How To Creatively

And Effectively
Communicate Your
Employer Brand
CONTENTS

1 Introduction 2 Understanding 3 Conduct an

your employer
brand
Employee experience is a key
element of your employer brand
Internal communications uphold your
employer brand
Recruiting is significantly impacted by
your employer brand
employer
brand audit
Research your talent competitors
Identify your competitive advantage
Identify your employee value
proposition
Review your design system

4 Crafting your 5 Evaluating 6 Moving

employer your efforts forward
brand Employee experience is a key About us
element of your employer brand
throughout Internal communications uphold your
your employee employer brand

lifecycle Recruiting is significantly impacted by

your employer brand
Talent acquisition

Onboarding

Growth/retention

Offboarding
 1
By highlighting your organization’s
distinguishing characteristics
-- every company has its
own “special sauce” --
and telling personal stories about
the people on your team, you can
develop a strong employer brand
that will help you recruit and retain
From an HR perspective, how the
public perceives your company as
an employer is central to your ability
to recruit, hire, and retain quality
employees. From a marketing per-
spective, your company’s employer
brand can either take the credit or
get the blame for its public percep-
tion.
By combining your employer brand
projects, your HR and marketing

Introduction the best people. teams can exchange specific indus-

In this guide, we’ll look at the many
creative ways you can communi-
cate your employer brand. If you’re
in marketing or HR, we made this
guide for you.
try knowledge and identify opportu-
nities for interdepartmental collab-
oration. With a singular focus, you
can streamline your workload and
start measuring results.

We believe that earning “great place
to work” awards and getting on
“best of” lists are admirable goals,
but you don’t have to focus on win-
ning in order to build a positive em-
ployer brand that stands out from
the competition.
That’s right! In our current job-seek-
er economy, marketing and HR de-
partments are more likely than ever
to collaborate on employer brand-
ing, or what startup mentor and CEO
Yoav Vilner calls “culture optimiza-
tion initiatives and the public-facing
messaging surrounding them.”

With your powers combined, the

introduction

company culture initiatives that your

HR team champions and the corre-
sponding communications that your
marketing team develops will shape
how the public views your company
as an employer.

3
 Your company’s employer brand will always be influ-
enced by factors outside your control, which is reason
enough to kickstart your HR and marketing teams’ joint
efforts now.

If your company’s employer brand is unfavorable, use

this guide to help you get back on track. If your compa-
ny has a neutral or favorable employer brand, this guide
will help you optimize what’s working and fuel inspira-
tion for new initiatives.

Either way, the sooner you define your employer brand

strategy, the sooner you can get started on the fun
stuff!
introduction

4
 In the current job market, job seekers are in the metaphorical driver’s seat.
Whenever someone expresses interest in working for your organization,
it’s your organization’s responsibility to demonstrate what that individual
can expect as an employee. The key here is that you should only promise
an exceptional experience if your company is committed to and capable of
delivering on that promise.

According to analysis in the Randstad US 2018 Salary Guides, salaries in-

creased an average of three percent across industries over 2017, with many
companies “finding that aligning pay with the overall market is no longer
enough to attract top talent.” Money is a powerful extrinsic motivator, but
people need intrinsic motivators, like autonomy, mastery, and purpose, to
help them feel engaged at work.

Employees from every generation want meaningful work, so how can your
organization distinguish itself from the crowd? By telling the truth and en-
suring that your employees drive off the lot with the car they test drove, so
to speak.

If your company promises one employee experience and delivers a different

one, then its employer brand is flawed. Luckily, you’re in the perfect posi-
tion to improve it.
introduction

5
 2
Understand-
ing your
employer
brand
The value of your employer brand Don’t fall prey to the common mistake of focusing your employer branding
understanding your employer brand

lies in your company’s ability to
attract, engage, and retain stel-
lar talent and win loyal customers.
When your company can promise
and deliver a high caliber of experi-
ences to job candidates, employees,
alumnus, vendors, customers, then
your employer brand has firepower.
efforts solely on talent acquisition. You might improve your recruitment and
onboarding processes, but you won’t have a considerable impact on your
company culture or business performance.
With the combined brainpower of HR and marketing, you can ensure that
your employer brand positively influences your teammates at every stage
of the employee lifecycle. Let’s look at three of the factors within your
control that have a significant impact on your employer brand: employee
experience, internal communications, and recruiting.

6
 Employee One company that is repeatedly
head and shoulders above the
The outdoor outfitter offers its em-
ployees “gear rentals and discounts
experience is a employer brand competition is
REI. If you’ve ever been to an REI
and learning activity classes and
two annual ‘Yay Days,’ which are
key element of store, you’ve probably noticed
that their employees genuinely
PTO days to spend outside and use
the outdoor gear they sell for such
your employer love the outdoors and possess an
above-average knowledge of the
activities as hiking, biking, climbing,
camping and skiing.” In addition, the
brand gear and experiences they’re sell- company offers a generous leave of
ing. Their engagement is due in absence policy and adoption assis-
no small part to the “Opt outside” tance.
brand promise that REI makes to
its customers and its employees.
On the topic of employee experi-
ence, employer brand expert Denise
Lee Yohn says:

The result? REI employees consis-

“You can’t expect your tently report feeling that they can
employees to deliver to live their full lives without worrying
understanding your employer brand

about taking too much time off or

customers what they don’t spending time with their families.
experience themselves.”
In an interview with Bloomberg
about how REI’s focus on wellness
attracts similarly minded individuals,
REI’s senior vice president of HR
Raquel Karls says simply: “All those
things tend to blend into being part
of who you are and part of what you
do.”

7
 Internal
communications
uphold your
employer brand
If official or unofficial communi- Whether they go viral on social media or remain shielded from public view,
cations from your company were your company’s internal communications influence your employer brand.
shared publicly, would you be proud
of their contents? Hopefully, your In the wake of Wells Fargo’s fraud scandal in 2016, former employees re-
answer is ‘Yes.’ Internal communica- vealed that the company’s internal publications, including its code of ethics
tions from your company’s leaders and team handbook, were widely circulated but effectively ignored. Practic-
should be in keeping with the voice es like “gaming,” which the company frowned on in the Wells Fargo Code
and tone of your brand. As with so of Ethics, were actually carried out quite frequently.
many things in business, internal
communications are a matter of “Management made it clear that no employee was allowed to complain
trust. about the unethical practices that were going on within the branch,” ex-
understanding your employer brand

plained one former personal banker at a Wells Fargo branch. The compa-
You may have heard about the Mi- ny’s singular focus on sales targets and profit margins contributed to its
crosoft University recruiter who management’s willful ignorance of malpractice.
emailed a cohort of interns promis-
ing that there would be “hella noms, Your company’s internal communications can uphold your employer brand
lots of dranks, the best beats” and or render it meaningless. Do everything in your power to ensure that it’s the
a beer pong table at a company former.
event. The email was widely shared
(and laughed at) online, eventually
prompting a Microsoft spokesper-
son to tell Business Insider that “the
email was poorly worded and not in
keeping with our values as a compa-
ny.”

8
 Recruiting is significantly
impacted by your employer
brand
Companies worldwide are experiencing the biggest
talent shortage in over 10 years. Because job seekers
are in the driver’s seat, they can demand far more than
competitive salaries.

Experience, breadth, depth, development, and growth

opportunities are among the chief demands that mod-
ern job seekers have in mind when they’re looking for
jobs. Whether your company can deliver on some, most,
or all of those demands, the messaging should be trans-
parent from the very start.

Recruiting is competitive and expensive, but if your

company’s employer brand is negative, they’ll have to
pay candidates at least 10% more in order to hire them.

As a result, “organizations must make talent strategy a

understanding your employer brand

key priority and take steps now to educate, train, and

upskill their existing workforces,” says Yannick Binvel
of Korn Ferry, an international management consulting
firm.
“ Think of your company’s
employer brand as an
Think of your company’s employer brand as an account- accountability measure:
ability measure: it’s your company’s promise to act
and react in a certain way, the yardstick your company it’s your company’s promise to
chooses to be measured by. If you’re honest with peo- act and react in a certain way,
ple before they start working for you and then deliver
on your promises, they’ll be more likely to trust you. the yardstick your company
chooses to be measured by.”
Now that you understand a few of the factors that con-
tribute to every company’s employer brand, it’s time to
assess your company’s employer brand.
9
 3
Conduct an
employer
brand audit
Research your
talent competitors
Transparency in employer branding is crucial, especially
because popular sites like Glassdoor provide a public
forum for job candidates, employees, and alumni to
speak candidly about their experience with employers.

If your company doesn’t already have a Glassdoor ac-

count, make one now so you can track new reviews and
customize your company’s profile. By updating your
company’s Glassdoor page, you can quickly and easily
conduct and employer brand audit

signal to job seekers that your company is proactive

about hiring.

While you’re there, check out your talent competitors’

Glassdoor profiles. Your talent competitors are any com-
panies filling the same types of positions that you are. If
your company has a brick and mortar office in Amster-
dam, then your talent competitors are other employers
in the city that are hiring for similar roles. If your compa-
ny is a startup and offers remote work options, you’ll be
competing with a larger number of talent competitors in
a larger pool of talent.

10
 Identify your
competitive
advantage
“Employment branding isn’t just
another HR phrase or word—it’s the
only way for companies in the digi-
tal age to provide the transparency
required by job seekers and portray
their brands accurately in the
market to potential employees,”
writes John Wilson,
CEO of WilsonHCG.
conduct and employer brand audit
11
Whether or not you have formal
tools to measure your findings,
we recommend treating your
employer brand audit like design
research. Adopting a design
research mindset can give you
the mental flexibility to view your
employer brand from an outside
perspective and approach it as an
iterative and collaborative
process.
Check out InVision’s Quick can help you zero in on the
Guide to Design Research company values people are being
if you want to learn more recognized for most frequently.
about design research
before getting started.
Your first order of business is to
identify your company’s compet-
itive advantage as an employer.
Consider doing one or more of
the following in order learn what
people inside and outside your
organization think about it:
Survey your employees regularly with
feedback tools like OfficeVibe
Conduct one-on-one research
interviews with current and exiting
employees
Solicit anonymous onboarding and
offboarding feedback
If your company’s employer brand
weaknesses are glaringly obvious,
chances are good that everyone
already knows what they are. But
identifying what’s common knowl-
edge isn’t enough. Your research
efforts can shine light on areas that
merit attention but don’t necessarily
stand out as obvious opportunities
to make an impactful change.
Recognition programs like Bonusly
Whether you find out by asking
directly or by reading Glassdoor
reviews, you need to determine
what you do and don’t offer to meet
your employees’ needs. During your
research, be on the lookout for any
mention of the three factors the
Harvard Business Review identifies
as having the greatest impact on an
employer’s reputation:
1. Stability
2. Opportunities for career growth
3. The ability to work with a top-notch team
 Stability
Your coworkers want to know that
their jobs are stable. If your compa-
ny is transparent about its financial
situation, even if that situation is
rocky, then you won’t have anything
to hide.

This goes back to the importance

of internal communications that we
mentioned earlier.

If your leaders aren’t open and

honest about how the business is
doing, rumors will spread and your
company’s employer brand will
suffer. Just keep Winston Churchill’s
adage in mind: “A lie gets halfway
around the world before the truth
conduct and employer brand audit

has a chance to get its pants on.”

Is your company’s employer brand

what you want it to be? If you aren’t
proud of the truth, take the
necessary steps to change it.

12
 Opportunities for
career growth
Does your company support
everyone’s personal and
professional development?
Do managers mentor, train, and
promote entry-level employees, or
do people typically have to leave
your organization in order to
advance?

Your teammates will feel more

engaged and motivated if they can
see clear paths for career growth at
your company. Whether your
organization offers a
professional development stipend,
builds an accessible resource library,
“Your teammates will
conduct and employer brand audit

or hosts frequent knowledge-shar- feel more engaged

ing events, you can champion your
coworkers’ professional goals and
and motivated if they
help your employer follow through can see clear paths for
on its commitments to them. career growth at your
If your company has a track record company.”
of keeping its promises to its peo-
ple, communicating your employer
brand will be a much simpler task.

13
 Ability to work
with a top-notch
team
Modern employees want to be part
of top-notch teams. They want their
employers to treat their employees
with respect and hire leaders in their
fields, people they can learn from
and grow with.
In tech, companies that make lop-
sided or hasty investments in their
teams are easy to spot: they sing
the praises of their engineers and
developers but seem to consider
their sales and customer support
reps a dime a dozen. Companies
conduct and employer brand audit
with robust, well-rounded employer
brands invest time and money in
every department and encourage
their leaders to be vocal champions,
making sure that every team knows
how valuable they are and how in-
valuable every other team is, as well.
14
“When you take the time to hire
slow,” writes employer brand expert
Laurel Mintz, “the process can be
arduous for both you and your slate
of candidates. However, by slowing
things down, you can see which can-
didates stay right alongside you the
whole time, showing their dedica-
tion and desire for the job you have
available.”
If hiring slowly hasn’t been a part
of your company culture, consider
engaging your entire team in the
hiring process. You’ll help them feel
ownership of your company culture
and distribute the responsibilities so
that hiring isn’t such a burdensome
process.
 Identify your
employee value
proposition
It can be hard to distinguish em-
ployee value proposition (EVP) from
employer brand, so let’s compare
them here:
An organization’s employee val-
ue proposition is the collection of
values and benefits it offers to its
employees in return for their work.
An organization’s employer brand
is how it communicates and markets
its EVP and workplace culture, both
internally and externally, to hire and
retain what exaqueo calls “best-fit
conduct and employer brand audit
To identify your EVP, evaluate the
data you gathered during your
employer brand audit, including
OfficeVibe surveys and employee
interviews.
Look for answers to the
following questions:
How do your employees
perceive your company’s
mission?
Once you’ve compiled a representa-
tive group of responses, you’ll have
a better sense of your EVP. If there
are negative components to your
findings, don’t worry! It’s great that
you singled them out now and not
further down the line. You’re ready
to head in the right direction and
this guide will help you get there.
For more on developing your EVP,
check out this LinkHumans case

What do they have to say

talent.”
In his piece for Forbes, author Rodd
Wagner points out that the term
“employee value proposition” puts
the burden on companies to develop
the value proposition, not the other
way around. With a little planning,
you can transform this burden into
an opportunity.
study on L’Oreal.
about how their day-to-day
work is influenced by your
company’s values, and vice
versa?
What do you offer your
employees that sets you
apart as an employer?

15
 Review your
design system
It’s important to have a strong de- Here are few design system ele-
sign system before you undertake ments you’ll want to have:
any new employer branding.

If you’re coming at this from a mar-
keting perspective, you’re probably
familiar with your organization’s
design system. The Piktochart tem-
plates we offer throughout this
guide are customizable, so you
can adapt them to suit your brand
guidelines.
If you’re not familiar or comfortable
with your organization’s design
system, link up with a coworker who
conduct and employer brand audit
Your brand’s typeface and font
usage guidelines
Your brand’s hex codes
Your brand’s logo
Your brand’s photography and
illustration guidelines
Once you have all these elements at
your disposal, it’s time for the cre-

is and include them as a stakeholder ative work to start!

in your project! Employer branding
efforts are stronger when they in-
clude multiple perspectives, so don’t
be wary of asking for help!

16
 4
Crafting your
employer brand
throughout your
employee lifecycle
There are many touch points throughout the employee
crafting your employer brand

lifecycle that are prime opportunities to get creative

with your employer brand. In this section, we’ll help you
evaluate these opportunities and decide where to allo-
cate your resources.

17
 Talent acquisition Check out this Twitter thread from Cap Watkins, former VP of Design at
Buzzfeed:

Recruitment and talent acquisition Watkins points out

are important focus areas for any how difficult it is
employer brand efforts. for organizations to
update their
Job postings and recruitment internal recruiting
material are often a candidate’s first practices.
interaction with your organization.
However, your employer brand only “It requires a reset
makes sense when you have buy-in of values,
from your current employees. incentives, etc.
for any and every
team/person
involved,” he
writes.

What follows are a

few ways to start
updating your
company’s
recruiting
practices:
crafting your employer brand

18
 Revisit your Check out these four companies’ careers pages and note what sticks out to
you:
careers site and
“about us” page
You want to make a good impres- Did you notice the strong mission statement on KIPP LA’s site? It’s not a
sion on customers visiting your text-heavy page, but they make every word count:
website, right? The same should be “Across Los Angeles, KIPP LA is proving that demographics do not deter-
true for potential employees! mine destiny and that students from our most underserved communities
can and will achieve at the highest levels.”
The quality of your careers site and
your “about us” page signals how
serious you are about finding new
talent, which is why they should
communicate everything prospec-
tive candidates need to know about
working at your company.

Your website is just one of the

realms where HR and strategic
business objectives coexist. When
companies refer to their online job
crafting your employer brand

listings as a “careers site,” not a

“jobs site,” the underlying message
is always: You can grow and build
your career at this company.

19
 How about the welcoming message ZipRecruiter gets right to the point with the tagline “Let’s get to work,” and
on Chobani’s page? lets visitors know exactly what the company’s EVP is before even mention-
ing what positions are open.
“Come as you are, and become the
best you,” is a pretty inspiring way
to start your job search experience
with this innovative food company.

Did you respond to the simple statement and graphic imagery on Inter-
com’s jobs site? It’s in keeping with the visual and written communications
elsewhere on their site, but even for first-time visitors, “Be you at Inter-
com,” clearly communicates that this is a forward-thinking company that
welcomes all kinds of people.
crafting your employer brand

20
 After looking to other companies for inspiration,
consider what sets your company apart as an employer.
If those qualities aren’t highlighted on your careers site
and “about us” page, then you know where to start.
crafting your employer brand

21
 Involve your
employees in your
social media
recruitment
strategy
Whether you’re hosting your job
openings on your own site or
posting them on Indeed, AngelList,
ZipRecruiter, or another
third-party jobs site, social media
can be a great way to amplify job
postings. Betterteam reports that
“94% of professional recruiters
network on social media and use it
to post jobs.
Post job listings from your
company’s accounts and let your
employees know how to share
them from their personal accounts.
FastCompany explains that content
shared by employees gets eight
times more engagement than
content shared by brand channels
and. It gets reshared 25 times more
often, too.

of professional recruiters
We’ve put together this job
94% network on social media recruitment template to make it
crafting your employer brand

easier for your team to share:

What’s more, “59% of employees

say a company’s social media
presence was part of the reason TRY THIS TEMPLATE
they chose their workplace.”

22
 Make your
employees the
heroes of your
content efforts
The credibility of regular employees
has increased dramatically, ahead
of the CEO. According to the 2014
Edelman Trust Barometer,
“employees are the most credible
voices on multiple topics, including
the company’s work environment,
integrity, innovation and business
practices.”
crafting your employer brand
23
Center your employees in your
employer brand storytelling.
For example, if your business goals
require growing your design team
five fold, then start telling the
stories of your design team. What
about your organization appealed
to your current designers? Let them
describe what drew them to and
keeps them with your company.
When you produce employee
stories, which you can easily do with
our employee story template, you’re
highlighting your company’s pride in
its employees. Tell your coworkers’
stories well and they’ll want to share
those stories with their friends,
family, and acquaintances.
TRY THIS TEMPLATE
 Craft your CEO’s
story
Harvard Business Review found that
60% of CEOs and 40% of marketers
believe the primary responsibility for
employer brand lies with the CEO.
If you haven’t already, it’s time to craft your CEO’s story. If they’re a
founder, their story should answer the ‘why’ of your company, i.e., what
problem was your CEO trying to solve or what need were they trying to
meet?

Marketers Their story should include a vision for the company and offer a sneak peek
into the company’s future. Check out this blog post from Piktochart’s CEO
40% for an example.

60% CEOs

They play a major role in defining

your company culture, serving as
your “company’s mascot, head
cheerleader, and the face of your
employer brand.”
crafting your employer brand

24
 Tell stories with
your job postings
Your job postings are a strategic Here are a few simple things MaRS recommends including in your
opportunity to communicate your job postings:
employer brand. Intercom’s career
page tells a compelling story about
the who, what, and why of their
company, which humanizes the
Lead with your company values
brand through relationships.
Think critically about your minimum requirements
Don’t miss your chance to tell your
story.
List out work perks
ERE recommends helping
Be transparent about your interview process
candidates feel what it’s like to work
at your company.
Include a section about your company culture, including
photos, social feeds, Glassdoor links
To do that, describe what their
workplace experience would be like,
Use Textio to avoid bias and encourage diverse groups to
how they’d personally benefit from
apply to your company
working at your company, and what
crafting your employer brand

kind of impact they could have.

25
 Build an
intentional
candidate
experience
Candidate experience doesn’t just
matter for the people you’ll
eventually hire. When people look at
your careers page or apply to work
at your company, what they see and
read will influence how they feel
about your company.
If you’re a B2C business, they might
already be your customers.
You certainly don’t want to lose
their business if you decide not to
hire them.
crafting your employer brand
26
In 2014, Virgin Media surveyed its
rejected candidates and found that
18% were their customers. As a di-
rect result of the company’s poor
candidate experience, 6% of all ap-
plicants, or 7,500 people, canceled
their memberships. The company’s
weak employer brand cost them
roughly $6.2 million in lost revenue,
almost as much as their annual re-
cruiting budget, J.T. O’Donnell re-
ports in Fast Company.
To remedy its candidate experi-
ence, Virgin started working with
Ph Creative, an employer branding
and candidate experience firm. They
offered free and accessible resourc-
es designed for job seekers, even if
those job seekers weren’t applying
to positions at Virgin.
“Ultimately,” O’Donnell writes, “the
candidate experience is a form of
customer service. The better you
are at delighting candidates – in-
cluding the ones you turn away
– the more money you stand to
make.”
Glossier, a direct-to-consumer
beauty line, built its unique
employer brand by treating job
candidates as customers:
When founder and CEO Emily Weiss
started Into the Gloss, a beauty and
skincare blog, she focused on
building a community for its
enthusiastic readers. The readers
who were active in the comments
section were the first people she
interviewed when she started
developing Glossier products.
Then, they became employees:
“Most Glossier employees started
out as customers. Which is why the
team naturally takes a
customer-minded approach to the
work each and every day.”
Are your recruiting communica-
tions consistent with your company
values? If you tout “kindness” as a
company value but send curt
follow-up emails to interview
candidates, they’ll notice your shift
in tone.
 Encourage
employee and
customer referrals
Make it easy for your employees
and your customers to refer people
to work at your company. Here are a few ideas that are relatively easy to execute
and track:
Make it rewarding, too!

Public recognition of employees List open positions in your company’s

who make successful referrals can
be motivating and show everyone
how much you’re invested in finding
the right people to work for you.
internal newsletter and include information
about your employee referral program if
you have one
Hang posters in common areas that
highlight how employees can influence
your company’s culture by referring
qualified friends and family

Include a link to your careers page in

crafting your employer brand

marketing emails

27
 Attend career
fairs
Career fairs are a great place to test
out your employer brand strategy,
particularly if you’re looking to fill
entry-level positions. Job seekers
will be there, and you’ll have multi-
ple opportunities to hone your com-
munications.

If you decide to attend career fairs,

here are a few templates you can
use to produce visuals so your table
or booth looks sharp:
crafting your employer brand

TRY THESE TEMPLATES

28
 Onboarding
Employer branding doesn’t stop at Here are a few other things you can
hiring. In fact, it’s critical for market- do to orient your new employees:
ing, HR, and operations to facilitate
new employees as they transition
from candidates to coworkers.
Establish consistency
Depending on your company’s across all communications
hiring process, maintaining open
lines of communication might be a Communicate your
department lead’s responsibility, but company’s values
HR and marketing can support those
efforts and ensure that some things Pair new hires with
are standardized for every new em- employees
ployee.
Weave your employer
Make sure your new employees get brand into your employee
a chance to connect with your handbook
company’s leaders in their first
weeks. Block a recurring half hour Announce new hires and
on your CEO’s/department head’s help them feel welcome
schedule every week for a new hire
meeting or work a coffee chat with
crafting your employer brand

the CEO into each employee’s

onboarding schedule. It’s important
for your CEO as the employer brand
cheerleader to be involved in help-
ing new employees feel welcome.

29
 Establish
consistency
across all
communications
All departments have their Here are two templates to help you get started:
communication differences. Your
Customer Success team might take
an entirely different approach than
your Product team, for instance.
That’s natural!

But it’s no excuse for one

employee getting invites to every
service they’ll need on their first
day and another employee having
to ask for it. Produce an onboarding
checklist and company introduction
infographic that every manager can
reference and share with their new
hires.
crafting your employer brand

Communicate operations-specific
information (eg health insurance,
401k, building info, benefits
packages) in a style that’s in
keeping with the overall company
brand. Chobani’s employee
brochures are an inspiring example
of a company carrying its consumer
brand over into its employer
branding. TRY THESE TEMPLATES
Try updating your operations
manual with these ideas in mind.
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 Communicate your company’s values
Let’s say your company values are Trust, Curiosity, Teamwork, and
Kindness. Those are great values but simply stating them isn’t enough.

Here are a few initiatives to consider depending on the resources you have
at your disposal:

Establish a recognition system that ties recognition to

your company values. It can be a great resource for
employees to learn about what these values look like in
action.

Make posters with pictures of your employees

exhibiting these values. The pictures can be posed or
candid. To illustrate kindness, for instance, you could
feature an image of your team on their most recent
volunteer outing.
crafting your employer brand

Use social media to share examples of your company

values. Your Instagram account could be dedicated to
images that illustrate trust, curiosity, teamwork, and
kindness.

TRY THIS TEMPLATE

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 Pair new hires with
employees
Do you have an onboarding mentorship or buddy
program?

Even an informal system for new employees to spend an

hour or two with veteran employees who are
enthusiastic employer brand advocates could have a
major impact.
crafting your employer brand

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 Weave your
employer brand
into your
employee
handbook
Your employee handbook is a great
opportunity to communicate your
company culture.
Check out Intercom’s employee
handbook, which they designed to
look and feel like a children’s book.
It’s playful and values-driven, which
reflects their culture really well.
crafting your employer brand
33
Netflix’s now-famous Culture Deck
was originally designed as an
internal document. It’s now been
viewed over 18 million times on
SlideShare. (The company has since
updated the Culture Deck, which
you can view here.)
18M
UPDATED VERSION
Include information about your
company values, and emphasize the
reasoning behind your signature
policies.
If your company encourages
everyone to take a minimum of
three weeks paid vacation each
year, explain why!
By approaching it as an employer
branding exercise, you can ensure
everyone understands that your
employee handbook isn’t lip service.
TRY THIS TEMPLATE
 Announce new
hires and help
them feel
welcome
Announce new hires verbally at the Including a blurb from the person who hired them about why they hired
lunch table or in a company-wide them is also a nice touch.
email.
At Piktochart, every new employee creates a Piktochart presentation
If you want to get a little more about themselves that includes their likes/dislikes, hobbies, and also
creative, ask your incoming (most interestingly) a timeline of their ups and downs, which really
employees to write a little blurb showcases their personal journeys. They present it company-wide during
about themselves so that your team their first week.
can get to know them and even
formulate some questions to ask
them on their first day!

Here’s a few questions you can start

with:
crafting your employer brand

Where are you coming

from?

Why did you choose to

work here?

What’s a passion of yours

that you hope to bring to
work?

34
 Growth/retention
In the growth and retention phase of
the employee lifecycle, you can nur-
ture mutual goodwill between your
employer and employees.
By communicating your company’s
values via recognition and
encouraging your employees to be
public advocates for your company,
you can experience and experiment
with your employer brand.
crafting your employer brand
35
Recognize team
members who live
your company
values
Employees who feel valued are more
present, productive, and innovative.
The difference between weekly and
daily recognition increases the
number of satisfied employees from
85 to 94%.
By linking employee
recognition to your company’s
values, you can increase the
incidence of desirable behaviors and
have a direct impact on your
company’s overall culture,
strengthening your employer brand
by encouraging behavior that
upholds it.
Employees want to know that their
leaders value them but two-thirds of
employees don’t believe that their
leaders support recognition
programs. The positive feedback
loop recognition programs create
will help your teammates
understand that your company
invests and believes in them.
 Ask for employee
reviews on sites
like Glassdoor
You can solicit employee reviews on
Glassdoor and add your own
information.
If you haven’t already, start
actively soliciting requests for
employer reviews and have your
CEO respond personally to negative
and positive feedback. Make your
profile more engaging by posting
high-quality images and meaningful
updates on company activities and
community involvement.
crafting your employer brand
When in doubt, always go back to
your employee value proposition
and company values. Those should
be your guiding principles when
you’re deciding what stories to tell
and how to tell them.
36
Encourage
employees to
become your
employer brand
advocates
Help your employees talk about
your brand.
Fast Company recommends that
companies “lay out guidelines for
how employees should talk about
the company on their accounts.”
You can come up with suggested
captions for posts or run internal
campaigns with hashtags — check
out #lifeatexpedia on Instagram,
which has over 22,000 posts, and
#careersathilton for inspiration.
 Offboarding
Offboarding can be fraught. Whether your employer brand is strong or Not every departing employee will write something as
weak, it will be made clear during this time. detailed and commending as Cap did, which is why you
should set up an exit survey to capture their
Cap Watkins shared this piece on Medium about his reasoning for leaving impressions, the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Buzzfeed. In it, he sings the praises of Buzzfeed’s management strategy
and wishes the company nothing but the best in the future. He makes it Check out this exit survey template by SurveyMonkey.
clear that the company set him up for success and that the departure was
one that made sense for everyone.
crafting your employer brand

If you provide support for employees who are moving

on and have shown from day one that their
professional development is of paramount importance,
they can leave your company and continue to be a
great source for referrals and even continue to act as
employer brand advocates.

37
 5
You can learn a lot from qualitative
data points, too. Use this survey
template by Typeform to ask job
candidates about their experience
during the hiring process, and turn it
into a beautiful Piktochart
infographic with this template.
You can also conduct periodic
employee pulse surveys to see how
your employer brand permeates
throughout your company.
Even asking “would you encourage
your friends to work here?” can
give you a quick sense of where you
stand.

Evaluating
your efforts
The value of your employer brand
lies in its power to attract, engage,
and retain talent.

To measure the effectiveness of

your company’s employer brand,
your efforts

track employee engagement,

employee retention, number of
applicants, time to hire, and cost per
hire.
E valuating

38 TRY THIS TEMPLATE

 6
Moving
forward
Creatively and effectively communicating your
employer brand isn’t a small project, but you’ve
taken a huge step forward by reading this
guide.

Take a few days to reflect on what you’ve

read. See which ideas from this guide stick
with you and consider tackling those initiatives
first. Starting small will help you be bolstered
by your successes and take your missteps in
stride.

Track your progress and evaluate your efforts

with the metrics we mentioned in the last
section and you’ll start to see how
understanding and communicating your
employer brand has the power to impact all of
your business objectives.

Don’t be a stranger! Please let us know what

you’re working on and be sure to share your
creative employer branding ideas with us if
moving forward

there’s something we overlooked!

39
 About us

Bonusly
When our co-founder and CEO Raphael Crawford-Marks was working as
an engineer at a New York tech company, he felt like he and his
coworkers didn’t receive recognition often enough. It wasn’t that he
wanted to be told he was doing a good job; he wanted to be able to
frequently recognize his coworkers in a meaningful way.

Our co-founder John Quinn realized that as a manager, he wasn’t able to

witness and recognize all the contributions his team members were
making. Together, Raphael and John envisioned and began building
Bonusly.

Today, thousands of companies around the world use Bonusly every

day to stay connected and celebrate wins of all sizes. We want to help
everyone love their work, starting with making recognition fun. For us
and our customers, the people-first vision of the Bonusly product shows
prominently in countless other practices and intentional enhancements
throughout the employee experience.
moving forward

40
 About us

Piktochart
“No more Monday blues.” Written down on a piece of a paper back in
2011, little did our co-founders Ai Ching Goh and Andrea Zaggia know
that those four words would mark the beginning of an incredibly exciting
and rewarding journey. All they knew was that they wanted to work in a
place where two things mattered: people and communication.

The initial idea of helping a select few clients communicate with greater
(visual) impact soon paves the way for a bigger mission: to put visual
prowess in everyone’s hands – which led to the birth of our
first do-it-yourself infographics maker, Piktochart.

Its mission: To empower people around the globe to tell powerful visual
stories that matter.

Fast-forward to today, Piktochart has blossomed into a wonderful bunch

of more than 50 curious people who passionately work toward that same
mission to help more than 12 million users around the globe to tell amaz-
ing visual stories.
moving forward

41
 Piktochart is a simple, intuitive tool that helps you tell
your story with the visual impact it deserves – serving
more than 12 million users worldwide.

SIGN UP

Get started with a free Piktochart PRO Plan for 30

days! Use the code “BRANDING30” here.
*valid until Jan 31st, 2019

Looking to collaborate with your team?

Try Piktochart for Teams for free here.

Bonusly is a fun, personal recognition and rewards

platform that enriches your company culture and
improves employee engagement. With Bonusly, you
can build a scalable culture of recognition by
empowering everyone to recognize their peers, direct
reports, and managers.

[GETGET STARTED
STARTED]
moving forward

Try Bonusly with your team free for the first 60 days!
Just use the code “BRANDING60” when you sign up
here.

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