Bring in talent!
Branding can bring in your dream employees. Discover the significance of internal brand communications and why a clear purpose is so important.
Your workforce is a key stakeholder of your company. Do your brand communications reflect that? Do you want to recruit—and retain—the best talent? Discover the significance of internal brand communications and why a clear purpose is so important.
Branding has evolved. Today’s smart companies make it a priority to understand their mission, values and vision, and present them as part of a cohesive brand identity. They create sophisticated strategies to communicate their purpose across diverse platforms and recruit brand ambassadors to spread the word.
But one traditional way of thinking persists. Brand communication is still predominantly directed toward clients. The primary focus is outside the company, not inside.
It’s time to evolve further. As companies increasingly realize how important—and how difficult—it is to hire and keep top talent, they are discovering the significance of internal brand communications.
Purpose matters. It’s not just a statement on a corporate website or a poster on the wall. It’s the magnet that attracts the right people to your company—the motivating factor that gets them through the door and makes them want to stay there.
We’re all human. Employees make decisions based on emotions and values, just like customers do. As psychologist Jonathan Haidt explains with his elephant and rider analogy, our feelings play a powerful role in determining our path.
As companies realize how difficult it is to hire and keep top talent, they are discovering the power of internal brand communications.
At Mucho, when we engage in strategic consultations to define and direct purpose in companies, we frequently find ourselves in contact with Human Resources departments who are already working on purpose-led projects.
The research backs up the importance of purpose in recruitment and staff retention. A 2021 Mckinsey publication that surveyed more than a thousand US employees found that “employees expect their jobs to bring a significant sense of purpose to their lives. Employers need to help meet this need, or be prepared to lose talent to companies that will”.
Of course, every individual has their own sense of purpose that employers can’t change. But when a company’s purpose reinforces or inspires the purpose of its employees, the magic happens. And communicating that purpose internally, creating that connection, really is something companies can control.
Lead by example
There’s a good chance that most of your employees are already on LinkedIn. It’s the world’s largest professional network, and also arguably its most powerful recruitment platform.
You can encourage your employees to amplify your brand’s purpose in several natural, authentic ways. But you have to lead from the front with this: it makes it easier for your employees if your company’s senior executives are creating and sharing interesting brand content. Lead by example, lead with purpose. This might be the first time someone is exposed to your brand or what it stands for.
Your employees expect their jobs to bring a significant sense of purpose to their lives. Brand is a way to give it to them.
But your employees can also highlight their own activities outside work that align with your brand’s purpose, as well as share relevant content from elsewhere. Providing social media training and perhaps offering professional headshots for their profiles can support your employees to make the best use of the platform—for them especially, and perhaps for you too.
And again, remember: your employees expect their jobs to bring a significant sense of purpose to their lives, and brand is a way to give it to them.
This is why internal brand communications is so important.
Illustrations @lenka.re
