Market Your Company As an Employer of Choice

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When I first started working in a corporate environment, our brand new marketing department used to have this little “pep rally” type of phrase that we would use that went something like this: “Marketing is everyone’s job — not just ours.”  I don’t remember the exact words, but our intent was to have the rest of the organization see and realize that having a market or customer focus in all areas was beneficial to us not in just getting more business – but in getting the best people.

Our guest post today is from Donna Ronayne from Halogen Software.  Learn how becoming an employer of choice can build your brand.

As marketers, we are rightly focused on promoting our company’s products or services. But if your company’s success is also tied to having the best and brightest on your team then positioning your company as an employer of choice should be another key focus.  There are several benefits to doing this.

The first and most obvious benefit is that it makes it easier for you to attract and retain highly-skilled staff. This can sometimes be a challenge for smaller companies, especially in highly competitive fields where perennial skills shortages exist, like accounting, engineering and sales. Being recognized or known as an employer of choice can be an important way to build the strength of your team.

Being a “best place to work” also makes you a more attractive vendor to prospective customers. Think about it… If you were choosing between vendor A and vendor B for purchasing a competitive product, wouldn’t you be inclined to feel better working with a vendor who was known to attract and retain highly skilled staff and treat them well? Wouldn’t that translate into better customer service and responsiveness to you, their customer? Wouldn’t you expect them to have less staff turnover and greater employee engagement, which again would mean better quality, more continuity and stronger working relationships with their customers? Employers of choice are known to have better employee morale, stronger customer loyalty and better overall performance.

So what makes an employer of choice? There are several organizations that conduct surveys and rate employers. They tend to look at things like: communication and feedback between managers and employees, goal alignment, recognizing employee contributions, giving employees opportunities for development, providing opportunities for career progression, fairly rewarding performance, competitive compensation and benefits, flexibility, etc. But most of it boils down to the level of employee engagement – and how likely they are to recommend your organization to others.

Many companies are finding that having talent management processes helps them provide some of these key benefits to their employees, in an integrated and affordable way. It has proven to boost employee engagement – as well as the bottom line. It can also give organizations a leg up with  prospective employees. It’s not unusual for interviewees, especially those in younger generations, to ask how a prospective employer manages performance, develops its employees, pays based on performance, offers opportunities for advancement, etc. And this isn’t limited to large companies.

If you truly want to lead in your field, you need to have the best and the brightest on your side. Working to become an employer of choice can help you do that. Once you achieve the status, or even put solid programs in place to achieve it, promote the fact. You’ll make yourself more attractive to prospective customers.

About the Author: Donna Ronayne is VP of Marketing at Halogen Software, an employer of choice – and a provider of talent management solutions. She can be reached at dronayne@halogensoftware.com

Related articles :

• Best Employers Studies Help Organizations Assess their Talent Strategies (newswire.ca)
• Employer Branding Part II (punkrockhr.com)