Employer branding - the power's in the people

Quick warning: don’t ever ask me what it’s like to work for SMRS – not unless you’ve got a lot of time to spare. Because I could talk for hours about how much I love it, how the culture brings out my best, how I never get ‘that Monday feeling’, how much our values mean to me, and so on and so on.

I love talking about it, and I know for a fact that I’ve talked more than a few people into joining, purely by sharing my enthusiasm and pride for SMRS. This, for me, is a great example of how personal opinion and feeling can be one of the most powerful things in employer branding.

Research shows that brand messages shared by employees reach 561% further than corporate messages. And that a business’s employees are felt to be twice as trustworthy as its CEO. In other words, people trust people.

If you want proof, just look at the growing influence of Glassdoor on the way people make decisions about where to work. There’s clearly a real value placed on getting the ‘inside scoop’ on an organisation. According to a survey of 600,000 Glassdoor users, the thing that matters most about a future employer is their culture and values. And who better to talk about your culture and values than the people who live them every day?

Ask yourself a few questions. What are you all about as an organisation and workplace? What makes you ‘you’, and where are you heading? Does your employer brand reflect your culture and tell your story? And finally, who in your organisation could tell that story the best? If you know who they are, do everything you can to get them involved. Because an ambassador who believes in, genuinely cares about, and freely shares, your employer brand can do more for you than a beautiful ad ever could.

Don’t believe me? Just come and ask me what I think about my job or watch my presentation.