The Secret to Brand Advancement: Digital Solutions – or Lack thereof – Communicate Employer Brand

Today, more than ever, companies are investing significant dollars in marketing efforts and spending valuable hours crafting and establishing their vision, mission, values and personality.

While establishing branding guidelines, ad budgets, content creation and a digital presence is needed to gain a competitive edge in today’s market, companies are often overlooking a key driver to brand advancement: Their employees.

So, the secret to brand advancement?

The candidate and employee experiences say a lot about what a company value. Companies that value technology, innovation and its people must value those at every level of the organization. Simply put: you can’t build a credible and authentic brand if your processes and digital solutions don’t align to that same brand.

Take, for example, these mismatches:

• A company that values technology but still collects manual construction daily log, time sheets or paper forms.
• A company that values its people but has a rigid human resource platform that makes it hard for employees to gain access to records, request time off or connect with stakeholders.
• A company that wants to recruit new employees who demonstrate tech-savvy skills, but its application process is manual or its online process is frustrating, complicated and leaves a negative impression.
• A company that values collaboration and teamwork but still uses an archaic performance management system.
• A company that values security and workplace safety but doesn’t protect employee data and information.

For a brand to be effective, the organization’s values must be consistently applied to all processes that impact people management – from recruitment, onboarding, time and attendance, performance management, to everything in between.

Here are 4 ways you can work to refine, enhance and elevate your branding within your people management solutions. 

Recruitment Software

An online recruitment software makes it easier for companies to identify, attract and hire top talent through the click of a mouse. That can also be said for applicants who can now identify and discover a company’s reputation. There are plenty of company review websites out there with reviews from applicants, and (wouldn’t you know?) many of them are less than sterling. Let’s face it – job seekers won’t apply to jobs from a company with bad reviews.

Whether or not you are utilizing a recruitment software that posts to social media boards, your reviews and reputation are already part of your digital presence. So, make it easy to leave positive reviews by finding digital solutions that include language and website plug-ins and widgets so candidates and employees can automatically post on social media.

Applicant Tracking System (ATS)

Did you know that as many as 80% of candidates drop-out of the application process before they complete their application due to a poor candidate experience?

Marketing and branding should never stop at “Apply Now”. Make the process easier to engage with top talent. Value the time and effort of the talented candidates that apply by finding an applicant tracking system that is user-friendly, simple and easily customizable to your brand. Utilizing an ATS software with simple tools (such as resume parsing that prevents candidates from fill the same data on their CV) can decrease candidate drop-off rates, keep companies engaged to the top talent and create a strong first impression for new employees.

Human Capital Management

Human Capital Management (HCM) is no longer just the process of hiring, evaluating and firing. Today’s human capital management must involve cultivating a positive employee experience.

Whether through advanced payroll services, an HR payroll software, performance management software or time and attendance systems, today’s HR must find ways to empower, engage and inform employees. When employees have access to innovative tools that increase employee engagement, such as self-service portals, employee recognition corners, e-learning options or portals that bring together communications, knowledge, learning, resources and insights, they are more likely to feel of sense of belonging and purpose.

Offboarding

While most companies focus on onboarding and retention, offboarding employees, especially seasonal employees, is an opportunity to foster the relationship you’ve built and strategically keep the door open for future opportunities and projects. This is vital especially when you work with specialty contractors in the Engineering, Procurement and Construction industry, for example. You can leverage your final few touch points and leave a positive lasting impression through offboarding software, and make them want to return for more opportunities.

Whether a former employee leaves your company happy or has a negative experience and leaves your company disappointed, they are likely to share their experience with others. Through automating the offboarding process with checklists, customizable templates, exit survey reminders and task delegations, you can retain specialty contractors and efficiently prepare the team for the departure of an employee – and even ask for that final positive review!

About CEM Business Solutions: Based in Montvale, NJ, CEM Business Solutions is a Microsoft Gold Partner specializing in providing the Engineering Procurement and Construction industry with a variety of employee management services, including high performance solutions, an applicant tracking system, advanced payroll services, daily log and construction management solutions. Since 2003, our dedicated consulting team has helped EPC companies achieve more through new technologies and data-driven solutions.