Every year LinkedIn publishes its listings of the best places to work for. Some of you might instantly look to see if your company is a) on the list and b) where they are on the list.
But many of you might be asking who are they, what makes them so special and what can you do to get your company on the list or higher on the list if you’re already on it.
Now it will come as no surprise that most of the names on the list are global leaders or popular brand names like Facebook, Google, Salesforce and Amazon.
You’re probably thinking they have a huge marketing and advertising budget which allows their company to be ‘out there’ and that’s why they’ve made the list?
Well you might be half-right where the big companies are concerned but Jon Addison, Head of Talent Solutions at LinkedIn UK, told us that isn’t always the case.
Here are his best 3 tips:
1. Get creative with talent campaigns
In this highly competitive talent market, you need to stand out from the crowd to attract top talent. By injecting creative flair into your recruitment campaigns you will showcase what makes you different.
A fantastic example of this is Sainsbury’s Invaders Campaign. In a bid to attract tech talent in Manchester, the company who ranked sixth in this year’s Top Companies list, ‘invaded’ the city with colourful ads, including spray-painted space invaders outside of competitor tech employers. The guerrilla-style campaign gave Sainsbury’s talent brand a personality, and made tech talent think differently about Sainsbury’s as an employer.
When HR teams collaborate closely with marketing in designing recruitment campaigns, you can leverage each other’s expertise to create something that will make target talent sit up and take notice.”
2. Call on your best ambassadors
Your employees are your best ambassadors when it comes to promoting why you’re a great place to work. In fact, our data shows that companies with socially engaged employees are 58% more likely to attract talent. So, if you’re not involving your existing team in your talent brand, you’re missing a trick.
A great way of doing this is by empowering employees to share their positive experiences online. This is especially important as, on average, employee networks have 10x as many connections as a company has followers – so this will automatically widen the pool of potential candidates you’re reaching. Sharing employee case studies on your careers site and LinkedIn company page, will also enable candidates to see what life is like in your organisation and begin to picture themselves there.’’
3. Be authentic
Your employer branding needs to be true to who you are as an organisation, and promote the benefits you offer employees as accurately as possible. The starting point of this is to engage with your existing employees on what they have to say about your company – whether this is through focus groups, anonymous surveys or just informal meetings. By grounding your employer brand in your existing workforce, it becomes undeniably authentic, and means you’re more likely to attract candidates who will be a good fit for the company.
So being the best place to work isn’t all about the size of your company and how much money you can throw at marketing and advertising. All it takes is having a bit of clever creativity and ultimately putting the needs of your employees first.
If you trust and commit to your employees then in turn they will do you the ultimate favour by telling people what a great company they work for.
