Skip to main content
Commsy creative stuff straight to your inbox

Blog

Wake up to employee branding

< Blog home

Wake up to employee branding

Internal communicators have been rolling their eyes for a while now, as our organisations slowly wake up to the idea that employees make great external brand advocates.

Who better to promote your brand than the people that live it, day in, day out?

But sometimes that’s where the problems begin. Employee experience doesn’t always tally up with the image organisations like to project. Therefore, many internal communicators are being tasked with creating an employee brand. So what exactly is an employee brand and how does it differ from employer brand?

Put simply, employer brand is how an organisation is perceived as an employer by potential employees. Employee brand is the experience of a person already employed in the organisation.

Until recently many people thought of brand as a colour palette and an image library. So there’s a lot of work to do around helping people understand what employee brand is, how they can help to influence it and then advocate it. But before you even get to that point, there are other considerations such as should we treat it separately to employer brand? Are we the right people to lead it? How do you identify what your brand even is? And how do you measure if people are engaging with it?

It’s easy to be daunted by such a huge topic, so we’ve put together some top tips to get you thinking…

Involve your employees

We know, we know, this is really obvious. But not everyone gets this opportunity, especially if they work for an organisation with an already established brand, which will see them focus on maintaining or increasing existing engagement and/or engaging new employees with the brand.

So if you’re rebranding or working for a company still in its infancy, you have a fantastic opportunity to shape the type of organisation your employees want to work for and shout about, as well as give people a sense of ownership of the brand. And, if you’re working for a more established brand, make sure people are still connecting to it, find out what would increase their level of engagement and give them the authority to start making positive changes.

Tell a story

Every brand should have a story. We all know that Apple started through a friendship and passion for technology and that it strives to be at the forefront of innovation that will change the way we live our lives. The latest Boots advert shows a company that does more than dispense drugs and sell beauty products – it actually listens and supports its customers – making a difference to their lives.

By making the link between what your employees do and the impact it can have, you stand a far better chance of creating an engaged workforce who are proud to shout about who they work for.

What’s your organisation’s story? Why does it exist? What’s it trying to achieve? Why should people care?

Put yourselves in the customer’s shoes

A great way to get employees to engage with your brand is to quite literally put them in the shoes of their customers. Let employees from non-client facing roles answer customer calls for a morning, or let a call handler spend time with the manufacturers, or sales, to understand what goes into making and selling a great end product for the consumer. Encourage employees to eat in your restaurants, visit your theme parks, try out your equipment – you get the idea.

Employees that can empathise with a customer, and see the impact of the work they, are far more likely to try to live out your brand values.

Translate the brand

Brand is rarely a one size fits all approach. Depending on what part of the business you’re in, it’s going to mean different things to different people. Answering the age-old question of ‘what does it mean to me?’, is essential if people are to understand how the brand affects their job on a practical day-to-day basis.

Take time to really understand different parts of the business and help them to find ways to relate to the brand. The example that gets used time and time again is the one when JFK was visiting the NASA Space Center. He stopped a janitor and asked him what he did. The man replied that he was helping to put a man on the moon.

If your company’s vision and values are inspiring enough, people will want to feel like they’re playing a part – so help them understand what that part is and how much it’s valued. 

Run workshops

Investing time in workshops for people to really get to grips with the brand, role play scenarios for what it might mean for them, and to have a chance to ask questions will ensure that employees are receiving consistent guidance and support. But just because you have a workforce of people engaged with a brand, doesn’t mean they’re necessarily comfortable about shouting about it. And that’s ok. For a lot of people, their part in employee brand will be living it and ensuring that what you tell the outside world is a true reflection internally.

But for those who are active on social media, you have a fantastic opportunity to help them promote your business. Arrange social media training sessions, where you remind people of the social media policy, how to use social media to the best effect and how you will work with them to share messages.

If your brain is now buzzing with ideas, and you want to learn more about employee brand, keep an eye out for future blogs where we’ll take a closer look at some of the key elements you might want to consider when creating an employee brand.

By Helen Deverell for Alive!

“The guys at Alive understand the complexities of our business which means we don’t need to explain the detail of every project or design piece – they’re already on it, which keeps things moving and delivers the results we need.”

Emily Stoten — Head of Marketing, Selecta

“I feel like they own and care for the project as much as we do! I would not use anyone else for my creative work and think Alive is ahead of the game.”

Jo Hobbs — Communications Manager

“Thanks for all your help. We are delighted with the campaign, both in terms of the creativity and messaging but also the thought taken over the rollout of the materials. All looks absolutely fabulous!”

Sarah Crowdy — Campaign and Media Officer Communications, South East Water

“We went to ‘Alive’ for ideas on how to run a specific employee program in Europe. Alan and his team were brilliant in coming up with fresh, creative and practical approaches. The team took charge and executed brilliantly. We are pleased with the progress made so far and hope to have the same level of partnership and commitment going forward.”

Sobha Varghese — Tata Consultancy Services

“‘The short animation developed in co-production with clinicians and young people is outstanding! Informative, developmentally appropriate, vitally fun and engaging. We are really grateful for the expertise of the Alive with Ideas team for their innovative approach in building children’s health literacy.'”

Kath Evans — Director of Children’s Nursing at Barts Health

“Our mission was to update the DASA brand visuals to better reflect our innovative and forward-thinking organisation. After receiving numerous pitches from different branding agencies, Alive stood out with their clear passion and understanding of our identity and goals. We thoroughly enjoyed working with the Alive Team who provided expert guidance and injected some much needed creativity into the project; resulting in an accessible and engaging new brand that we are immensely proud of.

Thank you again for all the work you have done with us!”

Lianne Springer — Communications and Engagement Lead - Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA)

“Alive wowed us during the pitch process and they didn’t stop wowing us throughout the whole project. Every person we worked with at Alive were so friendly, knowledgeable and clearly passionate about what they do. They have worked with us to really understand what we do and have created a new brand and website that really stands out from our competitors. Thank you!”

Louise Burnard, Head of Marketing and Communications UK — Be | Shaping the Future

“I think the team have done such a brilliant job, particularly with responding to our requests. It's one of the best mental health videos I've ever seen. Very proud to be associated with your exemplary work. Thank you so much.”

Dr Anna Batho — Clinical Psychologist – Critical Care, UCLH

“We have worked with Alan, Caroline and the wider Alive With Ideas team for many years. In that time, they have provided a dedicated service that is second to none. We appreciate their attention to detail and creative approach to bringing our brand, communications and stories to life. And would recommend them to anyone looking for creative communications support.”

Georgia Beech — Internal Communications Specialist, Ocado Group

“This is brilliant. I wanted to give my heartfelt thanks to all of the team who worked on this. You all understood exactly what we wanted to communicate and why, and then managed to do it in a way that was far better than anything I could have imagined. I’m a bit choked up to be honest!”

Sarah Wright, Head of Communications and Campaigns — NEA

“Each time I work with the team, I am always stunned at the effort and creativity that goes into each detail and am always eager for the end result. The team is extremely accommodating and always provide a fresh approach to our projects that elevates our communications materials!”

Alana Khaytin, Communications Specialist — Braskem America

“What I really appreciate about Alive is that they work with us as partners, and care as much about getting it right for our patients as we do.”

Sara Langston, Patient Engagement & Marketing Manager — italk

“Alive are unique in how much they deeply listen and invest in you and your ideas. I have not come across a company that listens as much as they do to ensure your needs are understood and met (actually - they always exceed my needs and expectations). Everyone I recommend Alive to has an equally brilliant experience. When you work with Alive, you are not only getting some genius creativity brought into your life, you are also hanging out with some of the best examples of human beings I’ve ever known.”

Steph Tranter, Hybrid Exec Coach & Psychologist — StephTranter.com

“Alive helped us create a video of our response to the floods of winter 2019. Our Chief Officer received messages from all round the country praising us for it and was really pleased with both the video and the response to it.”

Alexander Mills, Communications Manager — South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue

“Alive were professional, friendly and great to work with. Most importantly they were creative, helping us to bring an extremely important safety campaign to life.”

Jack Grasby — South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue

“The (Alive) team were able to creatively pull together and document (in just over 2minutes) everything our service has achieved over the last few months, from thousands of prescriptions deliveries to hundreds of phone calls made to the vulnerable. The final product was so powerful and reflective of what our service has and continues to achieve. It couldn’t have been better received within the service – thanks Alive for once again helping us to communicate our vision!’”

Emma Wright — South Yorkshire & Rescue

“We worked with the team at Alive to create our staff recognition video.
At a time like this, its never been more important to share the amazing work that our staff have done and continue to do on a daily basis under very difficult circumstances. We wanted to shout about this and recognise that when the time came, South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue stepped up to the plate. We didn’t want an ordinary thank you post on social media or a basic email sent out internally, we wanted something special. Enter Alive. ”

Emma Wright — South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue

“This looks amazing - brought a smile to my face scrolling through it :-)”

Jack Ford, Head of Marketing — streamGO

“Our company is fun, we have great brands, but most importantly we’re all about our people – and I wanted an agency who would understand that and help us bring it to life through our website and other comms. Straight away I felt that Alive ‘got’ us and provided the creative inspiration exactly where we needed it, as well as the technical expertise to deliver a well-functioning website.”

Keren McCarron, Head of Corporate Affairs & Communications — KP Snacks

“Boom!
Thank you so much. Incredible work done at incredible speed by incredible people.
Outstanding work as ever and what a turnaround. As for the concepts – wow. These are that good it would be an insult to describe them as just good. It’s a joke, quite frankly. This is exactly the Alive effect I was after. Right now I feel like I am living in an Alive With Ideas wonderland. Thank you!”

Jack Grasby, Campaigns Manager — SYFR

“If you are looking to improve creativity and build teamwork, I highly recommend a session like this for your team. No matter where you are in your creativity journey, a workshop like this can give your team a boost of energy and ideas to invigorate their creative thinking.”

Amy Lilja, IC Manager — Hennepin Healthcare

“Alive were there to help when we were working every hour to respond to the coronavirus outbreak. They gave us the creativity, ideas and support we needed to deliver campaigns which empowered our residents in the most difficult time most of us have ever seen, personally and professionally. The team understood what we needed, worked closely with us and delivered fast without any compromise on quality. Working with Alive has been a joy in the darkest of times and I have no doubt will have helped to save lives. Thanks team x”

Julie Odams, Assistant Director of Communications & Customers — Derbyshire County Council

“We got 'Alive' involved to help us shift mindsets across our organisation and they delivered! Using simple, clear and creative ideas the team have delivered us a campaign which has seen a dramatic increase in idea sharing and development. They’ve also played a significant role in creating a culture of shared success. I wouldn’t hesitate to work with again, in fact, we already are!”

Gavin Buckle — B&Q
Alive logo