Employer Branding in 2020
Jacob Darr’s view on Employer Branding
The merits of employer branding are no longer up for debate: in today’s workplace environment, employer branding is on par to be one of the leading human resource tools in the competitive hiring market. Maybe, like many, you aren’t yet convinced. Let’s look at some of the key figures that make the importance of employer branding irrefutable.
It Starts With An Image
For better or for worse, the days of walking into a brick and mortar building and asking for a job are over. Employers and employees have taken to the Internet and social media outlets, such as networking sites like LinkedIn, to advertise and procure employment.This makes the importance of an employer brand that much more relevant.
LinkedIn, alone, reports a 2.5% higher rate of job applicants for companies that have a strong talent brand. Moreover, survey after survey of incoming hires and job-seekers, from an aggregate of job-seeking websites, have shown that employees will not accept positions from companies that have bad reviews. In fact, LinkedIn also reports that survey respondents overwhelmingly reported turning down positions with higher pay scales than their current positions, if the company did not have the top employer brand indicators as a part of their branding package.
The Right Company Culture
A striking 88% of millennial employees report that among their key job-seeking factors is finding the right company culture. Moreover, a whopping 79% of all job-seekers report utilizing social media to find the right fit. Retention is also the name of the game when it comes to company culture. Branded companies have a generally higher and more consistent employee retention rate, hovering somewhere around 28% less turnover rate than companies that choose not to brand.
What do these statistics mean for individual companies seeking to hire new and retainable employees? By not investing in their company brand, human resource departments miss out on the vast majority of qualified and skilled people looking for jobs in the marketplace today.
Still Not Convinced? Look To The Bottom Line
If we look to the bottom line of employer branding, it still stands above any and all human resource outreach practices. And arguably, the bottom line is the most important factor to consider. Strong employer branding has shown to lead to a 50% increase in candidate qualifications in recent years. Even more convincing, employers who fail to represent themselves with branding stand to spend $4,723 per hire while seeing higher turnover as compared to companies that have a strong employer brand.
For larger companies, with 10,000 or more employees, the numbers are even grimmer: companies of this scale that choose to forgo employer branding stand to lose a whopping $7.6 million in additional wages. Larger companies that instead branded saw 43% lower hiring costs in recent years, as compared to those companies that lost in the millions.
And perhaps the most shocking of all factors: 67% of job seekers will consider a lower wage in exchange for a better-branded company.
While it is still true that the first impression of the would-be employees is as vital to their potential employment as their qualifications and experience, we can no longer deny that the same goes for employers seeking to hire quality workers. Fortunately, employer branding is simple and cost-effective for companies of all sizes.