As an employer, the digital age has put a spotlight on your organization that anyone can contribute to. Your digital presence can dictate your reputation, for better or for worse. As more candidates use these channels to research places to work, how you’re narrating your employer story impacts your chances of getting quality people applying to open jobs. Not to mention, how you’re perceived affects your current employees and retention numbers. So, how can you tell your story in a meaningful and authentic way?
Giving your employees a voice is important now more than ever. People want to hear from other people rather than a bunch of marketing fluff. Having company-led marketing materials to showcase your culture, jobs, teams, and so on is helpful but employee spotlights can make a significant difference in converting a candidate from passively interested to an engaged applicant. These unique perspectives add a new dimension to your overall employer story.
There are plenty of ways to give your employees a voice. Here are some options for spotlighting your people:
Blogs
This is an easy to way to create shareable and insightful content. You can write a blog post by setting up a Q&A session with an employee and building a blog from that. Or, if an employee feels strongly about writing it themselves, you can help them define a topic and key points and have them write away. At Carbon Black, this is one of the top career site referral sources we see and one of the most clicked things in our paid social campaigns.
Videos
If you have a social bunch and/or are skilled at light video editing, you can use this as an opportunity to create employee-generated videos. Or, if you have a little bit in your budget, use a professional vendor to create videos that focus on specific individuals or teams. Most production companies will have the option to break down videos into shorter snippets, so if you’re doing interview-style in your videos, you could develop the videos into specific topics that can be used for advertising.
Podcasts
Some people may not feel crazy about reading or may prefer to listen to something on their commute. A podcast could be a great option to share your employee stories. Write up some questions and share with the people you’re interviewing so they’re properly prepared for a good podcast session. You can also transcribe this conversation into blog-format down the line.
Social Media
Don’t have time to invest in a blog or video? A simple social media post could be the way to go. All you need to do is snap a photo of an employee and get a statement from them. Or if you want to go a different route, you could consider doing social media takeovers. Companies like Dell have seen some great success with this.
Events
You don’t have to limit spotlights to digital. There are other ways to showcase your employees and give them a voice. For example, having an internal “Lunch & Learn,” sponsoring an external event where your employees can be speakers, and supporting them if they want to do low-key speaking engagements such as a Meetup. Not only are you giving your employee a chance to tell their story, but it also allows them to engage the audience, answer questions, and help shed more light on the conversation.
Collateral
Testimonials can be great to use on your printed collateral, especially if you’re going to events, career fairs, or do campus recruiting. Create a few brochures about your company and culture and include your employee testimonials. Some companies also leverage these testimonials on their career pages.
Intranet
Keeping your own employees engaged and connected is just as important as bringing in new hires. If your company has an Intranet or some other way to communicate company-wide, use this as a way to share employee spotlights, too. It could be an awesome way to recognize your employees and help them get to know each other better. At Carbon Black, we have many employees who are remote throughout the world. Sharing our employee spotlight blogs on our Intranet has been a wonderful way to connect one another and bond.
Now that you know what you can do to for employee spotlights, you have to consider where to start. To build a list of employees you can contact, reach out to your human resources department to discover tenured employees, employee success stories, and employees who have moved up in the organization. These could provide helpful insights from people who have done well in the company.
Additionally, talk to hiring managers or team members to discover unsung heroes or people who are involved in the nitty-gritty. These could provide impactful and unique stories that HR may not be privy to. Lastly, you can post something on the Intranet welcoming your employees to share their stories with you.
Employee spotlights are a fast and easy way for you to create authentic content to share with your networks. And one you can get started with today!
Ashley Perez is the Talent Brand Ambassador at Carbon Black. Follow her on Twitter: @ashlaurenperez
Image courtesy of Unsplash user Alexander Dummer