives a voice to candidates and company employees via an evaluation system. In this way, it optimises the candidate pathway and promotes authenticity and transparency, which are highly sought-after by talented people.
Softy: in addition to 360° recruitment management, so that HR can save time while ensuring the relevance of their actions, it enables the creation of a personalised career site , with a presentation of the company, its teams and news.