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HR & ManagementA CEO's role in shaping, living, and amplifying the employer brand
Celeste Sirin 3 days





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HR departments are often the first to experience budget cuts, with leaders finding it difficult to justify investing in their employer brands and recruitment marketing at a time when they are experiencing layoffs and job freezes.
Why should one’s employer brand marketing be any different to consumer brand marketing? Surely your people are the trusted force behind driving your business objectives, sales, profits and existence?
Think again before you consider pulling the plug on your employer branding and marketing budget, as I highlight the following:
Upon companies laying off employees, the people who are left behind do not come off lightly. In fact, they bear the repercussions of having possibly lost long-standing team members and/or leaders with whom they might’ve built solid working and personal relations.
This can obviously have an enormous impact on the moral, motivation, engagement and working relations between your workforce and the business. At the same time, restructures might lead to remaining employees bearing the brunt of increased workloads, additional imposed expectations, extra hours, and even the deviation and/or retraction of remote, hybrid and flexible arrangements.
A presenter at a recent networking function that I attended used a very fitting analogy. She relayed her story of having to lay off employees and managing the aftershock, which she confirmed felt like someone having come out of ICU and needing to get healthy again.
The chances of your outgoing and remaining employees questioning the levels of trust and your promises of not living up to your values, is also a reality. Without having control over your external communication channels, talent is free to post whatever they perceive, believe and experience. This can span across multiple channels from review sites eg. Glassdoor, Google, Indeed etc. or social media platforms ie. LinkedIn, Facebook, Tiktok, Instagram etc.
"Your employer brand is not what you say it is, it's what your employees say it is - and they're more likely to speak up in tough times. Invest in them, and they'll invest in you, no matter the economic climate." - Kirsten Davidson, chief communications officer at Glassdoor.