How Does Employer Branding Help Attract And Retain Top Teaching Talent?
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Employer branding is essential to attract top talent. As a school, if you want to hire the best talent, it’s critical to consider how potential recruits perceive your school (your brand).
Employer branding is the marketing of your school and one of the first steps in attracting new talent. When you work on branding, you’ll be able to attract more qualified applicants, retain current employees and make it easy for them to recommend you as a potential employer. The difference between bringing in the best talent and letting talent slip through your net.
Additionally, you will also better differentiate yourself from other schools by cultivating a positive reputation, which will help with the following:
- Reducing recruitment costs
- Attracting high-quality applicants
- Increasing employee referrals
- Improving employee retention rate
- Increasing offer-acceptance rates
This means that there are more than just PR benefits to excellent employer branding – it will also save you money.
What’s your digital presence like?
A study found that 75% of job applicants view a business’ website and social media before applying for a position. For schools, 53% of primary and 57% of lower-secondary school teachers felt their workload was unmanageable. As a result, they are more likely to visit your website and social channels to understand your culture and values. Your digital presence directly impacts the success of your recruitment efforts and how potential recruits perceive your school.
Here are some quick wins when it comes to reviewing your website and social media that you can implement quickly:
- Explains what makes you a great employer
- Shows that you care about your existing employees
- Tells positive stories about your team and organisation
- Communicate your values, and the significance of the work you do
- Conveys an employer value proposition
Early top teaching and support talent will be looking at your digital platforms to see what type of school you are to work for. You should therefore communicate a strong sense of your organisational culture on these platforms – so job seekers want to become a part of your organisation’s ‘family.’
Your branding and communications are powerful tools for recruitment. However, many organisations require assistance developing their DEI plan and aligning it with employer branding efforts. These experts can help make your messaging appealing to the talent you want to recruit.
Have you put a face to your content?
Storytelling is an integral part of growing your employer’s brand. Therefore, your school’s content must demonstrate that your employees are central to everything you do.
Quick-fire tips to achieve this:
- Creating videos that show friendly face(s)
- Sharing case studies of employee success stories
- Posting social media content about employee achievements
The very best organisations invest in their people. For example, suppose you want to attract the right students. In that case, you need to create people-focused content which shows that your people are your priority.
So why can’t you put off employer branding any longer?
In a study conducted by Mental Health Foundation, it was found that 51% of teachers also revealed that the pressures of their job had led them to develop a mental health problem (such as depression or anxiety) or exacerbated an existing problem. 85% believe mental health training would help them look after their emotional well-being and that of their pupils. Such insight can help your school enrich your employer’s value proposition. Do you offer Mental Health Days? Or Friday early knockoff? When you develop the school employer brand, employer value proposition, and the messaging that goes with it; your school organisation will become attractive to the passive top talent. Resulting in your job applicants trying to make themselves stand out from the crowd so they are irresistible to you.
Your school organisation should be conscious and intentional when attracting and delighting our potential applicants. The communication of your employer brand needs to be clear that your workplace is vibrant and enjoyable, improving the appeal of your organisation and job opening(s) to top early talent.
When you invest in a solid employer branding approach, you’ll spend less time, cost and resources on fruitless recruitment efforts, more top-tier teaching talent will seek to work with you, and you’ll fill vacancies quicker as candidates find you through their own research. After all, if top-tier talent comes to you instead of the other way around, you don’t need to spend time finding them – they’ll come to you.
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Contact [email protected] to make an enquiry and learn more.
