Employer brand

All organisations need to understand what their employees, stakeholders and customers think of them. Since the 1990s, marketing professionals have developed techniques to help attract customers, communicate with them effectively and maintain brand loyalty. Applying employer brand to people management, it’s the image of an employer that has been defined as “perceived by current and potential employees and, to a lesser degree, by the public” (Rampl & Kenning, 2014, p. 219). It’s how an organisation markets what it has to offer to potential and existing employees. 

A strong employer brand should connect an organisation’s values, people strategy and policies, and be linked to the company brand. A key part of an organisation’s culture and values are the ethical standards that the employer upholds through its people practices. 

A strong employer brand should connect an organisation’s values, people strategy and policies, and be linked to the company brand. A key part of an organisation’s culture and values are the ethical standards that the employer upholds through the practice of its employees. Employer brand is therefore influenced by corporate social responsibility and how the business impacts wider society.

Many people professionals have invested in building their employer brand to enhance credibility and as a talent management tool. Organisations now recognise the value of a branding approach to the whole employee lifecycle, including attracting and retaining employees and building an engaged workforce.  According to research by Hosseini et al (2022) a positive employer brand results in better performance against competitors by retaining talent and increasing levels of employee engagement.  

Employer brand becomes even more important when organisations are competing for talent and experiencing recruitment challenges. The CIPD’s 2024 resourcing and talent planning report found that 81% of respondents reported taking action to improve employer brand within their organisation in the last year. Increasing flexible working opportunities was one of the most common initiatives, followed by introducing more competitive pay and benefits.

Organisations’ employer brand is based on how they are perceived as a ‘place to work’, for example by potential candidates, current employees and those leaving the organisation. It’s what sets the organisation apart from their competitors. 

A strong employer brand helps businesses to compete for talent and drive employee loyalty through effective recruitment, engagement and retention practices. Equality, diversity and inclusion practices should be considered as part of the employer brand to ensure the business is attracting a diverse range of candidates. For more on inclusion and fair recruitment practices, see the CIPD’s guide for employers. 

To be effective, the brand should be evident throughout the employee lifecycle and across the organisation’s people management approach. For example, it should be evident during the following stages of an employee lifecycle: 

• induction, 
• performance management and reward processes, 
• flexible working opportunities, 
• in internal communications, 
• in effective management behaviours, 
• and when leaving the organisation. 

To deliver benefits, it’s important that the employer brand is not merely rhetoric restating the organisation’s values but also reflects the actual experience of employees. Staff surveys and  employee focus groups provide valuable insight on the experiences and attitudes of employees and overall ‘people performance’. These metrics can also help to demonstrate links to organisation performance. 
  
Organisations could choose to monitor their employee brand through quantitative data such as number of applications for roles, acceptance of offers, employee engagement scores, reduction in costs or more qualitative feedback.

An employer’s brand and reputation becomes even more important with the use of social media. Past or present employees can publicly share both positive and negative feedback about an organisation. Cyber attacks, hackers and fake news are another modern threat to organisations and their online content. Such incidents can have a big impact on reputation and employer brand. Organisations should plan for this, address negative feedback and breaches quickly and monitor where necessary. 

HR teams can work collaboratively with colleagues in marketing, public relations, internal communications and corporate responsibility, to share expertise and maximise benefits from developing a strong employer brand. 

CIPD insights suggest ways to activate your employer brand, including five tips to help you recruit and retain talent. Other important stages to consider include: 

• Understand how people view your employer brand. You could gain insight through:
  • workshops with senior management, 
  • internal and external focus groups, 
  • employee surveys, 
  • or auditing the candidate journey. 

• Build a clear picture of what the organisation stands for, offers and requires as an employer. What’s your ‘employee value proposition’?  
   
• Implement and communicate the brand. This could include:
  • introducing the brand at induction, applicant information, briefings for recruiters and the interview and assessment process,
  • launching the brand internally,
  • or applying the brand to the organisation’s website and social media communications.

• Check progress and maintain momentum. For example:
  • gaining internal and external feedback on perceptions of the new brand,
  • measuring changes in the recruitment and retention metrics, 
  • or sharing explicit actions that demonstrate the business is ‘living the brand’. 

   

CIPD research suggests that only 14% of respondents are taking steps to measure the impact of their employer brand. Highlighting that only a small minority are actively measuring and evaluating how their employer brand is influencing employee and organisational outcomes. To understand that impact of employer brand, it’s critical to have success measures in place that can be reviewed on a regular basis. 

Finally, developing an employer brand requires careful consideration of ethical practice.

Finally, developing an employer brand requires careful consideration of ethical practice. Find out more in our factsheet on ethical practice and the role of HR.

The ‘employee value proposition’ describes what an organisation stands for, requires and offers as an employer. The psychological contract between employers and employees addresses and sets the expectations, beliefs and obligations of the employment relationship. 

Rather than focussing on a single value proposition, organisations are beginning to take a more segmented approach. Employee segmentation is driven by the idea that employees, like customers, are not a homogenous group. It can be beneficial to personalise the employment relationship. This can mean emphasising different elements of the value proposition to different groups of employees or creating subsets of the overall value proposition. 

Our guide on creating employee resource groups and staff networks is one example of a focused approach to ensuring the representation and voice of different groups of employees is considered. 

International organisations need to decide whether to promote one single employer brand and value proposition or different ones for different areas. For example, global brand values will need local interpretation to cater for cultural diversity and differences within those markets. For a review on international employer brand, see Spoljaric & Ozretic Dosen, 2023.  

Large scale business transformation, such as mergers and acquisitions, have a particularly significant impact on the brand and psychological contract between the individual and their employer. After large-scale changes, it is good practice to review the employer brand and employee value proposition to re-establish the desired brand messaging.  

Books and reports

Adams, B. (2022) Make your employer brand stand out in the talent marketplace. Harvard Business Review (online). 8 February.

Burt, E. (2017) Menzies: ‘Your employees are your best ambassadors’. People Management (online). 28 June.

Farrand, L. (2018) What are candidates saying about you online? People Management (online). 23 August.

Jacobs, K. (2021) How to be an employer of choice. People Management (online). 9 December.

McCartney, C. & Noble, K. (2024). Activating your employer brand to recruit and retain in a challenging climate. CIPD (online).  

Mosley, R. (2014) Employer brand management: practical lessons from the world's leading employers. Chichester: Wiley.

Visit the CIPD and Kogan Page Bookshop to see all our priced publications currently in print.

Journal articles

Hosseini, S.A., Moghaddam, A., Damganian, H. et al. (2022). The Effect of Perceived Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainable Human Resources on Employee Engagement with the Moderating Role of the Employer Brand. Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal. Vol 34, pp101–12.

Samoliuk, N., Bilan, Y., Mishchuk, H. and Mishchuk, V. (2022). Employer brand: key values influencing the intention to join a company. Management & Marketing. Challenges for the Knowledge Society. Vol 17, No 1, pp61-72.

Špoljarić, A., & Ozretić Došen, Đ. (2023). Employer brand and international employer brand: literature review. Corporate Communications: An International Journal, 28(4), 671-682. 

CIPD members can use our online journals to find articles from over 300 journal titles relevant to HR.

Members and People Management subscribers can see articles on the People Management website.