Top Tips on Employer Branding for SME’s

As long as you have employees, candidates and customers - you have an employer brand - no matter how small your organisation. But how can the smaller organisation create an employer brand that will punch above its weight?

I hope my top 10 tips on Employer Branding for SME’s will be help you - and your organisation - do just that.

Top 10 Tips 

1. Ask people why they work for you. Understand what they identify with, what engages and motivates them - it will feed into your brand message and add authenticity.

2. Be confident about what makes you unique - you don’t have to appeal to everyone so you might as well focus on what WILL attract the people who are the right cultural fit.

3. Be honest - don’t imply what you think people want to hear - your existing staff won’t believe it and you’ll only attract and recruit the wrong person which could be very costly.

4. Make your existing people part of your story - some of the best and least expensive employer branding tactics simply communicate great employee engagement.

5. Make your smaller size an asset in the recruitment process - engage personally with candidates for a better experience. Candidates often complain that larger organisations make them feel little more than a number - so treat them like real people from the start.

6. Be flexible on benefits - understand what matters to the people you want to employ and reflect their needs in the package. SME’s often can’t compete on salary so being flexible and innovative with benefits can be highly appealing.

7. Be consistent with your message - across all social and recruitment channels. Consistency and frequency are the foundations of successful brand awareness.

8. Let your employees have their own voice on social media - they’ll no doubt share the good stuff about working for you. Large organisations often have social media policies that stifle authenticity and good news,

9. Understand your baseline data -  how effective are your current recruitment processes? Work out your current cost per hire, days to fill a job, effectiveness of recruitment channels, numbers of speculative applications - so you’ll be able to measure progress as you develop your employer brand. Ask for feedback from your candidates on the process especailly the ones that don't get the role. They will give the most honest feedback. 

10. Share your successes - when good things start to happen - lower turnover, less dependency on agencies, better speculative applications - it’ll encourage the board to get behind the employer brand and develop it further.

If you have any questions or would like further information about Employer Branding, please get in touch.