I’ve been conducting original research into employer branding and employee engagement. It seems that many organizations want the latter but don’t care about the former. But the two go hand in hand, and it’s important to see how and why.
Here’s a chart I created based on Google searches for “employer branding” and “employee engagement.” The result couldn’t be clearer — and more surprising.
Just as people seemed to lose interest in employer branding, they began searching for solutions to improve their employee engagement. The recession, starting in early 2009, seems to be a catalyst, as if employers figured the poor job market made employer branding less important — but suddenly found that their employees, unable to find better opportunities, were becoming disengaged.
On a hunch, I added “employee retention” to the model. Sure enough, as the economy improved and interest in employee engagement shot up, employers suddenly needed to address the issue of keeping their disengaged workers.
It’s not just Google searches. It’s coming from employers and thought leaders across the internet.
Here’s the usage of two Twitter hashtags — #employerbranding and #employeeengagement — over the past 60 days, via Hashtagify.me:
Again, we find that professionals on Twitter are discussing employee engagement much more than employer branding. It seems that, without strong employer branding, companies are hiring the wrong people — wrong skills or wrong culture fit — and then struggling to keep these workers interested in a workplace that’s not suited for them.
Another metric: Google News stories. What are the business journals and the mainstream press reporting about these two subjects?
The same problem. “Employer branding” is the headline in only 28,500 articles, compared to more than 50,000 for “employee engagement.”
What is the result of this disparity? A pretty dismal rate of employee engagement over the last four years, as found by the latest Gallup poll:
Less than a third of American workers are engaged in their jobs! Among workers with college degrees and postgraduate degrees, the rate of engagement isn’t even 30%. This comes from a lack of strong employer branding among companies, which itself comes from the a lack of interest in employer branding.
Even Gallup realizes the connection. In its press release about the 2015 engagement findings, the organization added, “Gallup has consistently found links between employees who are engaged in their jobs and the achievement of business outcomes such as quality, safety, profitability, and productivity.
As I’ve said many times, employer branding is crucial to a business’ bottom line. It increases applications and retention, and decreases turnover and time to hire. It doesn’t cost much money to launch an employer branding initiative and the effort will recoup is costs many times over in both measurable metrics and cultural intangibles. And it’s even more important now that unemployment is down to 5.4% and the job landscape has become a buyer’s market.
Take the next step beyond hashtags and Google searches by contacting Brandemix for help with an employer branding initiative. Our new Rapid Cycle Talent Branding is a quick, easy, and inexpensive way to help organizations create or refresh an employer brand, connecting them to top talent. And helping to keep them engaged.
Jody Ordioni is President of Brandemix.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jody Ordioni is the author of “The Talent Brand.” In her role as Founder and Chief Brand Officer of Brandemix, she leads the firm in creating brand-aligned talent communications that connect employees to cultures, companies, and business goals. She engages with HR professionals and corporate teams on how to build and promote talent brands, and implement best-practice talent acquisition and engagement strategies across all media and platforms. She has been named a "recruitment thought leader to follow" and her mission is to integrate marketing, human resources, internal communications, and social media to foster a seamless brand experience through the employee lifecycle.
