Does your company ignore employer brand? Does your boss still think it is just a marketing buzzword? If your answer is yes to any of those questions then keep reading!
Employer branding has proven to be imperative to the recruitment strategies of companies worldwide. But some people just can’t get their boss on board with it. So we’ve put together 10 reasons from some employer branding superstars that will help you talk your boss into employer branding.
Carmen Collins
How do you get your boss on board with any new project or initiative? You tell a story of what you want to achieve and how that impacts the business. The key is that “impact the business” part. For every social media channel, event we attend or web page we drive to, we have a business impact to show for it. If we drive employee referrals from happy employees, we can take the cost to acquire down to zero. If we drive candidates into the pipeline from social media, we can lower the cost to hire but also time to hire. Tell that story from tactic to impact.
Carmen Collins, Social Media & Talent Brand Lead, Cisco
Estela Vazquez Perez
The first time I did it, I had in front of me a group of leaders with influence at a global level so I took my chance and delivered a global proposal to design, develop and adopt the employer brand in many countries, across languages, across businesses and across cultures. The many other times were far less complicated, it was targeted. I define the KPIs and how much these affect ROI. There is nothing fluffy about employer branding, you have to know your numbers, cause and effects. If the KPIs are sponsored, then you can move on to strategy. You still need your sponsors to feel comfortable with your ways. Once KPIs and strategy are approved, the tactical approach comes next and it is the most visual part, where everyone wants to play and there is no need for convincing anyone to come along. This is a fun ride.
Estela Vazquez Perez, Global Employment Brand Director, Royal Bank of Canada
Ton Rodenburg
Tell him or her how world class leaders like Steve Jobs, Tony Hsieh, Sergey Brin (Google) and Reed Hastings (Netflix) build winning teams by attracting, inspiring and developing great people. Or keep it closer to home. Take the biggest and most successful competitor and check how they manage HR or see what their recruiting vision is. If not convinced, show graphs on labor market development and compare that to the strategic manpower planning you (may) have built expressing quality shortages in digital, leadership, and most of the other 21st century skills everybody is fighting about in today’s labor markets. If still not convinced; tell that you plan to visit the supervisory board to ask them to get him or her fired. It might make him or her change minds and and embrace your plans.
Ton Rodenburg, Employer Branding Strategy Director, ARA M/V Human Resource Communications
Audra Knight
It really depends on your boss’s management style. If they like stats, show them how many people view your Glassdoor, LinkedIn and Indeed pages each month. It’s also a good idea to ask people that interview if they did any research online before applying and share that info.
Audra Knight, Recruitment Operations Manager, Tenable
Hannah Fleishman
If you’re having trouble getting your leadership team bought in on employer branding or inbound recruiting, simply things. It’s easy to miss the bigger picture when you’re trying to get more resources or budget for a particular project, campaign, or technology. But at the end of the day, employer branding is about people. You can’t grow a great business without great people, period. And competition for talent is only going to become more fierce. Being proactive about employer branding isn’t an option anymore if you want to hire and retain top talent. That’s the bigger picture that leadership can’t ignore.
Hannah Fleishman, Inbound Recruiting Manager, HubSpot
Sarang Brahme
Employer branding is often viewed in silo, sitting either in marketing, recruitment or HR teams. The best results come when we combine the forces and collaborate. HR needs to show the impact of talent attraction, engagement and branding on talent pool / funnel which has direct impact on quality and quantity of hire along with retention. We have enough surveys and studies available to show case why employer branding is key. Show your boss the magic of talent marketing! And yes, start small. Asking for big budget investments upfront may not fly.
Sarang Brahme, Global Social Recruiting & Talent Brand Manager, Capgemini
Shaunda Zilich
I got my boss on board by showing. We have got to stop talking and take action. The minute I showed that we had 275K employees on LinkedIn and other social platforms talking about GE or representing GE in some shape or form… and that on low average our 10M applicants per year were telling 2-3 people about their experience, I was able to make her ‘jaw drop’ to realize we NEED to DO something! When looking at impact on people’s lives employer brand actually becomes more important than company brand.
Shaunda Zilich, Global Employment Brand Leader, GE
Jörgen Sundberg
A good place to start is to do an audit of your current employer brand, or call it reputation/perception as an employer if that makes more sense. Are you attracting/retaining the right people? If not, what should be improved? Who are your talent competitors, what are they doing? Once you’ve benchmarked your current situation and where you stand vs. competitors, you tend to get interest from management. Getting your boss on board is one thing, releasing budgets for employer brand project is another matter…
Jörgen Sundberg, Employer Brand Consultant & CEO, Link Humans
Jaclyn Campbell
Thankfully, the Head of Talent Acquisition here at Optus sees the value in employer branding so there wasn’t much convincing needing to be done. However, as employer branding is still in its infant stages, together sometimes we have to spend some extra time to walk our stakeholders through what we’re doing and why. From experience, as soon as they see the data and the progress we’re making, they’re on board.
Jaclyn Campbell, Employer Brand Consultant, Optus
Jennifer Johnston
The thing that works the best to get mindshare is data. Lucky for employer brand marketers, the data on employer reviews sites is public, so you can see how your employees are rating you vs. your competitors for talent. Careers social channels are also public, so you can see what your competitors are doing on there. And you can also easily see how you stack up vs your competitors for talent on best place to work lists. Remind your boss these are the activities candidates and current employees are doing when deciding whether to join or to stay with your company.
Jennifer Johnston, Senior Director of Global Employer Branding, Salesforce
