Attracting and Retaining Talent with Your Branding

The topic of conversation on every business leader's lips lately is focused on people. They are having issues retaining their existing talent and can’t find people to fill new positions as businesses continue to rebound from the pandemic. Power has fundamentally shifted from the employer to the employee, and if leadership isn’t prepared to make the necessary changes they could find themselves having even further people issues. 

Most people look at this and say, people issues are clearly a human resource problem. While there is some truth to that I would challenge that sentiment, because I think it more directly relates to a branding and communications issue. I’m sure you’re sitting there scratching your head, but let me explain… 

People Want to Be Part of Something

Some people are goal-driven, but all people are purpose-driven. People want to feel like they are part of something. If you haven’t defined your brand and goals and communicated them with your people how are they supposed to know what they’re working toward? When people believe in the leadership and vision of a company they will work long and hard for it. If you haven’t defined that, or shared it, it is no wonder people view the work as transitional. People need to understand how their role fits into the big picture, and where that big picture is going to take them. Believe me, ALL people want to take pride in the company they work for.  

A great example of a company that mastered this and created a brand that people wanted to work for (and buy) is the perfectly executed marketing genius of Steve Jobs at Apple. People don’t want to just buy something, they want to buy into something because it aligns with their goals & beliefs. Now this isn’t to say that Steve Jobs exemplified all that a leader should be, but he did create a brand that people wanted to be a part of, whether that meant working for them or owning all of their products. So the lesson here is, when you build a strong brand and communicate the vision of the company, you will build a team that supports and believes in that vision and the business success will follow. 

Defining Your Brand is The First Step in Sharing Your Vision 

So I may have gotten into this a little bit in the previous section, but defining and creating that brand is the first step in being able to share the vision and bring the brand to life. Some companies have gone through some level of brand exploration, or maybe there is a general understanding of “the brand” on an executive level, but it’s loosely understood and isn’t documented anywhere. This is problem number one.

It’s important to document your brand characteristics and the things that make your brand what it is and different from others like you in the marketplace. Why should people work for you or with you? Do you know? Once this has been defined, you also need to understand your brand positioning and the vision for the company. Where are you going? How are you going to get there? 

After all of this has been documented it needs to be shared. Too many times, companies will go through and do some of this hard work and then it sits in a folder on your desktop, or makes it onto the agenda for one leadership meeting and is never revisited again. To those of you that have done that, shame on you. Once you have established the brand and vision for the company it needs to be shared with members of your team at all levels of the organization. This doesn’t mean just sending the information in an email, make it fun, make it collaborative, and make sure you involve them in the process.

Your People are the Best Recruiting Tool You Have

Ok… So with all the hard work done, you’ve mapped out the strategy and defined the brand and your goals and presented that information to your teams. Now you need to start living it (which is arguably also hard work). Make sure elements of your brand are present throughout the organization. Create and share content that reinforces the characteristics of your brand. Plan company and customer events that reinforce those brand characteristics. This is what is going to establish the culture shift you so desperately need. 

This is not going to be an overnight kind of thing. People need consistency before they will commit to and believe in the change being presented to them. When the brand is established and the people believe in the direction of the company, they will not only stay and grow with you, they will be the best recruitment tool for you. I was having a conversation with someone the other day about the fact that I’ve never seen so many people post their company’s benefit policy before in my life. People want to promote that they work for a place that does great things! This is a massive marketing tool for businesses, because businesses that have a brand centered on taking care of their people will attract more people. Weird how that works.

Hopefully this helps you get a better idea of how having a defined brand and strategy can help address the retention issues companies are facing right now. If you think your brand could use some help, I’d love to chat to see how we might be able to work together. You can also follow me on Facebook or LinkedIn, or sign up for my newsletter in the footer to stay up to date.