What is employer branding and why does it matter?

Employer branding is how you show people what it's really like to work for your business. Done well, it helps you attract the right people and gives the people you already have a reason to stay.

What employer branding means

According to the CIPD, all organisations have an employer brand. If you hire at all, small business or not, people already have an impression of what it's like to work for you. It's better to shape that impression yourself than to leave it to chance.

Employer branding works much like marketing, with a different audience. Marketing shows customers why they should buy from you. Employer branding shows job seekers and your own team why working for you is worth it.

Your employer brand comes from your values, your culture and the way you talk about work on your website and other channels. You can shape it with a recruitment drive or a marketing campaign. But it also comes from everyday things: how a job advert reads, how you treat candidates and what your staff say about you to friends. Job seekers and your own staff may read what you publish for customers too.

Why employer branding is important

The benefits of employer branding start with hiring, but they reach your own team and your customers too.

• A strong employer brand helps you compete for good applicants, who want a reason to choose you beyond the job itself. When they can see what you stand for and what the work is like, they can judge for themselves whether they'd fit.
• Your reputation as an employer can have a big effect on what it costs to hire and keep people, as the recruitment marketing firm SmartDreamers points out. A role that's hard to fill stays open for longer, and every person who leaves means hiring again.
• It helps you keep the people you already have. When you show what your team does and what you stand for, staff can feel seen, valued and more connected to the business.
• Employer branding is aimed at job seekers and staff, but customers and suppliers notice a business that treats its people well and is proud of them. That goodwill builds brand trust, which is part of building a strong brand.

How to build your employer brand

Start your employer branding strategy with what's true about working for you, and only then decide where to show it. You don't need an HR department or a big budget for any of it.

Start with what is true about working for you

Ask your team what they like about working for you and why they stay. A short survey or a few honest conversations will do. Then write down the few things that make you different as an employer. That might be flexibility, the chance to learn a trade or a close team.

Keep it honest. Only promise what you're confident you can deliver, and describe on your careers page what new starters will really find, not the workplace you'd like to have. If the job turns out different from what you described, new starters soon notice, and the gap gives them a reason to leave.

Publish employee stories

A manager saying how great the company is can be nice, but it feels more honest when employees share their own experience. Ask a few people to talk about their workday, what they do and what keeps them with you. You can film short videos or use photos and text, and publish them on your company website and careers page.

Show your culture and benefits

Share photos and short videos from events, team outings, celebrations and ordinary moments at work. If staff get extra benefits or the chance to take courses, say so, ideally in the words of someone who has used them.

Use social media and your team

When you promote your company on social media, your employee stories and photos fit right in. Post them on every channel you use, so people see the everyday side of your business. For employer branding, LinkedIn is one of the strongest channels: it's a professional network, so posts about what it's like to work for you fit naturally there. Encourage staff to talk about their work in their own words, and reshare their posts on your company page.

Create a careers page

A careers page is the place on your website where your employer branding comes together. Use storytelling to show what working with you is like. A good careers page covers:

• your values and what makes working for you different, in a few plain sentences
• employee stories, photos and videos from everyday work
• the benefits, the training and the ways people can grow with you
• current vacancies, or how to get in touch when there are none
• what happens after someone applies, and answers to the questions candidates ask most

Put your careers page on your own website, where you decide what it says.

Give your About us page a work angle

Your About us page is a good place to share your history and your values. Introduce the people who work for you and what they do there too, so the page speaks to future colleagues as well as customers.

Treat hiring as part of the brand

Candidates judge you by how you treat them. Write clear job adverts, reply quickly, tell people where they stand and give new starters a warm welcome. Aim for a process fair enough that people who didn't get the job would still speak well of you.

Build your website with a careers page, without coding or design experience, and update it whenever you open a new role.

Employer branding examples from UK companies

These examples of employer branding come from large organisations, but each has an idea a small business can use.

Innocent Drinks: values, perks and a fair hiring process

Innocent's careers site lists the company's values and says they're used in weekly catch-ups and reviews, and even hung in every toilet. The site explains what staff get, from pay and holiday to being eligible for a sabbatical after two years. The site also describes its hiring process, which Innocent wants to give everyone a fair chance. For a small business, the lesson is to write your careers page in your own voice and tell candidates how you'll treat them.

John Lewis Partnership: staff as co-owners

The John Lewis Partnership, which includes John Lewis and Waitrose, builds its employer brand on one idea: staff are Partners and co-owners of the business. On its careers site, the Partnership says it's built on values and on doing right by people, the business and the world. What to copy: find the one thing that's genuinely different about working for you, and build your story around it.

Royal Navy: what you learn

The Royal Navy's careers page carries Made in the Royal Navy, its recruitment campaign. The page tells recruits what they gain: they get stuck in from the start, gain qualifications they never thought possible and get paid for it from day one of training. It also quotes Sam, from engineering, on why every day in the job is different. On your own careers page, tell candidates what they'll learn with you, as well as what the job involves.

How to tell if your employer branding works

You don't need special tools to see whether it's working. Keep an eye on a few simple signs over time:

• Count how many people apply for each role, and how many of them are a good fit.
• Note how often the people you offer a job to say yes.
• Check whether staff stay longer than before, and ask why people leave when they do.
• Run a short staff survey now and then to see whether people would recommend working for you.
• Read what current and former staff write about you on employer review sites, and reply calmly to criticism.

Questions about employer branding

What is the difference between employer branding and employee branding?

The difference is who does the talking. With employer branding, you show what working for you is like through your careers page, adverts and channels. With employee branding, your staff talk about your business on their own channels, in their own words, and carry its values to others. The employee stories you publish yourself are still part of your employer branding.

What is an employee value proposition (EVP)?

An employee value proposition is a clear statement of what you stand for as an employer, what you ask of your staff and what you offer them. It's a central part of your employer brand, and your careers page, adverts and interviews should all keep to it. The few true things you wrote down about working for you are a good start. Turn them into two or three plain sentences that say what you offer and what you expect.

Start with your careers page

The careers page is the one to do first, because every job advert you post can point to it. Add two or three employee stories, and your employer brand has a home. With our Aida AI Website Builder, you can build your careers page on your own website.