How can employer branding work for current employees?

Employer branding is often viewed primarily as a tool to attract prospective employees by enhancing the company’s reputation and attractiveness. However, I’d like to consider the significant role that current employees play in these branding efforts.

They are the creators of the most valuable and catchy content, represent the organization at public events, and help find the right fit through referrals.

These employees also feed the invaluable word-of-mouth chain. This layer of informal communication is powerful and difficult to quantify; it begins when an employee shares his or her experience with his or her social circles, creating a ripple effect that reaches potential future hires.

When your employees are well-informed and take pride in what the company is doing, it becomes an integral part of the company’s employer branding strategy. Their engagement and enthusiasm can spark meaningful conversations about the organization and serve as a beacon that attracts potential candidates.

In the employee journey, there is a stage that, from an employer branding perspective, I would call “retention.” This stage involves keeping great people on the team and encouraging them to act as brand ambassadors.

Internal communications

With the focus on external events and the marketing efforts around them, it’s easy to overlook the importance of internally demonstrating your brand ambassadors' successes and achievements. At Wrike, I’ve developed a system for sharing news about employer branding activities in various formats.

1. Using our company’s Slack workspace, I’ve initiated an open group where our team can create and share employer branding updates. Not only does this build a sense of community, but it also gives me insight into how engaging our employer branding news is for our colleagues. This is determined, in part, by the ups and downs in the number of group participants and their interactions with the posts.
2. Each quarter, I put together a digest of key highlights, stats, and standout posts. This is shared on our general company-wide Slack channel. In addition, I regularly remind all employees (especially new hires) that they can subscribe to our monthly newsletter, which is tailored to an external audience.
3. We also routinely direct employees to our digital resources and social media groups to ensure they stay up-to-date on our external communications and deepen their identification with our brand.

Tip: When working with a content calendar, make it a rule to include the dissemination of key employer branding news in your internal channels. This will ensure that you don’t overlook sharing important milestones with your internal audience.

4. Another way to showcase company culture to external audiences and build credibility and pride among current employees is through employee-centric content and stories. This type of content helps bridge the gap between the company and candidates, and also showcases employees from different perspectives, highlighting not only their professional excellence but also their personalities.

For example, Wrike has a successful series of articles called “Meet Wrikers. Or Miro has produced a podcast called “People of Miro” that highlights its employees, and Productboard is also experimenting with the podcast format.

5. Leadership stories can also be effective for both external and internal branding.

Recognition and Appreciation

The critical role in “internal” branding is recognition from the leadership team and peers. But you start with recognition from the employer branding team.

At Wrike, we have been using a rewards system for brand ambassadors — such as writers, speakers, and open source contributors — for the past 5–6 years. Ambassadors can earn points for various activities, which they can accumulate and redeem for Amazon gift cards twice a year. The number of points varies based on the type of activity, event level, content difficulty, popularity, and other factors. The leaderboard is open to the entire company, encouraging employees to participate as brand ambassadors. Such a form of gamification.

Consider nominating brand ambassadors from the executive team to recognize those who have gone above and beyond to raise brand awareness. This is also an effective way to inform stakeholders about employer branding activities and get their buy-in.

Another suggestion is to encourage managers to use LinkedIn posting. It’s an easy way to publicly announce significant new hires and promotions, demonstrating a culture of recognition and appreciation within the organization, which further reinforces the branding strategy.

Please share your tips and tricks for recognizing brand ambassadors in your organization in the comments.

People’s voice

It’s beneficial to get regular feedback from employees about the company’s image on the market. This feedback can help align the Employee Value Proposition (EVP) with employees’ perceptions of the company’s values. It also serves as a source of information for the employer branding team to gather ideas and learn about competitor campaigns that have caught the attention of colleagues. And of course, find new contributors.

Here are some examples of questions you can include in a such survey:

How have our employer branding efforts influenced your perception of our company?

Do our employer branding efforts align with your personal values and sense of purpose at work?

Could you share details about any employer branding campaign that captivated your attention and the reasons why it stood out to you?

Would you like to participate in any employer branding activities?

Communities

Developing communities within the organization can be a valuable resource for employment branding initiatives. If you have communities of writers or speakers, you can organize special educational events and training sessions for them. Consider inviting guest experts in the field to share their knowledge and help ambassadors learn. You can also create special swag and other incentives. These initiatives serve multiple purposes: fostering community spirit and camaraderie, recognizing individual efforts, and creating exclusive and engaging groups (e.g., speakers-only).

Other groups and communities, such as resource or interest groups, can provide valuable content that showcases your company’s culture and commitment to diversity and inclusion.

By investing in community development, you not only support employee growth and engagement, but also enhance your employer branding efforts through the authentic and compelling stories that emerge from these communities.

Metrics?

The question is: how can we measure employer branding activities for current employees? In addition, I would like to ask if it is necessary to measure it at all.

In my experience, I consider using proxy metrics that are indirectly related to, or not solely dependent on, employer branding efforts. These include metrics such as eNPS in the annual engagement survey, the quantity and quality of referrals, and valuable feedback from the employee offboarding survey. While this data should not be the primary focus, it can provide helpful insights for generating new ideas and improving work practices.

Post-employment branding

In employer branding, you can think of post-employment as a stage in the employee journey and consider possible efforts at this stage. If your former employees are loyal to the company, they can continue to promote the company’s image in the market and spread the word about your activities. You can build an alumni community and create activities or privileges for them. Offer them the opportunity to subscribe to newsletters, join social media groups, and invite them to participate in focus groups.

Conclusion

Employer branding activities play an important role in engaging and retaining current employees. By leveraging their role as brand ambassadors, organizations can harness the power of employee advocacy and word-of-mouth. Consider internal communications, recognition, listening to employees, fostering communities, and post-employment branding.

Employer branding should be integrated into a company’s HR processes. It is not only about attracting new talent but also about investing in the satisfaction and motivation of current employees. When employees feel informed, recognized, and valued, they become enthusiastic advocates for the company. Their conversations and referrals contribute to the overall success of employer branding efforts. By continuously nurturing and engaging with employees, organizations can create a thriving internal culture and a strong external employer brand.