For a long time, the world of employer branding was all about intangibles. Actually presenting the results of your employer brand work was hard to do. That’s where data comes in. Making the intangibles; tangible.
Data is becoming a popular commodity to businesses of all sizes because it helps them make more informed decisions and better understand their customers. And that same logic can be applied to employees.
We’re starting to see more and more employer brand/HR practitioners around the world use different avenues of data analytics to better understand their culture. The way we use data at Link HUmans is to approach it internally and externally. This is how we do it:
1. Collect data internally
Start by carrying out surveys, focus groups and other forms of qualitative research internally that you’ve decided will be important conversation starters.
Speak to employees of all kinds of levels and roles to gain an understanding of what your ideal type of candidate is. And you get this information by conducting researching on your people and building enough data to make informed decisions about your hiring needs and what your target talent might be.
Once you have formed a concreted perception of employer brand internally, we’d recommend examining what the perception of your employer brand is like externally.
2. Collect data externally
What people say to you face-to-face might not always be the accurate truth. And there could be many reasons for this. Therefore many people turn to places like Glassdoor, Fairygodboss & Twitter to voice their opinion on your company’s employer brand.
And that’s why at Link Humans, we’ve designed the Employer Brand Index to look at all publicly available data online to gain a better understanding of the external perception of your employer brand. As we find that people working in this space, HR or Employer Brand managers, will have a grip on their employer brand internally, but not externally.
Once you’ve collected data both internally and externally, then you’ll be able to make far more informed decisions as the decision are backed up by a multiplicity of data points. Now, you’re ready to start your analysis.
3. Analyze the data
Once you’ve collected all this pretty data, there are a few ways you can begin to analyze what it all means for your employers. The initial premise you have to take when looking at all this fancy data is to take both a qualitative and quantitative approach. Data that can be measured and data that can’t be measured.
At Link Humans we’ve designed the 16 Employer Brand Attributes to help categorize and analyze every vital aspect of your employer brand. Looking at area slike Benefits & Perks, Career Advancement and Diversity & Inclusion.
That covers the qualitative part. But we also quantify these results and measure how things are moving over time using our proprietary methodology.
But this might not work for you. Analyzing the data can fit the needs of your business. For example, when working with a top FMCG company, we analyzed the data formulated by the Employer Brand Index to understand what people are saying about their four core employer value proposition pillars.
These encompass what it means to work for the company and what ultimately makes them attractive as an employer. And based on what the data points to and what score they eventually end up with, we were able to understand if these pillars worked for the company or not.
4. Measure the data
The good thing about data is that never stops. People are continually speaking about your business, at work or outside of it. The conversation never ends, and therefore evaluating and reassessing your employer brand on a regular basis is always good. But you don’t have to do it yourself.
There are plenty of measurement tools out there, such as the Net Promoter Score, which looks at how likely employees are to recommend this company which is integral to understanding and measuring your employee experience. Or as mentioned before, the Employer Brand Index, which measures and scores your employer brand based on what people say online/externally.
A new AI-based tool, Glint, is showing much promise as a continual feedback tool that asks employees for feedback on essential and relevant company matters. If you want a few more tips, check out 3 Ways to Measure Your Employer Brand by our friends at Indeed.
There’s plenty more out there, and plenty more to come as measuring employer brand becomes more and more realistic to employer brand and recruitment professionals. And it’s all thanks to the wonderful world of data.
