Employer Reputation Management: How to Improve Employer Branding

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Work on the company's online reputation will not only draw customers to your business but also strengthen your image as a reliable employer. This helps to attract talented candidates to your staff — a major factor of brand success — and avoid a branding crisis that can cost your company labor and profits. We have several suggested areas to focus on when building your brand and employer reputation.

Why is Employer Reputation Management Essential for Successful Recruiting?

And only 26% of executives said they invest in developing employer reputation and branding.
Employer branding and corporate reputation management offers many opportunities for a company to outperform competitors and avoid a harmful branding crisis.

A paper from Cambridge company NextWave Hire clearly demonstrates the impact of brand reputation on corporate hiring:

94% of job seekers will be interested in job openings at a company with a strong online reputation
When many positive reviews from employees and customers appear in online search results, a company can receive twice as many communications from candidates as their competitors
84% of candidates believe that the good reputation of the company played a major role in deciding to submit a resume
93% replied that they had previously collected information about the company online or elsewhere before making a decision about an employer

Principles for building an employer's positive reputation

EVP development

EVP (employment value proposition) is the positioning of a brand as an employer. This area of corporate branding includes a slogan that displays the company's mission and main points that demonstrate the value of labor in the company compared to competitors. To create an EVP, corporate marketing agencies or full-time HR staff are involved. It's important to get what makes your organization good for employees down on paper.

Active maintenance of corporate accounts and communications on social networks and online profile sites

Strong branding strategy on social networks helps an employer attract more valuable personnel and strengthen brand reputation. This includes staying active on online corporate accounts and social media and paying attention to reviews of your products and services as well as remarks about your quality as an employer. Any information or communications published by the company should be relevant and interesting to the audience. This is also a chance to respond to any negative brand mentions or employer reviews before they cause a crisis.

Creation of media and participation in online and offline events

Online articles, social media communications, and press releases in the paper provide employer brand recognition and increase ranking in search results. Corporate broadcasts and participation in job fairs and other employer events help to improve the image of the company. Addressing a branding crisis requires the release of honest and positive media.

Step-by-step instructions: how to strengthen your employer reputation and create a strong corporate brand online

Audit your image as an employer

To understand how to improve your employer brand, you need to not only monitor reviews of your product or services but from former and current employees as well. These comments will help you understand how your company is perceived and address a potential crisis before it damages your reputation further. You can find employer feedback in social networks, company directories and on online review sites. Suggested sites include:

Glassdoor
Kununu
Comparably
Fairygodboss

It's important to monitor all communications including recent reviews and past comments appearing in search engine results online. This will help you better understand what your strengths are as an employer and what corporate issues should be given more attention in your business. Repeated negative experiences at the company can contribute to a hiring crisis.

Work with the audience

It's not just employees that leave employer feedback on online resources like those listed above. Customers respond to your corporate business policies, products, and services as well. You should reply to all posts, regardless of tonality. It is especially important to respond quickly to negative comments, because even a few can spark a crisis in your brand's reputation. Resolving conflict situations increases the loyalty of your customers and potential candidates for vacant positions at the company.

An employer must pay special attention to posts that mentioned illegal actions by management or other employees. Such communications require investigation because they can cause a major crisis in your corporate image. It is suggested to report on any preventative work carried out under review as well as the results. This will make it clear to people that you care about being a good employer and creating a favorable working atmosphere in the company.

All corporate communications should be polite, even when responding to inflammatory posts online. In all situations, company representatives must remain professional and non-confrontational. Your brand reputation can be badly damaged if you get personal and insult your detractors.

Professional community management will help you create effective communications as a brand and an employer. A corporate reputation specialist will monitor all references to the company, answer questions and positive feedback, help you avoid a branding crisis, and resolve the claims of former employees so that both sides benefit. This will make you an attractive employer for potential candidates.

Turn your employees into brand ambassadors

Your employees can become excellent company ambassadors, helping you to advertise services, strengthen branding, or soften a PR crisis. To do this, motivate them to write more reviews about the company, encourage communications on how to improve work processes and corporate policies, and listen to feedback they provide on the business as an employer.

Most importantly, don't create unnecessary restrictions. Receiving employer feedback as naturally as possible requires that people feel goodwill from corporate management. Therefore, it's essential for an employer to devote time to developing corporate culture as a part of their brand image and employer reputation.

How to fix a bad employer reputation?

Any company, even with an impeccable reputation, may encounter an influx of negative, sometimes unreasonable, employer reviews.

Any company, even with an impeccable reputation, may encounter an influx of negative, sometimes unreasonable, employer reviews. Even one bad review online can shake brand image, so you need to respond quickly before it results in a brand crisis and spoils recruiting.

First, identify the source of negative communications. If these are social networks, online forums, job search or employer review sites, determine if it is possible to publish an official response to criticism. Depending on the claim, a corporate response should contain details on the dismissal of employees, compensation, labor obligations and other official company information. This will help strengthen your brand reputation as a professional. Stick to an official but correct tone as this will reduce the opportunity for detractors or competitors to create a reputation crisis out of the problem.

If this is an online article based on poor reviews from former employees, you need to develop a PR strategy to level the negative effects and mitigate a brand crisis. In such situations, a SERM (search engine reputation management) agency can assist the employer. These specialists are experts in online corporate reputation management. The first step is preparing communications with comments from management and HR at the company on how corporate policy was built and how the employer responded in accordance to staff contracts. Articles will also be prepared on the history of the brand, its corporate culture, interviews with employees, or other materials aimed at improving the image of the company. Using SEO tools, negative information will be squeezed out of the top search results.

You can read in more detail how reputation agencies improve corporate brand reputation online and resolve a branding crisis in our other article.

Topface Media agency will help build trusting relationships with your audience, handle poor ratings and resolve conflict situations.

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Conclusion

An effective strategy for managing corporate reputation begins with the constant monitoring of company references on all sites, including social networks and online employer reviews. Pay attention not only to fresh posts about your business and services but also any brand mentions appearing up to a year in the past. This will help to understand which problems have already been resolved by the company and which issues remain open. Avoiding a branding crisis requires resolving conflict situations quickly. You must always answer politely and correctly, using accurate information and no personal attacks.

Communicate with your audience with corporate accounts on social networks and other online sites. Properly structured communications create a positive reputation for the employer and motivate employees to leave more positive reviews about the business.

To ensure effective corporate brand reputation and brand crisis management, it is suggested to engage a SERM agency. Specialists will monitor not only your brand but also the business of your competitors. They will create a strong strategy to improve your employer reputation and brand image and guide you in the event of a crisis. By using SEO tools and preparing content aimed at strengthening corporate reputation, they will knock negative posts about the company out of the top search results.The business's community manager will work with audiences online to increase brand loyalty, attract brand advocates, improve employer image, and prepare for crisis management should negative reviews arise.