4 Steps to bring your employer brand to life through HR policies and programs
Many of us leverage our employer brands to attract external talent to join our organizations. However, employer branding is also critical for engaging and retaining your current employee base too.
One often overlooked way of activating your employer brand internally is by building it into your HR policies and programs. Here are some actionable steps on how you can do so!
Step 1: Start with your EVP
As you may already know, your employer brand begins with your employer value proposition (EVP). Defining your EVP involves uncovering the “what's in it for me?” of your organization — why do employees work here and why do they stick around long term? So if you haven’t already taken the time to develop your organization’s EVP this is a critical first step. If you need guidance, here is our 7 step process for building out EVPs that you can follow — or if you’re short on capacity please feel free to get in touch with our team for support.
Once you have your EVP developed, it acts as the guiding star for activating your employer brand externally and internally too.
The reason it’s important to activate your brand internally as well as externally is if you’re only activating your EVP externally, it can create a disconnect that can lead to major brand issues. Imagine saying “we are like one big family and we value work-life balance!” but then, an employee speaks out on a review site and says that management is unapproachable and they regularly work overtime — this is a really big disconnect that can damage your employer (and consumer!) brand in a big way.
To ensure you don’t find yourself in this position, here are some ways to bring your EVP to life internally through your HR policies and programs so there is a connection between what you’re saying externally and the employee experience you’re providing internally.
Step 2: Audit your current policies and programs
After establishing your EVP, it’s time to catalogue all of the HR policies and programs that exist within your organization. List them all out and then pore through each one to identify how it either supports or counters your EVP messaging.
Here are a few examples of what you might look for:
If your EVP highlights employee growth, but you’re missing a robust Learning & Development program
If your EVP highlights work-life balance, but your vacation policy only allows for a very limited amount of time off each year
If your EVP highlights celebrating success but there is no formal employee appreciation or recognition program
In each of these circumstances, there’s going to be a disconnect because your EVP is not being supported and upheld from within.
Step 3: Update your existing HR policies and programs
Once you’ve completed your audit, the next step is to go in and make adjustments to policies and programs already in existence. Central elements of your EVP need to be included in all of your collateral. Sometimes, this could be at an operational level (e.g. how the policy and program are delivered) and others may require a lighter touch (e.g. adjusting the tone of voice, wording, or visuals).
For example, if you’re an employer brand that is all about making employees feel like you have a friendly warm environment, but your collateral is written in a way that is robotic, cold, and detached, you’re not upholding your EVP from within. Side note: the same goes for all internal communications across the board, not just HR policies and programs. Look out for a future blog post that shares more on this.
Pro tip: you might also think about creative ways to communicate policies and programs while advancing your brand at the same time — a culture handbook that contains information about your culture, company norms, and HR policies and programs in a beautifully branded package could be a great way to do this.
Step 4: Create new policies or programs
Once you have made revisions to existing policies and programs, your next step is to tackle any gaps. What are you communicating externally that isn’t being supported from within? Are there any policies and programs that seem misaligned? You may need to create new policies and programs that provide an employee experience that uphold your EVP from within.
For example, if your EVP communicates that employee health and well-being are of utmost importance, but your sick leave policy is outdated and inflexible, you could be headed into dangerous territory.
Tim Hortons, a coffee and fast-food chain, came under fire earlier this year for requiring their employees to provide a doctor's note to take unpaid sick days. During a pandemic particularly, this type of outdated approach doesn’t work and they needed to quickly adjust their sick leave policy. However, they couldn’t adjust this quick enough to avoid some seriously bad press and even a proposed boycott. This goes to show that it’s not only your employees and candidates who are watching what you do, but an HR policy misalignment could also have major implications on your overall corporate brand too!
We hope these tips are helpful as you strive to bring your employer brand to life holistically. Even if your primary goal is to use your employer brand to attract talent, you still need to properly execute from within or else it won’t be effective for you externally (and in fact, could even be quite damaging to your brand).
Keep in mind that an employer brand is most effective when it is built from the inside out so look to your partners across HR and internal communications to ensure that you can execute on your employer brand the right way. And if you need support, our team is always here for a quick consult.