employer brand: rebrand or refresh?

white paper

Employer Brand: Rebrand or Refresh?

workforce communications

Introduction With the power and speed of digital communications,

rebranding has almost become a common event. Many

organizations are rebranding themselves every five years,

and in some cases, more often.

Why would an organization do this? To succeed in

today’s market, organizations must present a compelling

and relevant brand to connect with the people that

matter: their clients or customers and other critical

stakeholders. A brand that connects is one that is

interesting, engaging and focused on the attributes and

needs of the audience.

The unfortunate truth is that the interests and needs

of the audience continually change. Thus, many

organizations are rebranding or, at the very least,

refreshing their brands periodically to keep themselves

marketable to their audiences.

HR’s ad agency.

DavidGroup.comThe David Group Inc. All rights reserved. Ref 15 – 142

A LOOK INSIDE INTRODUCTION

EMPLOYER BRAND

REBRAND OR REFRESH?

EXAMPLES: WHEN TO REBRAND, REFRESH OR TWEAK YOUR EMPLOYER BRAND

CONCLUSION

DEFINITIONS

TWEAK?REBRAND?

REFRESH?

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HR’s ad agency.


Employer BrandWhat does this mean for your employer brand? The same principle applies. If you are not delivering interesting, engaging, and candidate and employee-focused messages, then chances are your employer brand is falling short. Competition for talent is fierce. You can’t afford to have an employer brand that doesn’t connect with candidates and employees.

If you find your organization’s employment messaging isn’t as fresh and compelling as it needs to be, then the question becomes: do we need to completely rebrand or just refresh our employer brand? Well, it depends.

Rebrand or Refresh?First, let’s just put it out there: very few organizations need a full-blown rebranding of their employer brand. Some organizations can dramatically improve their employer brand performance by simply refreshing particular employer brand elements. Others can start with an initial tweak and then scale up to an enterprise-wide rebranding to accomplish their goals. Finally, there are cases where an employer brand refresh is needed.

Second, let’s acknowledge that every organization is unique. Every organization has its own culture, mission, purpose and each is in its own distinct place in terms of talent communications. What is needed for you and your employer brand isn’t the same as what’s needed for your competitors’ employer

brands. Our intent here is to provide broadly-painted scenarios of when you might consider either fully rebranding, refreshing or tweaking your employer brand.

Examples of When to Rebrand Your Employer Brand Since the process of rebranding an employer brand is the most intensive of the three, the reasons behind a decision to rebrand are perhaps the most dramatic. Here are a couple examples of when a rebrand might be in order.

Poor Recruitment and Retention Performance

Organizations that are experiencing poor recruitment and retention performance might need a full-blown employer brand rebranding exercise. The root cause of the poor performance might be found in existing employer brand messages that aren’t authentic or true to the everyday experiences of employees.

First, let’s just put

it out there: very

few organizations

need a full-blown

rebranding of their

employer brand.


HR’s ad agency.


You may not be connecting with candidates (thus making it harder to attract and close them) or you may be losing talent too early because the opportunity was not what they expected. By rebranding your employer brand, you’ll rediscover – and communicate better – the employer brand promise, employer brand attributes and your employee value proposition (EVP) that connects with candidates and employees.

External Brand Alignment

As noted at the outset, many organizations undergo corporate external rebranding. This includes new external brand messaging, new logos and colors and new corporate brand standards that are expressed in new websites, social media sites and collateral materials such as brochures, posters, flyers, and other forms of marketing communications.

The strongest employer brands are aligned with their corporate,

or external, brand. If your organization has undergone external rebranding, it is essential that your employer brand be aligned to the new branding. Otherwise, you are potentially enabling confusion and disconnection when a candidate or employee sees the new branding against the “old” brand that HR is putting out.

Shifts in Strategic Mission and/or Culture Change

Similar to external brand alignment, strong employer brands are aligned to and reinforce the organization’s culture and strategic mission. Typically, an organization that undergoes a culture change and a shift in strategic direction will end up with a dramatically different talent landscape including new talent requirements and new expectations related to employee performance and behavior. A new employer brand would help current employees make the transition, and communicate a new set of attributes to attract a different type of candidate.

The strongest

employer brands

are aligned with

their corporate,

or external, brand.


HR’s ad agency.

If you are not

delivering

interesting,

engaging, and

candidate and

employee-focused

messages, then

chances are your

employer brand is

falling short.


Examples of When to Refresh Your Employer BrandTargeted Talent Communications Intervention

Refreshing the employer brand can help an organization strategically address a particular talent communications problem or issue. For example, one might decide its campus recruitment program needs a targeted intervention if the messages and materials are out of date and aren’t connecting with the fresh talent needed.

The process employed to refresh campus recruitment materials might include focus groups and student surveys resulting in refreshed materials that use the new insights but weaves them into the existing employer brand tapestry.

To Solve a Specific Talent Problem

An employer brand refresh may also be required should an organization need to confront a specific talent problem. One instance we’ve seen relates to refreshing on-boarding communications to reduce short-term turnover. In this case, the organization would consider refreshing the branding elements found in both recruitment promises and new hire orientation. The targeted data gathering would include pre-hire and post-hire interviews and surveys as well as formal exit interviews.

Change Management Initiatives

Initiatives that are designed to change employee perceptions, beliefs and behaviors—such as wellness or safety programs, healthcare and retirement benefit redesigns, training or leadership development programs—can gain more traction when accompanied by a brand refresh.


The key here is to look at the findings of the change management initiative to see if they align to employer brand attributes and EVP. In this instance, refreshing employer brand elements to align to the change management outcomes strengthens both the initiative and the employer brand.

Examples of When to Tweak Your Employer Brand Simple Instances of Miscommunication

We all have instances when our communications just aren’t hitting the right chords. In talent communications this may happen anywhere from recruitment ads to exit interviews and all points in between. With the growing use of social media and mobile communications, there are more opportunities to inadvertently send the wrong message than ever before.

If this happens, it’s smart to tweak your employer brand to improve reception. This is best accomplished by leveraging the talents of your HR communications professionals so that there is minimal disruption to your on-going employer brand communications.

A Need for Something Different

There are times when we just need to see or experience something different. In today’s fast paced communications world, it’s almost become second nature to “try” new approaches to satisfy this need. While making minor changes to brand messages or delivery may make some a little uncomfortable, others see it as an opportunity to improve the way your brand connects.

HR’s ad agency.


The David Group is HR’s ad agency. We are experts in recruitment, retention and workforce communications focused on helping employers find, attract, engage and retain talent. Our promise: an unrelenting focus on improving talent acquisition, talent communications and candidate quality.

ConclusionEvery organization is different. Whether your employer brand needs to be tweaked, refreshed or rebranded depends on your distinct set of circumstances. The need, however, to continually think about, monitor and improve your employer brand is something that we all need to consider.

TWEAK?REBRAND?

REFRESH?


HR’s ad agency.

Defining Rebranding, Refreshing and TweakingIt might be helpful for us to define what we mean when referring to employer brand rebranding, refreshing and tweaking.

Rebranding

When we talk about rebranding, we are talking about a comprehensive overhaul of an employer brand. This is a process that includes a full examination of an organization’s employer brand promise, attributes and “HR selling” statements. It also includes updating (or in some cases creating) an employee value proposition (EVP). We call this Discovery. Specific tasks used in Discovery might consist of focus groups, employee engagement surveys, executive and stakeholder interviews, communication audits and so forth. It’s a full-court press to determine an organization’s authentic work experience from the employees’ perspective.

Rebranding also includes creating and executing a comprehensive, enterprise-wide employer brand communications strategy and plan. Often this means a total reworking of how the organization talks about itself as a place to work; new and updated visual and creative elements used in such applications as recruitment advertising, on-boarding materials, employee communications, social media pages and the like; and the introduction of new marketing and communications tactics and strategies. This covers what we would consider the Invent and Deliver phases of rebranding an employer brand.

Refreshing

Perhaps the best way to conceptualize an employer brand refresh is to think about it as an employer brand rebrand-light. There is still a need for a certain level of examination but it’s not as deep as a full rebranding.

Organizations that choose to undertake a brand refresh are typically those that believe there is a sufficient need to have a thought-out, organized and evidence-based refreshing of key employer brand elements. We see an employer brand refresh in the context of identifying an issue that needs to be corrected, devoting a limited amount of time and resources to understanding the underlying factors and then setting forth a corrective course of action. That correction would be well within the existing employer brand statements and guidelines.

Tweaking

Simply put, employer brand tweaking is just improving an organization’s employer brand by making fine adjustments to existing brand elements. Maybe you’ve received feedback that candidates don’t really “get” your recruitment ads and you’ve decided to make them more straightforward. Or, that the training and learning initiative that you launched lacks the punch to engage and attract employees. We see tweaking as the process of making an employer brand better based mostly on observation and gut-feel.



employer brand: rebrand or refresh?

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