"The brand is ultimately what determines if you will become a loyal customer or not. The marketing may convince you to buy a particular Toyota, and maybe it’s the first foreign car you ever owned, but it is the brand that will determine if you will only buy Toyotas for the rest of your life."
1) Build a brand, not just an identity
Employer brand professionals often assume brand is simply a look and feel: a solid brand guide with defined colors, image styles, fonts and ad or creative layouts. That's just the identity. It's a key part of the brand but it's not the whole brand. A brand is built on multiple components: the foundation, the pillars, the position, the personality, the voice and tone, the brand promise and the brand line (if you choose one). If you're only working from a style or identity guide, you'll have consistent colors and fonts, and a great way to get "buyers" in the door or cause momentary popularity. But there's no consistent heart and soul that makes them loyal for life.
Ask yourself: Do I know what our employer brand is? Can I recite our core pillars and how we position ourselves against our talent competitors? Can our recruiters and hiring managers recite it?
2) Put a hold on technology until you have a brand
Ask yourself: Does every piece of technology I am paying for support my brand? Or, is it just another means to execute my marketing?
3) Ladder your marketing up to your brand
It's easy to get caught up in fun stunts to get attention and even vitality. And there's no doubt these tactics can drive up likes and views. But if they're not aligned to your brand (and that means you know what your brand is), your gains will be short-term at best and won't affect your long-term talent goals or brand value. Have an actual content plan or calendar and a litmus test for those fun stunts to see if they actually support the brand pillars and messages you're trying to reinforce.
Ask yourself: Are my recruitment marketing activities just about executing on the coolest, hippest trends? Or do they actually support the brand pillars and associated core messages for my employer brand?
4) Measure your brand instead of your marketing
It's the rare marketer that doesn't have a dashboard of measures. And in employer brand that typically means a combination of talent metrics and marketing metrics: source of hire and retweets or career site visitors and social media engagement. Helpful? Sure. But they're marketing measures. Classic brand measures—awareness, consideration, preference, value and usage—are the key components to ensuring your employer brand is consistent and lasting.
Ask yourself: Am I willing to take a risk and do a study of just brand measures and brand measures alone? For example, what would happen if I measured the level of brand awareness with target job seekers, candidates and new hires?
It's your choice—2018 can be more of the same, or you can take a risk and make a name for yourself and your function inside your organization. You're more than just a marketing machine. I know what you want to do ... now go do it!
References
Harrell, L. (2016) Diversity Management- A Concept beyond Equal Opportunities and Discrimination. Journal of Business Management & Social Sciences Research (JBM&SSR) ISSN No: 2319-5614 Vol 5, No.5 [Online] Available at : www.borjournals.com/a/index.php/jbmssr/article/download/2278/pdf London
[Accessed 20 May 2018]
Hofstede, G (1991), “Cultures and Organizations”. London: McGraw Hill.
Holbeche, L. (2002) The High Performance Organization. [Online] Available at : https://books.google.lk/books?isbn=1136357696 [14 May 2018]
Ingham, j (2003) how to implement a diversity policy. People management, 14 May 2018.
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