Marketing your Employer Brand

Why an Employer Brand Matters

In a competitive job market like Bangalore, Mumbai, and Pune many companies have similar perks: health insurance, happy hours, flexible work from home policy, unlimited PTO, you name it. It’s a race to the top for companies to attract top talent with these ‘perks’ and competitive salaries – but there is one secret weapon in recruiting which every company has but not all of them use: themselves. In a recent survey of Hired candidates, over 40% ranked Company Culture ranking higher than Perks & Benefits as a reason they join a new company. Some HRs credits the success of the recruiting team to the of their recruiters’ ability to make real human connections with each and every one of their candidates. When you can compete with salary, benefits, and perks – you have to stand out by making sure candidates are excited when speaking to your team, not just about the product but the people they’ll be interacting with on a day-to-day basis.

Build Your EVP

Your EVP is your employer value proposition. This takes into account multiple factors including compensation, benefits, career trajectory, work environment, and culture.

Step 1:
Understand what both the company and employees want. Choosing where to work is one of the most life-changing decisions a person can make next to purchasing a home or choosing their life partner. Since people are always connected to the internet – the lines between work and life become more blurred. People start to inject parts of their personal life into their work life and vice versa.
Step 2:
Create a unique program around the “wants”. One example of a new program was from a team dedicated to working with boomerang employees. This is a way to get feedback on why employees may be leaving, but at the same time, you’re able to retain top talent you once had.
Another example is “No meeting Wednesdays” where folks try their hardest to be
productive and not hold meetings unless absolutely necessary. One HR professional
found that the most important thing was great healthcare benefits. At one point they mentioned they’d forgo their bonus check if it meant being able to have the peace of mind.
Step 3:
Use your data and iterate. Great HR professionals create their EVP by understanding feedback from employees in their surveys and working with marketing to convey their message. Think about how often companies become out of touch with their employers. Surveys are important in understanding how well your programs are performing. Ultimately – it’s in the best interest of the employee to give honest feedback for improvement.

Using Data

Data can be used for more than creating an EVP. As companies grow, they often times have brands under their portfolio. The more companies there are, the more important it is to have one consistent brand voice.
All of our HR partners mentioned in one way or another how they used their data to drive their decisions on how to engage candidates. On a quarterly basis, the talent leadership team at Uber looks at key dimensions on where they want to dive in during their recruiting process. Through all funnels of the process, all of the data is compiled to understand where the most drop off maybe and possible solutions to fix it.
Candidate feedback is extremely helpful. With enough data, you can start to see what trends you have during drop off and which reasons are one-off occurrences. For example – if no engineer in Bangalore can pass your code test, maybe it’s not a great test.
Look at the top companies listed on Glassdoor to see how they compare. You can
compare employee reviews to look for areas of improvement. The most telling way of how to measure data however is the average rate of engagement to see if their brand content is strong.

The Bottom Line

In summary, creating a strong employer brand helps companies grow and retain their best employees.
The best way for companies to build a strong brand is by building strong connections to all candidates within the recruiting process. When recruiting, these top companies all pay attention to the feedback they get from both candidates and employees and act on areas where they see drop off.
Swiggy’s VP of talent and inclusion, mentions the direct tie between a company’s strong financials and a strong employer brand. The bottom line is a strong employer brand will lead to $$$.