How Vision-Led Employer Branding helps attract and retain the best talent
When I left university, I did what was known as ‘the milk round’ - taking part in super-competitive assessment days to get onto one of the graduate schemes offered by the leading employers of the time.
I got a job with one of the big FMCG companies who promised rapid career progression and a generous starting salary. Yet I stayed only 2 years.
Why? Because they didn’t have a vision, at least not one that I could see and get excited by.
The main company strategy was something called “Generating Shareholder Value”. It was so important that all the ‘top talent’ were sent on a one day course about it. When you cut through all the corporate fluff, it basically meant that we all had to focus on making the maximum amount of profit for the company’s investors.
Why they thought that this would engage and motivate us is beyond me. What was missing was an aspirational vision - something that was exciting, that inspired emotion and which felt like a cause that we could all affect and get behind. There was also nothing in it for us employees - it was all about the company’s shareholders.
Like me, most of my graduate colleagues ended up getting jobs elsewhere.
This might seem now like an obvious faux pas, but many employers are still making the same mistakes. Research by Gallup found that only four in 10 employees know what their company stands for and what makes its brand different from its competitors.
Combine those stats with research from McKinsey which found that purpose-aligned companies see nearly a fourfold increase in employee engagement scores and a twofold increase in employee retention, then there is a huge employer branding opportunity here.
At The Visioneers, we specialise in Vision-Led Employer Branding. It’s an approach that helps employers to attract and retain better talent, not by shouting louder, but by meaning more.
Using our proprietary 3-phase ‘Visioneering’ process, we work together to answer a number of key questions:
Who are we?
What difference are we trying to make?
Where are we going?
What will the future look like when we get there?
Why does it matter?
Why should anyone care?
What’s in it for our employees?
We then shape what we’ve found into what we call an Employer Visionary Proposition. This is far more powerful and engaging than a typical Employer Value Proposition as it integrates our 6, powerful Vision-Led principles:
Vision, Distinctiveness, Emotion, Authenticity, Cause and Alignment.
Our strategy and creative teams then work together to bring the EVP to life, incorporating authentic, emotive stories from within your organisation. Using the most appropriate media, including film, we turn your Employer Visionary Proposition into something that talent can see, feel and truly believe in.
To discuss how our Vision-Led Employer Branding could help your organisation to attract and retain better talent, you can book a no-obligation call here. No pressure, no hard sell - just tell us about your challenges and we’ll bounce around some ideas with you.
