Employer Brand Audit: Why It Is Needed and How to Conduct One

Every company has not only economic resources but human ones as well. First and foremost, a company – is its people, from management to rank-and-file employees. All the processes taking place both inside and outside an organisation start with people. These processes are closely linked to the company's employer brand and to branding as a whole.

What is an employer brand?

An employer brand is the same kind of mental construct as the brand as a whole, but while the latter exists in the minds of consumers, the former – exists primarily in the minds of employees and job seekers.

First, it is worth understanding what an employer brand consists of and what role it plays on the labour market. The employer brand includes elements of the core brand as well as its own unique ones, among them: the company's values as a whole, its mission, corporate identity, the brand's tone of voice, as well as its reputation, employee reviews and elements of corporate culture.

A strong employer brand – is the key to attracting top-class professionals to the company, whose values should resonate with the company's values for the work process to be as effective as possible. To develop a strong employer brand, the first step is to conduct an audit and analyse the current state of the existing corporate brand.

As a rule, the audit is conducted in two directions: external and internal. An external audit shows how the company looks on the labour market overall, while an internal one – shows the attitude and loyalty level of existing employees.

The methodology of an employer brand audit includes several levels. Conclusions about the current state can be drawn first of all from the company's objective indicators: staff turnover, the number of unsuccessful hires, salary levels relative to the market average, as well as the number of responses to vacancies and the average length of employees' service with the company. Objective data allow initial conclusions to be drawn about the brand's current position.

Another method of assessing the state of the employer brand – is an employee survey, which helps identify the company's existing problems and weaknesses. The main rule of the survey – is anonymity. Then employees will be honest in their answers and provide the most relevant responses. To assess employee loyalty – a few simple questions are enough; making them more complex and numerous may create certain contradictions and complicate perception, both of the questions on the employees' side and of their answers on the management's side. For example, the questionnaire should include questions about the problems employees may encounter: «what would you like to change in the company, would you recommend the company to your acquaintances as a place to work, what is holding back your professional self-fulfilment?» and so on.

For a deeper analysis of the state of the employer brand, in-depth interviews with employees should be used. This way you will obtain more detailed data pointing to problems or, conversely, successes of the corporate brand. As a rule, research involving in-depth interviews is carried out by external organisations, so that management receives the most accurate results and employees are more candid and objective.  

Another audit method – is studying information about the company from open sources. Employees often leave reviews about employers or share their experiences on themed forums or on social media. Studying such data can reveal deep-seated problems that are hard to learn about through personal communication with current employees.

The final stage of the audit – is evaluating its results. It is recommended to segment the results of the internal and external audits so that the data are as systematised and easy to use as possible. In this way, an employer brand audit creates a powerful foundation for building a strategy to strengthen the company's current position, which will make it possible to attract the best employees, maintain their level of satisfaction with the workplace and, ultimately – increase labour productivity and the company's profitability.