Boost Your Employer Branding with Employee Engagement and Advocacy

In case you’re not familiar with it, employer branding is the way your company is perceived as a potential employer. This encompasses anything from work policies and environment to the values your organization transmits to its employees. 

Think about this question: what is your company doing to promote its unique identity as an employer? 

Stimulate engagement in your work environment

Nurturing a positive work culture and environment can be as straightforward as allowing your employees flexible working hours, working from home when they wish to, fair wages, good working conditions, and encouraging them to put their mental and physical health first. 

Chances are you’ll have a lot of employees who are fully satisfied with their work conditions and the trust or ownership you award them but still would not quite call themselves “engaged”. 

Of course, growing genuine engagement in your workforce is a hard endeavor, not something that magically happens overnight after tweaking a few policies here and there. 

Engagement takes nurturing but cultivating it shows dedication and effort, and that will translate into an equally caring and positive employer brand. Start by showing employees that their opinions are valued — ask for feedback and input and actually take them into consideration. This will, without a doubt, increase their trust in your brand and make them feel recognized for the work they do. 

But why care about how the outside perceives your organization?

There is one simple answer to that question. Talent acquisition. 

• Potential employees will flock to you. Forget about sweating to find the right candidate for that vacancy, if you have a strong and charismatic employer brand, people will want to work for you.
• You will attract the best talent out there. Nowadays employees have the luxury to choose between job foffers, they get to pick the most attractive workplace. So why not cut to the chase and attract them like magnets with the most attractive workplace they could find?
• Retention rates will spike. The better the reputation you have the longer employees will want to stay with you. Why would they want to leave a workplace they feel good in?

Not fully convinced yet?

Well, I’ve got another argument for you. Another reason why you should care about the outside perception of your company is that that perception is almost always a reflection of what is going on on the inside. 

That’s right. Employees talk, for good and for bad, which is why you should take advantage of them — their network, their connection, and the influence they have on the people around them — to exude a positive image of your company. 

Install advocacy to get the word out

Encourage employees to spread the word about your employee-friendly policies and benefits, your work culture, and all that comes with it. 

Better even, formalize their efforts by gradually installing an advocacy-oriented mindset and a fully-functional program.

Having your employees socially market your company will show that they feel engaged with it and care about it and its goals, thus enhancing the employer brand and the company perception.

Events, initiatives, and activities that showcase your people and your company culture will give you the right content for building attractive employer branding. So write it all down, take photos, call out employees by name, and, most importantly, encourage them to share this content with their networks.

Successful and strong employer branding hinges on the promotion of engagement among employees, and organizational values employees can identify with, and that happens precisely through Employee Advocacy.