Fair…or plays favorites?
Looks out for their people…or looks out for number one?
Accurate or not, every employer has a reputation. Some glimpses of it might exist online in forums like Reddit or Glassdoor, which are ripe with reviews from past and present employees.
But these platforms aren’t the only peepholes available to job candidates trying to feel out an employer’s vibe. Evidence of company culture is actually conveyed across every single one of your business’s actions and touchpoints – even those with no overt connection to talent acquisition. Good news: Many of these touchpoints can be improved. More on this momentarily!
But even more critical than how reputation is conveyed is your reputation’s power. On today’s candidate-driven landscape especially, an employer’s reputation and branding strategy are more potent than many leaders realize. Why? Because companies with good reputations attract stronger talent – period. And high-performing talent and favorable business outcomes go hand-in-hand. A company known for fairness, growth potential, healthy culture, and generous benefits will organically evoke customer and employment referrals, loyalty, and heaps of other positives likely to boost everything from company revenue to retention.
Put another way, curating your business’s brand and reputation is, it turns out, an exercise in curating your business’s future.
What do we mean by 'reputation?'
Before we offer ways to assess and improve your employer reputation, and therefore your ability to successfully attract candidates, some clarification:
Reputation refers to a business’s general standing among customers, employees, and even its community. For this discussion, though, we’re focused on one specific aspect of reputation: The perception of your business as an employer brand, i.e. as a place to work. The two are often aligned, but not always: In the late 1990s, the popular Lisa Frank brand sold $60 million annually in vibrant folders, pencil cases, and other eye-catching school supplies. Meanwhile, jobseekers in Tuscon, where the business was based, were told by knowing locals to run the other way. “I didn’t know a single person who had not heard horror stories about the work environment there,” one Arizona woman later told Jezebel. While many factors contributed to the Lisa Frank, Inc. decline, negative employee experiences were chief among them, pointing to the power of employer reputation to tip the scales.
So... what's your company's reputation?
Optimizing your company’s workplace reputation starts by understanding: What is your reputation today? Sussing it out is more art than science. A few guidelines:
- If you haven’t already, search for your company on Glassdoor and related platforms like Indeed and Fairygodboss. Brace yourself: Anonymous reviews from employees do tend to skew negative. If you encounter derogatory feedback and experiences that are hard to swallow, resist the urge to get defensive. Instead, ask yourself: Could there be truth to them? Are there any patterns or themes across these reviews? Like it or not, what can be learned?
- Talk to current employees. Carefully probe their boots-on-the-ground experiences. Anonymous employee surveys are ideal for soliciting feedback employees might not otherwise share on topics ranging from pay and remote work policies to office seating arrangements and a specific manager’s style.
One caveat: Conduct anonymous workplace surveys only if you’re willing to take at least some action based on results. Can’t increase salaries – the leading request from your people? At least replace the stinky kitchen microwave mentioned by a few, and coordinate additional training for the manager called out as underqualified. It’s critical to show that the feedback received from the survey is valuable and taken to heart, or you may do more harm than good in your employees’ eyes.
How to improve your employer brand reputation
A particularly effective way to become more attractive to job candidates is to improve the way you engage them at every point in the recruitment and hiring process. Want job candidates to perceive your workplace as fair, communicative, and a place where they want to work? Offer that impression from the get-go. A few tips:
- Hire more efficiently. Hiring takes time – but can’t afford to take too much time. When long stretches pass between interviews and communication from your hiring team, candidates feel undervalued and are more likely to move on. Beyond costing you top talent, a lengthy hiring process indicates a lack of humanity that job seekers notice.
- Humanize automated responses. Impersonal communication can be a deterrent to discerning candidates – and is a growing problem with the emergence of automation and AI. Remember, humans want to be talked to like humans! One myHR Partner client got great feedback after rewriting automated responses in their hiring software. “We received your resume; thank you,” became, “Thank you for your interest in being part of the exciting and invaluable work we do every day!” – a much warmer and more galvanizing sentiment. Another client’s custom auto response encourages candidates to follow a link to their team page to “meet” the professionals who already work there. Thoughtfulness at meaningful touchpoints presents your business as caring and real.
- Pay attention to job ad tone. Similarly, make sure the vibe put off by job postings reflects your brand, or at minimum comes across like it was written by a human. Job ads should be concise and clear without sacrificing a conversational tone. Remember, these ads are often prospects’ first impression of your business – a critical opportunity to make sure you’re coming across the way you want, and true-to-brand.
- Highlight any awards received. Several of our clients were sitting on well-earned awards, failing to mention them in hiring communication – until we pointed it out. Job candidates want social proof that your workplace is a quality one, so don’t squander any formal recognition you’ve received! Weave it into your website, social media profiles and posts, email signatures, and any and all hiring-related messaging funnels.
- Ask employees for reviews. If you’re getting positive feedback from your employees, ask them (in an all-hands meeting or employee newsletter) to post a workplace review to Glassdoor. Even more, give them the green light to post any existing or future company job postings to their personal social media profiles and pages. Approval and enthusiasm from existing employees is a huge vote of confidence for job prospects wondering what it might be like to work for you.
Ready to take your workplace reputation up a notch – and see candidate attraction and other business outcomes rise with it? Turn to myHR Partner. Our time-proven outsourced hiring services for small and mid-sized organizations include partnering on employer brand strategy and reputation management. The benefit for client businesses is clear: Stronger talent leads to stronger business.
Reach out today for a free myHR Partner consultation.