How to Get Started Building Your Employer Brand from Within

Your employer brand originates inside your organization, with the employee experience of your current workforce, so that’s where your employer brand work begins. 

It’s natural to think first about your careers page, your presence on job boards, employee reviews on third-party sites, or your company’s public reputation, but all of these things are the result of what’s going on inside your doors.  

Neglecting your employees means that you’ll project a shiny image of yourself, but your employees will make it clear to the public that you’re full of garbage. Best case scenario is that you’ll send the message that you care more about hiring new employees than you do about the ones you already have and engender an unhappy workforce ready to find a job elsewhere. 

You clean up your house before you invite people over; do the same when you’re inviting new talent to join your company. Here’s how. 

Give them something to talk about

There are two reasons employer branding starts from within. One is that employees talk about their jobs, for better or worse. To the best of your ability, give them something they can brag about. This might be access to training and education they can use to grow their skills and therefore their careers, compensation that makes them feel valued, or schedules and (truly) flexible time off that make it easy for them to work from home, take care of their families, and travel. 

The other reason is that employees pay attention to the way their employer talks about itself. Imagine how frustrating it must be for a worker to hear their employer talk about the great career growth opportunities they offer as they watch less qualified (but ingratiated) cronies promoted over them again and again. Before you project an image, ask yourself, could my employees corroborate this? Better yet, ask them. 

Train your managers and equip them to lead

Employee experience hinges on the employee-manager relationship. Make it a good one. 

Equip your managers to lead their teams with a sense of value and purpose. This can happen only if managers themselves feel that senior leadership trusts them. Train them, get their EQs up, and because they’re closest to the labor that makes your company work, give them the latitude to serve their staff. 

Get feedback and respond (no really)

It should go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway. You have to understand how your employees feel about working at your company. This isn’t a one-time exercise, of course, but an ongoing process of collecting information, identifying patterns of good and bad, and responding.

Collect this information in a variety of ways and at regular intervals: pulse surveys and annual surveys, quarterly reviews, one-on-one meetings, focus groups—you know the tools. Balance regular requests for feedback with survey fatigue by giving managers ways to relay information to the top, where larger patterns can be identified.

As you improve the employee experience, make it clear to your staff the changes you’re making. Have you added new career growth opportunities? New health benefits? New leave policies? New training for managers? Document it, announce it, and ask for feedback.  

Show them that you’re proud of the work they do

Don’t expect employees to share your employer-branded content…unless they’re a part of it. Feature your employees in your employer branding materials by profiling high-performers and giving employees the opportunity to share how they got promoted or how they developed a new product inside your doors. It’s a boost for their career and for your reputation as an employer. 

Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is a freelance writer based in Richmond, VA, who writes about workplace culture and policies, hiring, DEI, employer branding, and issues faced by women. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, Fast Company, and Food Technology, among others, and has been syndicated by MSN and The Motley Fool.

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