January 25, 2022
In today’s competitive employer market, it is getting harder and harder to attract, onboard, train and retain employees. Don’t underestimate the power behind your employer brand. We can teach you how to leverage your existing brand into an intentional company culture to become an employer of choice in the online space.
It’s somewhat of a badge of honor to have employees in your company who have a tenure of more than a year. That must mean you’re a great boss! You’re killing it at leadership! They didn’t resign in the dumpster fire of 2020 and 2021! For growing businesses, survival is not the goal. We want you to thrive with a team that believes in your mission.
Why Create an Employer Brand?
The fact is, there are more jobs than there are candidates. Attracting talent is imperative to the ability of your company to capitalize on it’s growth possibilities. According to SHRM.org, “Data shows that the share of job postings listing ‘no experience necessary’ and ‘hiring urgently’ are well up from 2019 levels, and the share of job ads promising a starting bonus has more than doubled year over year”.
Attracting talent is completely different than putting out a job ad and hoping a job seeker comes across it and thinks, “what the hell – they seem cool”. Attracting individuals that resonate with your brand is something you probably already have been cultivating. You have the tools to use the same branding you use to attract clients to assemble.
Online entrepreneurs spend so much time on their visual brand.
We worry about our Instagram grid, our values, our brand voice, our company mission. We stress over our brand being recognizable in sight and messaging. Luckily, we can leverage that care and attention to detail and learn to capitalize on our brand to become an employer of choice, and why it matters to the sustainability of your online business.
Let’s Talk About Why Your Brand Matters
Just like in marketing, understanding your ideal employee is key to your success in your growth strategy. Knowing what you need in an employee will make a huge difference.
There are two sides to identifying your ideal employee:
- The basic stuff: availability, full-time or part-time, their career goals, their experience, their skill set, their salary requirements, their ability to commit to long term or short term employment. All these characteristics relate to how the employee will best serve your company.
- The “you” of it all: your company’s goals, values, mission, and vision. The way you work, your lifestyle, your passions, the ideal relationship that you want to have with your team member, and your company’s DEI plan.
Intentionality in Idealizing Your Employee Prevents Discrimination
You might be thinking, “I’m great at this, I’ve built a business from the ground up– I know how to identify an ideal client, how hard can it be?”. But not only is this not as comparable as you think, it is also legally and ethically dangerous. Using the same demographics to identify your ideal employee as your ideal customer, are generally the same demographics that can be discriminatory.
Stay away from characteristics such as age, gender, marital status, parental status, ability, income level, or any other protected classes. (Have no idea what this means? We can help!).
By viewing the ideal employee through the lens of their role in your company, instead of as you will be able to be more objective and unbiased when building your team.
It’s All About The Values
Your ideal employee, the person you want to attract, is NOT a necessity when beginning your recruiting hunt. But, knowing your values is imperative to being able to intentionally building a company culture.
For example, if one of your values is women’s equality, then create a parental leave program that mirrors this value. If one of your values is education, then provide a companywide benefit for time and budget allocated toward professional development.
Stating your values boldly and unapologetically throughout the recruitment process will attract those who resonate with those values & mission. This will help you to create buy-in from the get-go.
Employee Engagement
It’s been proven that engaged employees work harder and go above and beyond the minimum. Engaged employees prioritize their relationship with your company and their coworkers and provide a higher quality of work for not only your company, but for your clients.
A key component of effective branding is clarity of purpose and intention. The same goes for attracting the team you are creating. Being clear and concise about the expectations of your team through your actions as an employer will ensure that your applicants are engaged and excited about the work that they will do.
There is a straight line between your branding as a business and your employer brand. Ensure you are intentionally crafting the employee experience at your company to run seamlessly alongside your customer’s experience.
We see a lot of lip service between the way companies market jobs to candidates, and the actual employee experience. Creating an authentic experience for your team that reflects the values of your brand will not only make it easier for you to build trust with your team, but also help your reputation as a employer of choice.
Employee Experience
The experience that your team has working within your company will make or break your ability to retain employees. There will always be good and bad times when running a business. We knew this when we made the choice to pursue the path of entrepreneurship. But it is our responsibility to shoulder that burden. I challenge you to adopt this commitment: “When I recruit a new employee, I am responsible for their experience. Protecting them from undue stress or mistreatment ensures they are able to focus on their work.” Frankly, when our team performs at a high level, we can focus on the CEO-ing of it all.
Autonomy
We run small to medium sized businesses. This means our team is often in the thick of it with us. They hear about our client struggles, our inventory struggles, even our issues with time management. We can’t always provide top-of-market pay, or the best benefits in the world. But we can provide a psychologically safe workplace, so that our employees can learn and grow. We take the time to learn what our team values, what they want long term, and what they want short term. We can give them the autonomy to try new things, to learn new skills, and to add value to their resume through creating and trying new things for your business.
Upskilling As A Benefit
According to Forbes, “Sixty-seven percent of Gen-Z learners spent more time learning in 2020 on LinkedIn’s platform than they did in 2019. Altogether, they logged 50% more hours watching online courses than learners from any other generation.” In order to become an employee of choice, create a brand that allows your team to grow, develop, and learn. In order to be competitive in this labor market, we have the best selection of course creators and innovators in our communities, and at our fingertips. We create content every day. Our courses fuel the businesses of thousands of buyers.
We have everything we need to be the most attractive and high-value industry to work for.
We can make online business THE INDUSTRY where every generation is knocking the (virtual) door down to work for us. I promise, if you put the same thought of what type of employer brand we want to be that we do with our beautiful visual brands, you will attract and retain employees whose lives you will impact. Those employees will be the game changers that will help you develop your business into it’s full potential.
…And OF COURSE… you will work with us to make sure you’ve got your hiring and managing on lock. 😉
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