By Celeste S
Crafting an employer brand early can be a game-changer for startups, blending innovation with limited resources to attract top talent.
Building an employer brand at an early stage for startups and high-growth organisations can be viewed as a double-edged sword. On the one hand, you have a clean fresh canvas from which you can start, but on the other, you’ve got limited resources, budget and a hard sell to sceptical stakeholders who prioritise product/service marketing over employer branding.
Ongoing discussions and webinars with leaders in the employer branding and talent management space, from startups and high-growth organisations to conservative legacy brands, prompted me to highlight some key useful differentiators:
1. The right employer brand champion in the driving seat!
What stands out for me are the people spearheading their employer brand in early-stage companies. They have a deep understanding of why it’s a business imperative, have done the long yards in collecting the research, real case examples, collected the right data points, stats, evidence, and done their homework well, having their clear end in mind before presenting their business case to stakeholders. This includes analysing spend on external agency usage, understanding churn rates, evaluating channel ad spend versus ROI, and comparing quality versus quantity of hires. More importantly, they have gained their decision-makers’ trust in delivering on their employer brand promise.
A great example of this is iKhokha, whose chief talent officer, Steph Snyman is implementing amazing initiatives and innovative strategies that are testament to the power of having the right person in the driving seat of a growing fintech employer brand.
2. With little budget and minimal resources, creativity and innovation prevail
Startups and high-growth organisations have an advantage, as they can learn from their established employer brand counterparts. Not wanting to follow and having to do a lot with less, they must be smarter and more creative in how they build their talent management strategy by leveraging their unrecognisable brands.
They lead by always keeping a close eye on performance metrics, constantly reiterating, revisiting and never stop asking employees and candidates about their experiences, input, EVP differentiators and areas for improvement.
Additionally, they excel at validating and rechannelling spend to areas that yield better performance, ensuring that every investment is optimised for maximum impact.
3. Find an experienced mentor and guide – it can be pretty lonely out there
Often, one can feel pretty isolated when tasked with building a talent brand to retain and find the right people. Alternatively, you may come to the realisation that a solid recruitment brand is required as you struggle to acquire high-demand talent and retain employees who are jumping ship for better EVP prospects elsewhere.
It helps to reach out to an experienced consultancy that specialises in talent management branding or employer brand marketing, who can build a roadmap to attain the objectives aligned with your business goals.
4. Building your employer brand and product/service brand concurrently equates to unified success
With your people being the backbone of your company’s success, it makes sense to build your employer brand alongside your product or service offering. It is critical to ensure that as the employer brand champion, you have included and have the support of your marketing and communications department, as you will need their assistance and commitment in building, marketing, activating, and socialising your employer brand.
Justifying additional budget, resources, and capacity should be seen not as an extra request but as a necessary investment, similar to what is required for product/service marketing. The likelihood of getting support at the early stage of establishing your employer brand might be slim until you have proven its value and impact.
5. Genuine adoption and collective teamwork along the journey
A big bonus in scaling a startup or high-growth organisation is that you can build the culture, behaviours, and personality/DNA of your organisation along the way. Finding the right people with the right values, purpose, and key drivers cultivates a unified workforce that bodes well for teamwork.
The key to unlocking this is to ensure that your employer brand narrative and EVP drivers are accurately and authentically communicated from the get-go, and seamlessly delivered throughout the entire candidate and employee experience.
Organisations tend to shy away from being vulnerable or blatantly honest about what their workplace can or cannot deliver, which results in the wrong people joining and then not staying. These are the moments that matter. Through collective teamwork and employee and leadership advocacy, delivering on what is promised brings your employer brand to life. Your following will grow and soon you will not feel alone!
6. An employer brand and EVP cannot be cast in stone
Because of the agility and pace at which startups and scaling organisations operate, they are smart in ensuring that they keep their ear to the ground, listening and constantly asking for constructive feedback on the relevance of their EVP and experience (candidate or employees). They can least afford to allow complacency to creep in, especially when people are constantly faced with unknown macroeconomic challenges.
This is their enjoyed advantage against their larger corporate counterparts, where red tape, bureaucracy, and archaic mindsets can set in.
Startups and high-growth organisations have a unique opportunity to build their employer brands from the ground up. By prioritising creativity, leveraging data, seeking mentorship, and working in tandem with product/service branding efforts, they can create a strong and dynamic employer brand. The journey requires continuous feedback, authenticity, transparency and a willingness to adapt.
As Reid Hoffman said, “Starting a company is like throwing yourself off the cliff and assembling an aeroplane on the way down.” Likened to building or scaling a product or service, talent management is no different; they should work concurrently. Embracing these principles ensures long-term success and sets organisations apart in the competitive talent market.
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Illustrator: Lisa Williams (Instagram: @artist_llw)