If you’ve been hiding your lack of interest in employer branding behind the dark glasses of January, perhaps the thought of the improved productivity, reduced turnover and lower recruitment costs an investment in this area could afford, might just cut through the gloom. In the spirit of the New Year, our services are expanding – and employer branding is one of those issues that we’ve had our eye on for a while…
So, why do we care about employer branding? And, more importantly, why should you?
Investment in our employees means a lot to us here at M2 Bespoke and, quite frankly, it boggles my mind that more businesses are not putting sufficient time and money into attracting and keeping the right staff. After all, your customers might be at the heart of your business, but your employees are the ones who are going to reel them in and retain their loyalty.
There are several key benefits that businesses who invest in employer branding can expect to enjoy. Here are a few of the highlights:
Attracting top talent
Even if you personally think you’re a pretty great company to work for, the top talent you might wish to attract aren’t just going to automatically know about it. Chances are they have their pick of places to work so taking steps to enhance and protect your employer brand will help you stand out for all the right reasons. Unconvinced? CareerArc’s 2015 Employer Branding Study found that three-quarters of job-seekers take an employer’s brand into consideration before even filling in an application. That’s an awful lot of talent that could be jogging on by…
Turnover costs decrease
It costs cold, hard cash to replace a member of staff; up to the equivalent of nine months of that employee’s salary actually, according to a recent article by CIPHR. Save your business money and give your staff an incentive to stick around. Furthermore, Glassdoor found that 84% of employees would consider jumping ship if a competing company had an excellent reputation, while CIPHR reported that if a brand’s reputation was poor, a pay increase of at least 10% was required to tempt a new employee. The better your employer branding is and the stronger and more attractive your company’s culture to prospective and current employee’s, the less you should have to fork out in the long-run.
Employee advocacy rises
We live in a social and well-connected world, thanks to the power of social media. And if you were in any doubt, be assured, social media wields tremendous amounts of power. Prospective employees will certainly use social sites to gain a picture of your company; CareerArc found that a savvy 76% of companies choose social platforms to communicate their employer branding. Fortunately, happy employees like to share just as much as the unhappy ones – so if you keep your staff smiling, you can expect a tribe of brand advocates to offer a helping hand in spreading the word and increasing candidate referral. When you consider that more than half (52%) of consumers trust content about an employer that comes straight from an employee, you can see this is pretty powerful stuff. Employee advocacy not only drives up the quality of your workforce but helps squash the costs of hiring. Everyone’s a winner.
Productivity increases
Use your employer brand to convey the message that you nurture employees, treat them as individuals instead of just cogs in the machine and appreciate that they each have different needs in which to produce the best work possible, and you just might find they rise to the challenge. For example, a global workplace survey by People Management found that 83% of respondents felt adopting flexible working had resulted in improved productivity. A brand that proves it gives back to its employees can expect a greater return on investment than those who do not.
For more information about employer branding and how we can help, contact M2 Bespoke today.