Why is Employer Branding vital for SMEs?

Employer branding – why is it so important for SMEs?

Given that SMEs are not world renowned global brands, SMEs, in our experience, must work harder both to retain existing employees, as well as project their employer branding to a wide external audience to ensure they attract the top talent in the marketplace. 

Both facets of employer branding are equally important, internal employer branding essentially involves nurturing your existing team with the aim of increased staff retention, while external branding serves to attract new talent to your company.

As any business leader knows, securing the best candidates in your sector is essential to guarantee the future performance of your company, the wrong or desperate hires can spell disaster, or, at least result in wasted training & time for your entire management team. As specialist recruitment consultancy for over 12 years, we see good employer branding secure positive results for our clients time & time again.

But External Employer Branding is a wide-ranging topic covering every touchpoint with every potential candidate! That’s a lot of touchpoints I hear you cry!

Yes, indeed it is, but these days with the power of social media & the internet at your fingertips, it's much quicker, easier & less costly than it used to be to project your employer branding far and wide to an extensive audience in your specialist sectors.

Once you have defined your Employer Brand, you should use every appropriate channel available (website, social media, job boards, industry & internal events etc etc) with the aim of creating a picture of what its like to work in your business, what the benefits are, what sort of working culture you have and why potential candidates should consider applying to work in your company.

There are many positives in working for an SME, and these should be emphasised in your output. In general, SMEs are more agile and quicker to respond to new technology & working methods, they can be more flexible when implementing new policies & initiatives, while employees have the opportunity to gain a much wider experience & a better understanding of a business than they would working in a bigger corporate machine.

SMEs must capitalise on these advantages to enhance their employer branding and attract the best talent into their company. In an era of skills & people shortages, great employer branding & the communication of this isn’t simply a “nice to have”, it’s an essential. 

Has this got you thinking about your companies employer branding? Maybe it's time to review what you already have and put a new strategy in place? We've created a handy checklist for your to review your current employer branding and make a plan for taking it to the next level, download your copy below...