Much of the work I do with companies on aligning brand to culture centres around first gaining a true understanding of what your culture is, and then ensuring that that is reflected properly in your branding efforts.

At this point I’d urge you to check out a book called Give & Get, by Bryan Adams and Charlotte Marshall. I promise you it will revolutionise how you think about EVP and Employer Brand and lots of what they do matches my own approach to alignment.

If you happen to work with me on EVP & Employer Brand, I’ll prepare you now for the fact that I focus on shifting mindsets to see both things not as glossy talent attraction tools, but actually incredibly ‘transparent’ filtering tools that should reduce the volume of people applying to you, but increase the relevance of those who do apply and get hired, as well as dramatically improving your talent retention efforts, because these people join having a true understanding of what it takes to thrive in your business.

If you’ve not been scared off yet, then read on…

The Issue

The ever-raging ‘War for Talent’ has led companies to throw everything they possibly can at creating the most positive, most exciting brands they can, with an emphasis on an EVP that delivers and gives ‘everything’ to potential candidates. All this in the hope that we can attract the best talent and compel them to join our business.

But this approach often leads to companies presenting an overly ‘positive’ view of what it’s like to work in their business. Suggestions that it’s so good that it doesn’t really paint a true picture for talent around what it’s genuinely like to work there. Already you can see how your culture and your brand is becoming misaligned. 89% of hires that don’t work out, fail due to cultural and mindset alignment, not skills and ability. That, is the problem being created here. high turnover leads to wasted time in hiring efforts, as well as costs to replace that person (Up to 150% of their salary as an estimate).

****The other issues lay in workload and brand damage. By presenting your business as this perfect image of fun, success and endless barista-made cappuccino’s you are of course opening the flood gates to an unreasonable amount of applicants to your roles. It’s time companies realised that it’s not about volume. You’re inviting more pressure and work on yourselves than you need. You’re creating a problem without realising it. So many hours are wasted by Talent teams filtering out CVs that really shouldn’t be anywhere near that role, but have only applied because ‘This looks like such a cool place to work’.

The time wasted by your Talent team is one thing, but the number of people you reject, and possibly don’t manage properly (because you’re stretched for time) is super damaging. Let’s put it into perspective:

If you have 500 people in your company, and you turnover 15% a year, that’s 75 open roles to backfill (before you even account for growth). If you receive 100 applications per role (Which is probably a low estimate) and each person has a social network of at least 500 people (probably more) your total exposure is 3.75m people. Those people will form an opinion on your brand based on how those candidates have been treated.

The point being that the more you open yourself up to volume of applicants, the more exposure people have directly and indirectly with your brand. And the higher the volume, typically the lower the candidate experience. Before you know it, you’re delivering a poor, low-touch experience to thousands of candidates who could spread that to millions. Before you know it you’re refreshing your Glassdoor page, wiping sweat from your forehead expecting the next horrendous review to land.

My Approach

None of this means you should avoid shouting about all the great things your business does. Everything you’re proud of should absolutely still be fed into your EVP and brand. But companies are missing the other side of the coin, and that’s giving talent a clear, honest appraisal of the harsh realities of working within your business.

What’s it like when things get tough? What’s it like when we fail? What’s it like when people don’t hit targets? Why Shouldn’t you apply?

This can feel really uncomfortable to face up to at first, and doesn’t come naturally, but balancing out all the great, with some honest truths about what it really takes to succeed in your business is the real way to ensure you get the right talent coming to you, rather than all the talent. As Give & Get says, ‘Repel the many and compel the few’.

The work I do with companies on their Employer Brand & EVP absolutely includes highlighting all the great things about your business, and how you can highlight those to the world. But I also focus heavily on understanding what it looks like when you fail, when you’re not doing well, when the leadership team is under pressure…

Companies talk about “Bringing your whole self to work” nowadays, but how refreshing would it be if the company practiced what it preached and brought it’s whole self to employer branding efforts- your good, your bad, your strengths and your flaws.

That, is how you get your Culture and your Brand aligned, and that is how you reduce workload on your Talent Team, improve relevancy of applications, retention rates, and create a more aligned, high performing team.

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