How To Bolster Your Brand To Attract and Retain Employees

As the Great Resignation continues to impact the global workforce, employers are scrambling to attract and retain talent. While you examine your culture and HR practices, pay attention to the signals your brand is sending, too. People want to work at companies they are proud to be a part of and your brand is critical to that. Here are three elements that determine how strong your brand is to potential employees and two surefire ways to boost your brand to attract and retain top talent.

Examine These Three Elements of Your Brand

Logo

Would your employees be embarrassed to wear the company logo on a T-shirt or ballcap? Do they eagerly reach for the mug emblazoned with the company logo or avoid it? If your logo is outdated, out of step, or just plain ugly, it’s sending negative signals to your employees and customers. Post-COVID, no one can afford to alienate either audience, so maybe it’s time for a logo refresh or redesign. 
True story: Paige Black has a client in the construction industry who discovered just how important brand identity is to employees. The president of the company received word that the second-in-command was looking to change jobs. The construction firm had already contracted with Paige Black to refresh the brand, including logo, colors, and website. When the new brand designs were delivered, the employee in question was found working late in the evening applying the new logo vinyls to the company truck doors by hand with a hair dryer. He was proud of the new brand and he remained with the company. 

Website

Is your company website a constant source of eye rolls or admiration? Do your employees eagerly refer friends, family, and customers to it or do they work around it? If the look and feel of your company site is disjointed with your brand value, or if it is anything but a trusted resource, it’s hurting more than just your sales. It’s giving your employees reason to view you unfavorably.  Employees want to feel proud of who they work for and what they do. They want to eagerly tell friends and family about their company and refer them to their company website. If your employees avoid or are embarrassed by the site, it’s time to update your website.

Careers Page

In particular, your careers page should do more than just list job openings and descriptions. It should communicate your culture, mission, vision, and value and tell potential employers what it’s like to be on your team and what they can expect from you.  If your careers page isn’t gaining much traffic, read on. Here are best practices for making it stand out. 

How to Improve Your Website's Careers Page

Photos, Videos & TestimonialsUse employee video testimonials, and team and workplace photos to give prospective employees a view into what it’s like to work at your company. Tell the stories of projects, people, and processes at your workplace. Do show the people and place as they are. Don’t stage photos or videos. Q&A, & Specialists SectionsWhat questions do prospective employees typically ask in the interview process? Consider putting the answers on your company's careers page. If you have specialists that power your organization, consider creating specific pages for each specialty to address particular questions or concerns. For example, engineers might value knowing the exact tools and software they will work with at your organization. The bottom line: give prospective employees every means to envision themselves working at your company.  Follow the US Navy’s ExampleIf you need more inspiration, the U.S. Navy does a spectacular job of showing prospective recruits what it’s like to be in service. The “Life in the Navy” section of their website includes pages that detail what life is like on a ship, what a day in the life of a sailor is like, and what types of Navy vessels you could be assigned to. There are pages dedicated to answering every question and concern, as well as detailing what you can expect as a sailor. It’s the gold standard of recruitment through brand storytelling. Take some time to scroll around their website and plan how you could do something similar on your site.

Internal Communications

Your internal communications make a difference in your employee retention. How are you communicating with your employees your brand value and their contribution to the organization’s mission and vision? Laszio Bock, author of “Work Rules! (Insights from Inside Google That Will Transform How You Live and Lead)” recommends that managers share stories about the impact of the teams’ work. The more you can connect an employee’s work to the overall mission of the company, the more meaningful their workdays are (and the less likely they are to get wanderlust and peruse job ads). 

Internal Discovery

If you’re struggling with hiring new employees, find out what your best employees love about working for you. You may think you know why they stay, but you certainly don’t know the whole story. There’s more they haven’t told you because you haven’t asked. 

Find Out What Your Employees Value MostGet an outside market research firm to interview your top employees and ask them what they appreciate about working with you. It’s important that someone outside the company, a neutral party, interviews them so they can speak freely. They need to be assured of confidentiality, and you need their honest feedback so you get actionable insights.  A good market research firm will be able to take the intelligence from the interviews and translate it into actions you can take to either enhance your culture or message your value to prospective employees. Take what you learn and put it on your careers page, into your social media, and add it to your job ads and descriptions.  The Great Resignation is real and it’s hurting a lot of companies right now. Yours doesn’t have to be one of them. Use these tips to boost your brand to attract and retain talent. If you need help with your logo, website, careers page, or employee interviews, we can help. Contact Paige Black today.