BUILDING YOUR EMPLOYER BRAND
We don’t have the scale to invest heavily in our employer brand, but here’s a few things we can do better than most small companies.
(1) Start with values. Make sure your company values are front and center on the careers page.
(2) Be authentic. Find ways for leaders and employees to showcase their perspectives.
(3) Don’t forget about Glassdoor. Yes, it’s tactical. But it’s also very important.
START WITH VALUES
Make sure values are front and center. Executive teams spend a lot of time in off-sites articulating what the core values of the organization should be. We often here from employees that they have never worked at a company that even has values. A simple rule of thumb is to make sure core values are incorporated prominently on the careers page.
Even better, define those values for people. Bring them to life. Have employees discuss (either on video or in written words) what those values mean to them during their day to day. The more applicants can understand what it’s like to work here from your careers page, the more likely you are to attract great fit candidates to apply. You are trying to articulate to potential employees what it’s like to work here, and nothing says that better to the values and behaviors that make your culture unique.
BE AUTHENTIC
Let your employees share their own voice. Whether on the careers page, on LinkedIn, or other platforms, make sure employees have the opportunity to share what it’s like to work at your company. In essence, our employees are our most credible brand ambassadors, so let them voice be heard. This is also a very easy way to elevate or highlight your high performers or culture carriers.
Tap into the marketing team. They are the experts on brand to begin with, so partner with them to help package and share what you’d like to develop. Maybe it’s a video from a company event, maybe it’s an employee talking about what the values mean to them, or maybe it’s highlighting a cool initiative that just rolled out or a product that was just released. What’s important is less about what it is and more about how it brings the company to life. These are easy ways to partner across the organization.
Reinforce this with your hiring managers. The hiring process is just as much an audition of your company as it is an evaluation of talent. Make sure hiring managers understand their role in that process while encouraging the authenticity that we know attracts top talent. Each person who interviews won’t get a job, but they’ll probably tell their friends about the experience. All hiring managers (and really all employees that come into contact with candidates) should understand this.
ACTIVELY MANAGE YOUR GLASSDOOR PAGE
One of the best things you can do is respond “like a real human being” to every review that’s written about you. People try “very, very hard’ to influence GlassDoor ratings by launching big, complicated initiatives inside the company to compel people to write about them. Those usually backfire. While there are some things you can do to prompt culture carriers and other “employee-brand accretive” folks to promote the company themselves, a consistent pattern of thoughtful responses from the company’s leaders is a great first step.
Be human. Thank them for their response. Talk about what you’re working on inside the company and how the review shows you’re making progress (if positive). Or, if it’s negative, be honest about how “this doesn’t represent the best of us” and that “you’d like to hear more so you can do better.” Give your personal contact info (at least your email address). Don’t challenge or try to fact check. And above all, make everything positive and forward-looking. Don’t only answer the positive or the negative reviews. Your goal isn’t to refute or smoke-screen. The goal is for candidates to see the reviews AND the responses and say to themselves, “what a thoughtful company. I really want to talk to these guys.”
Use positive internal events as a trigger to ask for a review. If you are having a 1:1 with someone, or meet with an employee, or get a chance to pay out a great bonus to someone, take it upon yourself to casually but intentionally remind them about the company’s need for an impactful Glassdoor presence. One People Ops leader we admire simply uses the phrase, “Where’s my Glassdoor review?” with people. While it may seem a bit hokey, he thought it worked because “it got people past the ‘who me?’ attitude” and gave them the explicit permission to share their thoughts in a public forum.
Don’t neglect the executive team. Every one of your executives should write a glassdoor review. Give your team permission to ‘say the things that you’re not happy about and how we’re working on them.’ Talking about Glassdoor at the weekly management meeting can be a powerful signal about the platform’s importance and can help keep the evolving ratings and feedback top of mind. You can even roll it into a regular, broader discussion about your hiring / talent acquisition plan.