5 Ways HR Technology Helps You Build an Employer Brand

Here in the brave new world of the 21st century, everything is branded, including employers. Put simply, your employer brand is your identity, your reputation, how you present yourself, and – importantly – how you are perceived. Employer brand has a significant impact on HR activity, particularly recruitment (giving rise to jargon such as, “employer value proposition” or EVP). Arguably, given that employer brand rests on perception, and it’s people who do the perceiving, HR is the organisational function that should be most concerned and/or responsible. Which brings us to HR technology…

1) HR Tech Builds Your Employer Brand by… promoting dialogue

For both existing employees and potential new hires, your reputation as an employer is based on what you do. But in terms of actions, it’s impossible to please all of the people all of the time, and most business decisions impact negatively on someone. The key is for people to understand why you do what you do, and that takes communication. Any HRMS or other HR tech that communicates clearly on corporate policies (especially people policies) and decisions is worth its weight in gold.

2) HR Tech Builds Your Employer Brand by… inviting feedback

The latest recruitment apps carry sophisticated social functionality, enabling you to reach out to (and build) a community of potential employees. This body of people is a potential mirror enabling you to view how you are perceived as an employer. Once you know how the outside world sees you, you’ll know what to ‘fix’. As for an external source of information on how your existing (and previous) employees see you, try Glassdoor.

3) HR Tech Builds Your Employer Brand by… building trust

HR software that offers internal social tools can be a valuable route to openness and transparency (both of which strengthen employer brand).

Recommended Reading: HRMS Vendor Guide - Find the Vendor that will Build your Employer Brand

An organisation that engages in dialogue and sharing (technology-enabled, of course) tends to deal with change and adversity more effectively and also present a unified and positive image to the outside world.

4) HR Tech Builds Your Employer Brand by… creating a positive working environment

Simple features such as access to (and responsibility for) personal information tend to create engagement. HR and knowledge management functions that encourage working across hierarchical and organisational barriers help employees break free of silo working and boost creative productivity. This in turn, becomes a driver or cultural evolution facilitating understanding and clarity across boundaries. And most people would love to work for an employer like that!

5) HR Tech Builds Your Employer Brand by… measurement

Finally, there’s the number-crunching opportunities that are afforded by software. As an example of what’s possible, external jobs aggregator site Simply Hired has created what it calls an Employer Brand Index (EBI) based on the click-through rates on job adverts. This might seem an overly simplistic method of measuring employer brand, but it’s a start; and suggests that there may be more sophisticated measurement possibilities that organisations could implement internally by leveraging the latest HR analytics applications.