By Social Seeder Editorial Team | March 8, 2021
Why do employer branding statistics matter? Nowadays, a strong employer brand has become a must-have for companies. Whether it is your goal to raise brand awareness or to attract new employees, having a strong online presence is a basic requirement for your employer branding strategy.
We’ve compiled the most important employer branding statistics of 2021 to help companies to create a ROI positive and long-term impact on your organization.
What is employer branding?
Many organizations defined employer branding and are solely focusing on the recruitment process. Although they aren’t wrong, we believe that employer branding is more than just recruiting new employees.
We define employer branding as the way your organization stands out of the crowd as an employer. It is basically the way your organization is perceived by and marketed towards (future) employees.
Your employees are your brand’s ambassadors, and the way you position yourself towards them is as equally important as attracting new employees.
By including your employees in your employer branding, you’ll find that your organization will create more business opportunities.
Employer branding through social media
Before we jump into employer branding statistics, we must stress the importance of social media on our society. 3.96 billion people currently use social media worldwide, up almost double from 2.07 billion in 2015.
With that many people online, companies feel the need to shift their focus from an offline-first to an online-first company. This has changed the way how companies communicate with their audience.
Research has shown that people who have had a positive experience with a brand on social media, are more likely to refer their friends and family to that brand. In other words, the happier the interactions with your brand, the more likely you are to create more business opportunities.
Social media enables a two-way communication between companies and their audience. Because of that, social media platforms create a big opportunity for organizations to create meaningful relationships with their (future) employees.
An example of employer branding could be that you engage your employees to get creative with certain social media posts. By experimenting with different tactics, you’ll find the ones that work and the ones that don’t work. If you want to get inspired, take a look at our client's use cases.
Save money and time
By investing resources into building a strong employer brand, companies saw a drop in their recruitment costs. A study from LinkedIn shows that companies with high numbers of employees sharing quality content are 58% more likely to attract talent.
Having an attractive brand certainly helps to recruit the right candidates at a lower cost. 75% of candidates have said that they check out the company’s online presence before applying to the offer. And it shouldn’t surprise you.
Using your employee referral system to recruit new talent is extremely ROI positive. In fact, it speeds up the recruitment process and it increases the number of qualified applicants.
It’s safe to say that there is a huge impact of your employer brand when it comes to talent recruitment.
You don’t pick talent, talent picks you
In a Harvard Business Review article it was stated that a bad reputation costs a company at least 10% more per hire. In addition, up to 69% of job seekers reported they would reject a job offered by a company with bad reputation, even when unemployed.
This introduces a shift in mindset where recruitment is driven by candidates, and not by recruiters.
To get the best results, you should approach new candidates the way you approach customers. Make them feel comfortable with your brand, listen to what they have to say and what they bring to the table.
No one likes to have a one-sided conversation, and when it comes to employer branding it shouldn’t be an exception.
Tap into the network of your employees
Future employees want to know how life at your office is. That’s why a lot of companies are doubling down on company culture nowadays.
Apart from having a strong online presence, your employees can act as advocates or ambassadors of your brand.
Research has shown that employee referrals have the highest return on investment (ROI), even though only a minority of companies apply this technique.
Asking your employees to look for potential candidates holds a few benefits for your organization. Employees who were hired through employee referral:
… stay longer at the company
… start their job sooner than their counterparts
… go through a shorter recruitment process
Obviously, it’s important to coordinate your employer branding strategy with all employees.
Happy employees are more productive
Your employees are the backbone of your company. Even more so, they are your company’s most important asset.
A recent study found out that employee satisfaction correlates positively with higher productivity and, less strongly, with profitability. This means that having happy employees results in more productive employees who, to a certain degree, make your business more profitable.
The study, based on data from more than 1.9m employees in 73 different countries, also found that happy workers are less absent that unhappy workers.
In addition, a study from Boston Consulting Group found out what people want the most from their job: appreciation for their work. Even though this should be a given for employers, almost 79% of people who quit their jobs say it’s due to lack of appreciation.
Taking care of your employees should be a top priority for your employer branding efforts. Focusing on the well-being of your current employees will not only make your company more profitable. It will also attract the right future employees to your organization.
Prepare for unexpected candidates
A study conducted by Potentialpark showed that 54% of their respondents admitted to seeing career related content or job ads on LinkedIn. Of those respondents, 85% actually clicked on that content. Interestingly enough, the same study indicates that 35% have also seen career-related content on Instagram, with 66% clicking on it.
This indicates that even though people are not always actively looking at a new job opportunity, they are very likely to engage with it.
In other words: you’re always hiring, even when you’re not hiring.
When you’re using your online presence to get more applications on a job posting, make sure your employer brand is managed properly.
You really have to take engage with your audience on social media. You can share a story of your company or its employees on social media or give information about your company expertise.
Authenticity is key
We've shared some employer branding statistics to help you get started on your employer branding strategy.
However, if there's one takeaway you need to remember from this blogpost is that you need to be authentic. If your company is customer-centric, creative and inspiring, then make sure that same message reaches your audience online.
On LinkedIn’s Talent Blog, we found that when companies speak on current events, candidates engage more. Company posts about COVID-19 in April 2020 had an engagement uplift of 84%, compared to average engagement for company posts.
There is no reason why you should invest in employer branding when it doesn’t match your company culture. This is why a bottom-up approach should be chosen instead of a top-down approach.
Your employees should be the drivers of your employer branding strategy. Once you’ve defined the right strategy that matches your company culture, you can get creative and create the right content that’s relevant to your (future) employees.
Note: this is an updated version of the article “Employer Branding Statistics You Need to Know”, initially published on 21st November 2019.