While attending the National EMA Conference in Dallas recently, I was fortunate to have had the opportunity to deliver two breakout sessions entitled “Employment Branding: Branding Your Organization to Attract and Retain A-Level Talent.” I was pleased to see the enthusiastic interest emerge around this strategic initiative, and throughout the week I was encouraged by the obvious commitment of so many of our fellow recruiting practitioners to elevate the recruiting function inside their organizations.

It was evident to me, however, in both the content of the conference and the collaboration going on outside of the business sessions, that we are on the cusp of significant challenges with respect to attracting and retaining talent. The well-publicized, demographically driven labor shortage is quickly headed our way, and the notion that this will coincide with increasing dissatisfaction in the workplace—along with unprecedented turnover (estimates that 40% of the workforce are prepared to find a new job are alarming)—creates the landscape for a perfect storm.

Companies that are not prepared to combat these challenges—and that fail to understand the importance of an increased investment allocation in talent management—will almost certainly see diminished performance possibilities in the future. The time to start preparing to compete in this challenging environment is now, and employment branding is a long-term strategy that will offer any organization who commits to the process a real advantage.

An employment branding initiative will help perpetuate the right image around your employment experience, and engage the talent necessary to accomplish key business objectives in the future. Elevating the exposure of your organization as an employer of choice is necessary to succeed in an environment that is increasingly more employee-favorable—where A players are coveted, gainfully employed and have multiple opportunities should they desire a change.

Wherever your organization is on the continuum of brand development, implementation and strategy, the following eight concepts will help guide your efforts in branding your organization as an employer of choice:

1. Understand your business objectives. What is leadership’s vision for the future direction of your organization? What is the commitment to growth, new markets and business development? To the extent that it is possible, you need to engage C-level leadership in supporting the employment branding initiative and encourage dialogue to help close any knowledge gaps with respect to near- and long-term organizational objectives. The more top-down buy-in you can achieve at the onset of your employment brand development, the more likely you are to succeed.

2. Identify your talent needs. Determine the talent needed to accomplish key business objectives in the future. Engage in workforce planning to clearly define the strategy necessary to align the needs for talent acquisition with the future direction of the business. Determine which skills are most critical to support the evolution of your organization, and assess where gaps exist among the present workforce. You’ll need to have a firm grasp of these key steps, and you’ll need to present a talent acquisition plan, in real numbers, based on current trends with respect to openings, attrition, growth/transition projections, the percentage of the workforce trending toward retirement and new critical skills required by the organization. A well-organized talent acquisition plan is essential for achieving consensus buy-in and the appropriate financial support.

3. Determine the employment brand attributes. Determine those key attributes that define the employment experience with the organization. Take into consideration the things that shape your organization, like mission, vision and values. Consider the role of the employment brand as a promise to candidates about the employment experience you offer, and make certain that the messaging is indeed accurate. At this stage in the process, it’s often useful to conduct employee population focus groups to best ascertain what attributes are legitimate and resonate most powerfully with your contributing talent. There are tools available to obtain feedback online, or you can hold moderated roundtable sessions to encourage open dialogue around the employment experience among quality performers. Both are very useful in developing an accurate understanding of the employment experience. As a benchmark, encourage the participation of leadership in a related survey mechanism. Additional interviews with leadership around the employment offering will help you develop a gap analysis, which will allow you to determine whether the leadership perception of the quality of the employment experience is consistent with reality. Creating the awareness and working toward bridging any existing gaps are truly important steps in the effort to brand your organization as a true employer of choice.

4. Look for synergy with the corporate brand. Many organizations have made great efforts to perpetuate an image of the product or service offerings that define their brand. It is important to consider how to best incorporate this messaging into the context of recruitment communications. The role of marketing and corporate communications is often essential in the employment brand development process, to the point where we now see hybrid HR/marketing roles emerging within leading organizations (with job titles like “employment brand manager” or “employment marketing manager”). Regardless of whether the hybrid role exists at your organization, you need to be certain to interface with a liaison from marketing or corporate communications as part of the process, in order to understand your current brand positioning and how to best leverage the existing concepts to fit the purposes of talent engagement. Consistency in all external communications can be achieved by working cooperatively with marketing, and the advantage is that much of the heavy lifting will often have already been accomplished.

5. Develop a communications plan. This outlines the talent engagement strategy and defines important considerations like budget, timing, markets, media and project priority. Do some competitive intelligence gathering to benchmark your organization against leading firms and industry best practices. Based on your own internal due diligence, determine what high-impact areas need to be addressed first. Is the candidate interface on your website compelling? Does your firm have enough name recognition in the local marketplace? What percentage of hires are generated through internal referrals? What is your commitment to attracting diverse candidates? What is the perception among leading candidates about your firm as a potential employer? Make a case for the appropriate investment allocation and, through planning, shape your efforts and timeline toward process improvement.

6. Develop the messaging and creative content. A strong employment brand is synthesized through a theme designed to resonate with the target hiring demographic. The strongest themes introduce the organization and allow for the opportunity to develop messaging that will engage the right candidates. Extend the messaging to focus on what you offer that is unique, different or better in the context of your career opportunities. Strive to achieve consistency in communication through all external channels and consider focus group testing (internally and externally) prior to execution, to ensure the message is on-target and the employment brand achieves the desired impact. The ongoing interface with your marketing liaison will ensure synergy with corporate communications while achieving the ultimate objective of presenting your employment experience in the most compelling way. Achieve consensus buy-in on the theme and its accompanying visuals.

7. Establish metrics. The adage that you cannot improve what you don’t measure certainly applies here. At the onset, metrics based on desired outcomes should be established. Determinations based on your own unique challenges will guide your objectives, and it’s likely that you are already measuring efforts to favorably impact cost, quality and speed. A well-developed employment branding strategy will contribute to gains in each important area and deliver improved quality lead generation as the marketplace grows increasingly more competitive. Employment branding is as much an internal process as it is an external one. That’s why it’s important to carry the “employment brand” experience beyond engagement, through onboarding, and ultimately into support of your retention initiatives. To determine if you are living the “employment brand” as an employer, solicit feedback from recent hires and those employees whose contributions you want to replicate. Equally important is obtaining feedback from those desired candidates who turned down an offer of employment, and developing improvements to address those issues.

8. Execute and evaluate. Once you are ready for marketplace execution, you need to develop a platform of internal communications with a target launch date for the new employment brand. Give employees multiple touch points with the new employment brand by leveraging technology and appropriate internal communication channels. Unveil the new theme, visuals and supporting strategy to engage new talent. This will create the necessary awareness and support among key employee stakeholders, who can leverage the new employment brand strategy to further perpetuate the right image around your organization as an employer of choice. Engaged employees, who are resolved to share in the challenge of attracting more like-minded talent to an organization where they believe one can exceed one’s own potential, are the pinnacle achievement of any employment brand.

Keep in mind that employment branding is an ongoing process. Evaluate your success regularly, and don’t be afraid to update, adjust and change direction as your needs dictate. Committing to the process and investing in the tools to deliver the employment brand messaging in a meaningful way will help define your unique employment value proposition in the minds of your target audience. The differentiation established through employment branding will improve your opportunity to engage the RIGHT talent in even the most competitive labor market.

The best part of a successful employment branding initiative is that your talent will increasingly prove to be your organization’s most distinct competitive business advantage!

Originally published via the Electronic Recruiting Exchange (www.erexchange.com).

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