To captivate your employees, it's crucial to create a seamless experience from their first encounter with your company through their journey with you — from recruitment to details about career growth opportunities. By developing a strong internal brand identity that aligns with your external brand, you not only create a unified and authentic experience but also enhance their engagement and strengthen your reputation as an employer of choice.
Attracting and retaining talent has become a more complicated challenge in today's dynamic labor market. Although research1 shows a cooling trend following pandemic pressures, employers continue to compete for talent amid rising employee demands and waning employee engagement.
Qualtrics2 reports this increase in employee expectations, noting that new hires show lower engagement, with about 39% planning to leave a company within the first six months. This pressure is compounded by the cost to hire new talent. According to Wagescape3, losing an employee can cost a company up to two times the employee's salary — or roughly $1,500 per hourly worker.
Here are three ways communications can address these challenges and contribute to the success of your organization's wider recruitment strategy.
1. Align internal and external brand identity
You need to create a unified employee experience from recruitment to the information provided about career advancement opportunities. By creating an internal brand identity that aligns with your external brand, you create consistency that strengthens your reputation as an employer of choice.
To achieve this, harmonize your external messaging — like mission, vision, and values — with your internal messaging. For example, the language used on your company career page and social media should be consistent. This clarity helps candidates and employees understand the organization's goals and their contributions as an individual.
2. Know the value of your employer's value proposition (EVP)
Your EVP is crucial for attracting and retaining top talent. It includes everything from benefits and compensation to training opportunities, support for work-life balance, and culture and values. This unique proposition is fundamental to what makes your organization attractive and competitive as an employer. HR professionals, talent acquisition specialist, and organizational leaders have the power to leverage effectively.
Your EVP can be an essential tool in a highly competitive market. By aligning your internal messaging with your external brand, you further strengthen your position as an employer.
Examples:
At ABC Company, your growth and well-being are essential to our success. We offer a comprehensive benefits package to support your physical, mental, and financial health.
Sure. We have all the benefits and perks you'd expect from a strong, fast-growing company, but we go beyond the basics for work, home, and everywhere in between.
You can also use EVP-related promotions to further connect internal messaging to external values and goals. For example, if your company has a strong DEI statement to external customers, your internal message could be:
We offer benefits and resources to support our employees' diverse needs, including business.
You could also align external messaging with total rewards statements, recruitment materials, videos of senior leaders or employees sharing their good news stories about working for the company.
3. Leverage internal partnerships
Partner with recruitment and talent acquisition teams to ensure they have what they need to educate candidates and new hires. Share your benefits expertise by creating communication toolkits to help others understand how the EVP enhances the employee experience. You can also partner with people leaders to ensure they have what they need to support their teams.
Better still, find out exactly what they need. Host focus groups, organize interviews, and ask them what they hear from candidates during the interview process. Some questions to consider include:
- How do you currently sell and promote company benefits during the recruitment process?
- What are the most common questions you get asked from candidates and new hires?
- Which benefits can we help you to understand and explain?
Use this internal feedback to refresh existing materials or create new ones — there are many ways you can offer support. For example:
- Create an email distribution list to share benefits information, updates, and materials.
- Regularly review benefits information on the company careers page.
- Set up a benefits toolkit on your company share drive so teams can quickly access up-to-date resources to support new hires and educate candidates.
Ready to get started? Let's collaborate to create a communications strategy aligned with your recruitment and retention goals. Get in touch.
Sources
1https://www.axios.com/2024/05/01/us-job-market-openings-jolts-data
2 https://www.inspiring-workplaces.com/content/research-employee-expectations-set-to-rise-in-2024
3https://wagescape.com/the-true-cost-of-unfilled-positions/
