How to Engage Your CEO in Your Company’s Employer Branding Efforts
In today’s ever-connected world, companies have virtually no secrets. Anybody with a Facebook or Instagram page can tell friends and potential colleagues about their place of employ.
This is one of the reasons why employer branding (EB) campaigns are gaining more momentum in almost any industry. But who should champion employer-branding efforts? Obviously, HR and marketing lead the process.
But how about the company’s CEO? Can a successful EB strategy be developed without the support of the CEO?
The answer is a resounding NO!
As the head (and face) of the company, the CEO is the number one ambassador of its principles and values.
However, the CEO is busy running the company and making money for the shareholders.
So how can they become champions of the organization and embrace EB efforts?
1. Make your CEO aware that employer branding attracts good talent.
Companies today are much more transparent. Potential candidates will read social media to know whether a company is good or not based on what its employees say about it.
This means that employees themselves have to become ambassadors and champions, and that can only happen if the person at the helm is an advocate.
Once others see the CEO embracing the principles of EB, employees will follow suit more readily.
2. Explain to your CEO that being involved in the EB process is a top-down process as much as it is a bottom-up process.
If management is not committed, HR and marketing cannot be committed either.
The CEO and top management are already involved in defining the company’s vision, mission statement, values, and principles.
All that remains is to be involved in the process that brings those messages to lower-level management so that it can filter to all employees.
Once employees begin carrying the message, the bottom-up process begins, and then the EB strategy is truly successful.
3. Just like the CEO looks at the bottom line in terms of customers, services, and products, so they should see the bottom line in terms of employee engagement.
A company that focuses on the welfare and well-being of its employees is a company that is a great place to work. Employer branding is not just a program for attracting new employees but also, and more importantly, for retaining current talent. Happy employees equal higher profits.
Potential customers will also check reviews of your company, its products, and services, including reviews by its employees, to assess whether it’s a business worth buying from.
4. Remind your CEO that when candidates check a workplace, they also check the CEO.
Just as social media, sites like Glassdoor have become additional job-searching tools. If the CEO is not involved in the company’s employee engagement efforts, potential candidates will know in no time, which in turn reduces the success rate of the employer brand the company is trying so hard to build and implement.
If the CEO is pictured as someone very different from the values and DNA the company is trying to create, EB will not be authentic and therefore empty of substance and perhaps even useless.
