How Employer Branding Can Help Employee Retention
Recruiting is an essential part of building a business, but it can also be a costly affair. Hiring even a single employee is expensive, and costs often include the following:
- Job board listing fees
- Recruiters inside and outside the company
- Travel to and from the interview location
- Relocation expenses
- Training expenses
Apart from recruitment expenses, employees are a continuous investment. Payment of salaries, professional development opportunities, and benefits all come under the total cost of hiring. That is why retaining good employees is essential.
To maximize hiring efforts and make the best use of resources, your focus needs to be on building an employer brand that is authentic to your work environment. This is how you will find and attract the best-fit talent for your team.
Your employer brand should help bring your brand values to life for your team. Employer brands help people to understand what to expect from your company. Use it as a tool to set expectations early on during the candidate journey. This will help you strengthen your talent pool as you’ll attract applicants who are inspired by your mission and values and can contribute to them. Staying true to your employer brand also allows you to retain your employees.
Here’s how employer branding can help employee retention:
- Choose better hires from the get go
Attracting the right candidate with the help of a great job description is a task and sometimes the candidate with the best resume may not be the best fit for your company culture. The candidate you pick should collaborate well and understand the workings of your organization. A strong employer branding can reduce the cost to hire by 50% according to a LinkedIn research.
- Employer branding can lead to less turnover
With your employer brand candidates can understand who you are and what you stand for even before they apply to your organization. Due to this you’ll attract the right people who are inspired by and can contribute to your mission and vision and are invested in your culture and career opportunities. This will strengthen your talent pool and retain strong employees.
- Activate your employer brand through employee lifecycle
The employer brand shouldn’t be thought of as a tool for talent acquisition only. It is reflected throughout the candidate experience and can indicate what your employee experience will be like. This means there will be harmony between your brand message and actions all through the way.
- Capture your culture and values
Showcase all sides of your company culture including the less-glamorous ones. What makes your company unique? Why should someone consider joining your team? Find ways to showcase this on social media, company pages, and potentially any place employees may look you up.
- Candidate experience should reflect your values
After researching and learning about your workplace, potential candidates would have taken the next step to apply to an open position at your organization. In this stage it is important that candidates have an experience that aligns with the brand messaging that they connected with in the first place. If transparency is a value your brand upholds, candidates should be able to see that come through right from the beginning of the recruitment process. They want to see the connection between the employer brand shared with the public and how potential employees are treated in reality. Make sure they get a consistent picture.
Essentially, it is necessary to be upfront about your values and who you are as an organization at every step of the candidate’s journey. Candidates should be able to determine if the environment your company provides is one they’ll be able to thrive in.
Because employee turnover can cost your company lots of money as well as undue strain on the rest of the team that costs you in the long run, setting up your employer brand is a good idea.
Author bio:
Kelly Barcelos is a progressive digital marketing manager for Jobsoid, an applicant tracking system, leading the content and social media teams. Her expertise and experience in the field of HR enable her to create value-driven content for her readers, both on Jobsoid’s blog and other guest blogs where she publishes content regularly.
