HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR EMPLOYER BRANDING STRATEGY?
The employee experience should be the base to develop your Employer Branding strategy. The employee experience can be measured based on 3 factors:
- The human factor, referring to the physical and psychological wellbeing of the employee.
- The digital factor, encompassing the mix of hardware and software used by the employees.
- The community factor, meaning purpose and values that will make your employees feel included in the company’s sphere and aligned with you.
We will show you how taking into consideration these factors in your strategy will help booster your Employer Brand.
Mind Employees’ Physical and Psychological Well Being
The spread of the pandemic worldwide transformed everything, including companies, their teams, and, of course, the People areas and their strategies. The consequences of this great global crisis tested businesses’ ability for reinvention and adaptation.
Among the emergency measures taken by companies in talent management, teleworking was the most widespread one. This new way of working came here to stay, but with few caveats: as employers, how do we make sure that our people are doing well physically, emotionally, psychologically?
With teleworking, many workers have been forced to combine their professional work with family work in the same space. Helping employees reconcile both parts of life will make them be more engaged. Adopting a flexible working day is providing facilities to your employees so that they are as comfortable as possible and perform at their best.
For example, it is vital to listen to your employees, know what they need and carry out a personalized management of each case. People are diverse, and so are their aspirations and needs. Carrying out measures to take care of the staff will considerably increase the possibility that they will speak well of your company.
In addition, do not stay only focused on the technological part – go further and investigate the possible needs and demands that may arise from your team, both at home and in the office. It can be directly or through surveys to find out their opinion.
Humanizing the brand through employee advocacy and providing trust and closeness through internal communication is key in times of insecurity and physical distancing.
Turn your Employees into Brand Ambassadors to Promote Company’s Culture & Values
According to the Remote Employee Experience Index by Slack, around 72% of all people in Europe prefer a truly hybrid solution. Not only during covid, but also post-covid. The Index suggests that there is an overall satisfaction with the fact of working remotely, good management of stress and anxiety levels, and improved productivity. The sense of belonging was the only criteria that ranked negatively. The only thing that people massively miss is being with others.
Not only Companies need to be capable to connect with their employees, communicate efficiently with them, involve them in the project and build a proper company culture. Working on the company’s reputation as an employer is always relevant. But, in the current situation, it is also essential to focus on pampering the corporate culture, as well as the alignment of employees with the company’s values.
Caring for the employer brand is synonymous with caring for employees and not just customers. Employees need to know why they do what they do. They need to share values with the brand and feel part of a common project to be committed. Communicating with workers implies their own storytelling in which they take part and actions that generate experiences, emotions, and a spirit of belonging to the organization. A happy employee is the best Brand Ambassador a company can have.
“Customers do not come first; employees come first. If you take care of them, they will take care of your customers.” – Richard Branson
So, this is precisely the way: making your employees your Brand Ambassadors to foster a culture of belonging in a hybrid workplace. Brand Ambassadors will be selling customers and prospective employees the company and its culture. They are crucial to install a culture of connectiveness. Think of culture as a product you want to sell, as culture is what is going to make your company thrive.
Invest in Digital Transformation
Since the hybrid working mode is here to stay, technical improvements should be made to make it easier to work from home, as well as improve interactions in the workplace through different digital tools. Think about how the company can improve and invest in technology that eases connectivity, transparency and, of course, the productivity of your team.
Although digital transformation was a long-term goal for most companies even before Covid-19, the pandemic accelerated the plan, making digitalization a necessity in the workplace. As data, people and technology drive digital transformation, the role of employees in this change is paramount.
Therefore, accelerating investment and adoption of the digital employee experience (DEX) is essential for companies facing the challenges of a hybrid workplace. According to the study released by VMware, 75% of organizations have made the digital employee experience a higher or top priority since the pandemic began.
However, a Gartner survey showed that only 13%. of employees are currently satisfied with the digital experience in their workplace. Some common problems that harm the digital experience of employees are:
- Slow computers
- Slow starts
- Applications that crash
- Connectivity issues
- Stolen/bunch of passwords
- Outdated hardware and software
Providing a good digital experience to your employees will be beneficial to the company overall, as it:
- Improves employee productivity, leading to more outstanding quality of work.
- Streamlines the workplace, allowing business processes to run without unnecessary roadblocks.
- Increases employee satisfaction, allowing them to perform to the best of their abilities.
Implement Gamification Techniques in the Intranet to Increase Employee Engagement
How to improve employee engagement in the workplace, especially when working remotely? Connection is crucial, and the Intranet is a necessary mean to connect people.
Platformisation can help you achieve a successful digital employee experience, an adequate way to create an effective collaborative ecosystem. Intranets are a huge source of information within a company. It is the starting point for many tasks and workflows. Therefore, it is fundamental that people make effective use of the intranet. They also play a crucial role in bringing company and people together by allowing them to collaborate, co-create and share knowledge. Remember to keep an intranet active and engaging by updating regularly.
How to make the platform at work more informative and a fun environment? Gamification is the magic word here. It consists of applying elements of the world of gaming into a product or a service to increase engagement in such product or service. The fun thing is that you can get immediate feedback upon completion of certain tasks.
Intranet gamification refers to the integration of an existing system, such as an intranet, with a game mechanism. Users (=employees) in a gamification system get rewards by performing their tasks more efficiently due to the natural desire to compete. This is why many companies are using intranet gamification to boost employee engagement and productivity.
Main gamification techniques include:
- Levels (employees reach a certain level after completing certain tasks)
- Trophies and medals
- Progress and evolution bars (employees can see their progress compared to their colleagues)
- Ranking of best scores/leader board
- Gifts (employees unlock certain privileges when they complete tasks)
You can, for example, stimulate gamification by rewarding those colleagues who help newcomers’ employees on the onboarding process.
Gamification is spreading throughout companies, because it is a useful element internally and a differentiating factor abroad. It is particularly useful in cases where employees are doing boring tasks for hours. If implemented correctly, the game becomes a stimulus to improve processes. Plan how to apply it in your company and you will make your professionals more productive and increase their satisfaction, which, at the same time, will benefit the employer branding of your organization, making it easier for you to attract talent.
CONCLUSIONS
In recent years there has been a paradigm shift that has placed people at the centre of management. But at a time when pandemic has shifted priorities, keeping and finding the right talent has become increasingly more difficult. It is, then, about exciting and generating happiness in the work environment, and that is why strengthening the employer branding image in organizations has become essential. It is more necessary than ever to develop the brand and that the human capital feels identified with the values the organization defends.
When values shine internally, they are also projected as a brand on the outside. From the direction of an organization there must be the conviction that from the beginning there is a participation and well-defined values. And, on the path, internal communication is necessary to achieve understanding.
Likewise, it is important to understand what candidates think and demand to generate an environment of well-being at work and for the recruitment of new talents. The aim is to ensure that the staff become brand ambassadors and, for this, not only loyalty and attraction must be generated, but also turn the employee into a “day-to-day partner”.
Finally, having a defined system to measure job satisfaction is important, as well as having a well-developed technological environment and a digital platform for talent management in which employers can identify certain parameters of commitment and professional growth. It is fundamental to connect people without bias and enable their participation and engage them with systems like the use of gamification in the company’s intranet.
At Linkus we held an event about Employer Branding, where experts in the field talked about:
- How to take care of your employees
- Attract and retain talent
- Why is Employer Branding on the rise?
- The importance of investing in your Digital Employee Experience (DEX)
- How to turn your employees to your Brand Ambassadors
- Enhance employee’s engagement
…and further useful insights.
Check the full video to learn more😉
Tags:
employer branding, human resources, digitalization, digital employee experience, brand ambassador, happy employee, engagement, gamification, intranet