HR Marketing Employer Branding: What are HR Brand, Employer Brand and HR Marketing? How to Build an Employer Brand?

In modern business, many terms are easily confused—like HR brand, employer branding, and HR marketing. Yet, the differences are significant, and employer branding important for attracting and retaining talent while creating a competitive advantage. Let's examine these concepts closely and explore how HR marketing supports employer branding marketing and a strong employer branding strategy.

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What are HR branding, employer branding, and the employer brand? Why are they needed?

HR branding, or HR brand concept, includes two spheres: staff branding and employer branding.

Staff branding is ensured by measures such as training and execution control, plus a dress code. Its main goal is the company's personnel recognition and association with the company's label so that the presented atmosphere of the product's production contributes to its consumption.

A company's branding as an employer consists of a series of activities to form the company's image in the labor market and the minds of its current and potential employees, potential employees and consumers.

Thus, to combine and summarize the above, the essence of HR branding, or employer branding, is to build an employer value proposition and employee value proposition as the basis of a compelling employer brand strategy, using consistent messaging to create a cohesive employer brand that highlights the company's reputation as an employer and makes it more attractive to job seekers and its employees. In other words, it is the enterprise's image as the best workplace.

The strong employer brand is reflected in the behavior of the company's leaders and affects the company's policy, corporate ethics, and culture, while aligning the message with the actual employee experience to create an authentic employer brand.

We could equate an excellent company image to great advertising. And advertising is, as we know, the engine of sales. So, the more marketable the company is, the more qualified candidates want to get a job there or do business with the company. Moreover, companies with successful brands usually do not boast the highest salaries, but employee retention is higher. Besides, employee engagement among the current employees is very high.

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How to build the employer brand and employer value proposition?

When creating the employer brand, it is appropriate to focus equally on external and internal factors, because successful employer branding focuses on both talent attraction and employee experience.

Forming the external component, tied closely to talent acquisition and recruitment marketing, I would make the following accents:

• Salary;
• Bonuses;
• Social package;
• Medical insurance;
• Hiring without or with minimal work experience with further training;
• Prospects for horizontal and vertical professional development and career development;
• Business trips;
• Payment for training, including courses, webinars, etc.;
• Company events;
• Corporate culture, including work-life balance;
• Low rotation and perception on employer review sites.

Forming the internal component, these are internal employer branding priorities managed by HR teams and supported by internal communications, I would make the following accents:

• A well-organized feedback process built on employee feedback to improve employee satisfaction;
• Effective employee motivation system, material and non-material;
• Effective personnel assessment system for successful employee reshuffle and promotion, including diversity initiatives;
• Competitive salaries and market monitoring for this purpose;
• Effective personnel training system;
• Personnel awareness about what is happening in the company, supported by employee engagement initiatives and employee resource groups, to create a sense of involvement in processes;
• Corporate culture;
• Workplace culture.

So, employer branding efforts consist of a series of well-planned, consistent, coordinated branding efforts outside and inside the enterprise that help attract and retain talent. First of all – inside the enterprise. And this, again, is work for the reputation. As everyone knows, the earth is full of rumors, and it is better that they are excellent.

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What is HR marketing and recruitment marketing?

HR marketing borrows the basic marketing principles and adapts marketing methods to the personnel management system as part of a broader marketing strategy focused on talent attraction and employee retention. It allows the company to study the labor market better and establish high-quality work with the staff while supporting the recruitment process and hiring process, not just general personnel management. And, in turn, using marketing approaches in working with personnel to develop, promote and optimize the enterprise.

HR marketing improves the quality of the employer branding strategy, making the company's work processes related to HR resources more effective and productive, with the marketing team reinforcing employer brand messaging and brand consistency across channels. It also supports job descriptions, social media, and social media posts used in recruitment marketing.

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Instead of summarizing: the differences and common goals of employer brand and HR marketing

As we have seen above, the employer brand is a broader and more universal concept than the other two, and a well-defined employer brand plus a consistent employer brand make this work more credible and effective. And it is impossible to equate HR marketing and HR branding with employer brand since they are themselves part of the employer brand working for the benefit of the employer brand and belonging to the sphere of human resources.

However, HR marketing, HR brand and employer brand share common tasks related to the labor market. A successful employer branding strategy relies on strategic employer branding initiatives and a compelling employer value proposition; these can include employee advocacy, employee advocacy programs, employee advocacy tools, employee stories, employee testimonials, and employee-generated content shared on social media platforms to support a credible employer brand and effective employer brand:

• Attracting talents among prospective employees and future employees while bringing in more qualified applicants.
• Retaining employees to retain talent through a stronger employee experience.