Employer Branding in the Post-Pandemic World of Work
The Law of the Jungle
With the advent of the digital revolution and the Information Age, workplaces and Employer Branding have already begun undergoing dramatic changes, and the post-COVID era is forecasting further adjustments to content, technology, and employee advocacy. The Corona in 2020 emphasized the need to invest continuously and critically in employee experience as well as engagement, fostering connections with internal and external talents, overcoming the obstacles of social distancing, health issues, and lockdowns. Due to the huge reset, we faced new challenges but moreover, we embraced opportunities in 2021, which we keep confronting, in 2022, as the pandemic has yet to come to an end.
As we recover from the pandemic, we will see a shift from an emphasis on efficiency and growth to one on business model resilience. Having witnessed how volatile the world is, we now fully realize the wide variety of possible discontinuities out there. Businesses will now have to find the right balance between certainty and stability to agility and flexibility.
Keeping it Together
efforts during the post-pandemic period will also be shaped by what we yearned for during the pandemic, which is establishing human connections and securing the sense of belonging. Isolation became much more than just a necessity for health and safety due to remote work, social distancing, and quarantines. Based on a study done by McKinsey about post pandemic remote work, nearly a third of employees prefer to work remotely full-time, while the majority prefer to work from home at least three days per week, regardless of location. Thus, hybrid models have become increasingly common.
So, in this age, time & situation, how do we keep our people connected – enhancing not just teamwork and collaboration but also social ties, engagement, and a sense of belonging?
Below are 3 strategies to assist:
- Employee experience platforms – with HR tech booming, the pandemic accelerated the development and improvement of digital platforms supporting employee experience encouraging employees to interact with your company, its resources, their coworkers, and management. These can be utilized through anything as simple as shared documents enabling teams to collaborate asynchronously, fun features on video meeting apps, chat streams dedicated to social engagement beyond work discussions, peer-to-peer recognition apps, collaborative learning tools and more.
- Internal Communications strategy – Integrating your EVP and employer brand into all internal communications – company newsletters, announcements, all-hands meetings, events, and more, helps create clarity and a sense of belonging. Hybrid work encompasses many constellations for your employees and helps them understand how they fit into the puzzle and how their contribution contributes to the bigger picture. Hybrid work makes the role of internal communication more important than ever to give employees clarity and allow your teams to feel heard and valued. This strategy ensures that all employees are supported and are able to achieve their goals. Our communications with “all” employees are rarely accurate; instead, there is a need to focus on specific groups, get really intentional with the various channels and truly understand the situations which the employees are working under and relate to that.
- Employee Communities (Employee Resource Groups) – innovating new ideas, optimizing business processes, driving social initiatives and community relations, can all be led by employees who come together around shared passions and interests. As a group they are promoting company agendas, while as individuals connecting to their peers and strengthening their sense of belonging to the organization. In addition to giving your team ideas for freshening up your employer branding stories, these will also help you accelerate your employer branding efforts in the coming years.
Talk to Me (or Talk Sense)
These 3 strategies increase communication and foster a sense of belonging, which enhances the organization’s resilience. Engagement increases performance, reduces burnout, and leads employees to stick around longer. Nearly 5 times more employees report an increase in productivity when they feel included in detailed communication. Even communication about post-COVID-19 working arrangements, or remote-related policies and approaches, can increase employee well-being and productivity. Organizations should not just communicate what has already been determined, but also what is not yet known – both to communicate what has already been decided and to communicate what is still uncertain. Just keep the communication going.
After COVID, the world of work will continue to undergo change. Understanding the new normal at all times is essential to remaining relevant. Organizations that can master the new work equation – flexibility, agility, and resilience, while promoting communication and a strong sense of belonging will prevail.
