Many employer branding practitioners will agree that when you are setting up employer branding in your organisation, you won’t have a lot of budget to start with. And if you have to build this brand across borders, your budget dilutes even more. This post is showcasing a way of setting up the strategy and creating your employer brand momentum. I will focus on the employer branding side of things and will leave recruitment marketing out for now.

Often people tell me to acknowledge the fact that Europe is a highly diverse area: different cultures, languages, and maturity in the field of employer branding. This goes for a lot of regions in the world, as Africa and Asia are maybe even more diverse. I believe in one centralised strategy, and adaptions to local culture, different departments, etc... 

1. First, bundle similar countries, jobs, divisions, or whatever works best for your organisation. Here are a few questions to ask yourself along the way: 

   • Where do the similarities lie when looking at the bundle? We tend to put our focus on differences, but if for example, you are looking at different countries within Europe you see that some countries share a language or culture or are naturally working together a lot.

   • Where are your big volumes in recruitment or the ‘more important’ divisions or the ‘more cooperative’ people within your organisation? 

   • What is the biggest ‘problem’ in this bundle? From this ‘problem’ you can formulate your first employer branding goal.

2. Involve others. Even if you are a team of one this doesn’t mean you have to do everything by yourself. Connect, Zoom, meet with people representing the bundles you made in step one and ask questions. Seek to understand why they are there, what makes your organisation a great place to work, what drives them. Don’t shy away from the bad stuff either, no organisation is perfect. Your employer brand should cater to the people that can be successful in your organisation. Talk to leaders and employees alike. Leaders should give you a sense of direction and what kind of people are needed in the future. Employees give you insights into what working at your organisation is like today. 

3. Write the first version of your EB strategy and EVP. I know that at this point you don’t have all the information and that it won’t be pretty. That doesn’t matter as the purpose of this first document is to create momentum. Link your initial goal from step one to the information of step two. Define the ‘promise’ you make to future and current employees. 

4. Get it out there. You won’t get real feedback if you don’t show something; circle back to HR, leadership and ask where your first version is right and where it is wrong. Your goal is to improve your document after each conversation and session. Show it to people you haven’t yet spoken to as well.

5. Experiment! People tend to respond better to content than they do to strategy documents. From there create cheap pieces of content loosely connected to the first version of your EVP/EB strategy. For example, ask people to film parts of their days and turn this into short videos showcasing your culture. Return to the people you spoke with before and tap into their networks to get a variety of people on board in this content/ Launch the content both internally and externally and get feedback. This is checking your strategy in real-time. Does your content resonate with the right people? Measure the result, listen and check/improve on your strategy again.

Show results and build the case for an ever-improving employer brand. Do more of what works and maybe start producing more complex content. Create different ‘bundles’ and start at step 1 again. This is how you create your employer branding movement. This agile approach is vital when working with multiple stakeholders and/or countries that you want to get aligned with. Agility will help these stakeholders to share their input, but more importantly, you are validating everything you do against different cultures/blood types. 

I’d also like to give a massive shout out to the following individuals for providing their thoughts and insights:

• Bjorn Luijters

• Charlotte Marshall

• Claire de Souza

• Emily Firth

• Uwe Prasse

• Fernanda Fumagalli

• Steven Brand

• Viorela Marcu

• Chris Le’cand-Harwood

• Justin Sollis

• Kim Dykes

• Suzanne Wolko

• David Thompson

• Lilian Mahoukou

Learn more about the agile methodologies for software development, which you can apply to your employer brand design and activation.

About our TBA member, Ernst Schipper

Ernst Schipper is an employer branding and company culture consultant and helps organizations add meaning to their unique company culture & employer brand. He is a firestarter: either setting up/scale the employer branding function or bring culture/employer brand to the next level. During his 10+ years as an independent consultant he worked with renowned international companies like Booking.com, Philips, FrieslandCampina, Fugro and a number of scale ups. Prior to this he worked some 10 years in a variety of organizations as a recruiter/teamlead, hiring manager, employer branding manager and finally as client director at an employer branding agency.

Ernst is Amsterdam based, has two amazing daughters, loves exploring other countries and learn from other people and cultures. He is fascinated by tech stuff, art and sometimes the combination of these two. He is famous among his friends for his home-made limoncello.