Effective employer branding builds on a clear, defined Employee Value Proposition.  Clarifying your company’s true EVP can be a time consuming process involving multiple inputs including surveys and focus groups from internal and external stakeholders.  You need to get that foundation right.

That doesn’t mean you have to feel trapped in a holding pattern; waiting for more time, more money, or more expert resources.  Here are a few things that any organization can commit to doing with relatively little time and little money.

1.  Manage your reputation

Sign up for a free account with Glassdoor.com to see what employees are saying about your company.  Take the time to work with the executive team on creating a policy around managing feedback.  Decide on a clear response process for acknowledging reviews.  Whatever approach you decide to take, be consistent and respond to both negative and positive commentary.

2.  Provide content on a weekly basis to your corporate social media sites

Leverage information that you may already be sharing with your employees or with the public in one forum, by sharing that through your social media feeds.  You can coordinate your social media to post content to different sites to increase your views.  Consider that every job posting for an open position is a chance to interact with your market.  Whenever it’s appropriate, share internal success stories or cross-post interesting articles.  This will help you develop a following of people who appreciate what your company is doing and already buy into who you are.

3.  Measure

Many organizations already have dashboards in place to monitor HR and recruitment metrics like time to fill open roles, referral rates, turnover statistics, productivity, and success of new hires.   All of these KPI’s can be positively impacted by a strong employer brand.  Prior to beginning your employer branding journey, take the time to benchmark these measurements so you will be able to track the progress of your branding project.

4.  Know how your employees feel – pulse check

Take some time to check in with your employees and find out what is working well for them and what might not be working as well.  Conduct exit interviews with employees who have resigned to gather feedback on what they valued about working with your company and what may be motivating them to look elsewhere.  Take some time to check in with current employees to ask some of the same questions in a “Stay interview”.  You can use this information to look for trends to identify both the positive cultural aspects of the organization and insight into what the “problem areas” might be.  Begin building on your strengths and developing plans to address the most common concerns.