Employee Branding Strategies with Examples to Build a Stronger Workforce and Employer Reputation

With the revolution brought in by advanced technology, today's role in an organization is more prominent than ever. It’s not about ‘do your job and get paid,’ not anymore. The most important factor of a company- its reputation, is in its employees' hands, all thanks to the idea of employee branding.
Do you know that for 84% of job seekers, the decision to apply for a job depends on its reputation as an employer? Also, it’s not just the candidates; around 96% of companies believe employer branding can impact their revenue.
Isn’t it fascinating to see that even a single unsatisfied employee can influence the reputation, brand images, and, above all, an organization's consumer trust?
What is employee branding?
Employee branding can be defined as an employer's reputation among its workforce, or in other words, it is about how your employees value you as an employer. It can make companies more acceptable in the talent marketplace, thus hiring and retaining talented employees matching your company's culture and values.
What makes it different from employer branding?
Employer branding is all about your organization's image or reputation as an employer, highlighted to in-house employees and potential candidates outside. In short, it communicates how great it is to work at your company.
That means we can say that both employer and employee branding are mutually connected. How?
A great employer branding strategy can attract great candidates, leading to great employees and better and natural employee engagement.
Employee engagement is the act of having employees appreciate their work, becoming more productive and active employees. Employer branding is how a company sells itself to potential candidates, the way that same company might sell its products. You might think these are mutually exclusive ideas.
Other channels include employee referrals, print media, company reviewing websites, online communities, career sites, etc. You can use employees as brand ambassadors to execute your employee brand engagement ideas.
Why is employee branding crucial in 2025?
With the revolution brought by advanced technology, the role employees play in an organization is more prominent than ever. It’s no longer just about doing a job and getting paid. One of the most valuable assets a company holds today—its reputation—lies in the hands of its people. This is where the concept of employee branding steps in.
Building a positive employer brand can help your business in many ways. Let’s see some of the benefits of employee branding in detail:
1. Improved online visibility
An employee's voice is considered to be three times more credible than the CEO's. So, word-of-mouth marketing by your workforce's positive online presence can help get better online visibility for your company brand in the digital world.
This can help in increasing the organic traffic in your online channels. This can help in getting your brand assets out there as well as increasing the organic traffic in your online channels. You can use free tools to check your organic traffic.
2. Improved employee engagement and performance
It’s not always about getting potential candidates. A better employee branding means an excellent working environment, career advancement, personal development, etc., to your current workforce, thus improving their productivity.
3. Better talent pool
Employee branding helps organizations recruit the best talents from a large talent pool of interested, potential candidates. According to the LinkedIn Global Recruiting Trends Report, around 80% of talent acquisition managers say that employer branding significantly impacts hiring great talent.
4. Lower employee turnover
By focusing on employer branding experience, companies can achieve a 28% decrease in staff turnover. How? As we discussed earlier, you will get to hire qualified candidates, the best of the best. This will reduce the chances of replacing them anytime soon.
Also, to become an employee-friendly organization, you can create a strong employer-employee bond, which will further reduce the chances of them leaving for a better opportunity.
5. Lower per-hire cost
Having a negative brand reputation costs companies at least 10% more per hire. Because a bad brand reputation equals a bad work environment, it is important to have positive employee branding since the current employees' referral and positive feedback can provide you with a ready-made talent community, ready to get hired.
When does employee branding start making an impact?
The effects of employee branding are not always immediate, but they grow exponentially over time. It begins from the moment a candidate interacts with your brand—through job ads, your website, or employee testimonials. A thoughtful employee branding process ensures each of these touchpoints reflects authenticity and value.
In fact, 4 out of 5 candidates say the experience they have during recruitment reflects how a company treats its people—making it essential to implement branding efforts right from the hiring stage.
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How to do employee branding (strategy with examples)
The right employee branding strategies can improve the performance of your company. Here we are going to see how it is done.
1. Identify Your existing employer brand
The first step towards building employee branding techniques is to have a good understanding of your brand. This will give you an idea of the existing employer brands, its present challenges, improvements needed, etc. This will help you to work on your company’s unique value proposition.
How important is UVP for a company? It defines what makes your business unique. These short but effective UVP statements will help both the team members and consumers to understand your core values.
2. Conduct an employer brand audit
Now, ask your internal and external research on the employer brand. You can conduct surveys, feedback sessions, one-to-one meetings, etc., with existing employees and new candidates, etc., to know how well they understand its visions, mission, and values.
Also, do social media searches, read feedback and reviews from other websites too. Leveraging social media can significantly enhance employer branding by showcasing your company culture, employee experiences, and workplace values.
For instance, growing your Instagram presence can help you reach a wider audience and attract top talent. This is a key part of employee branding techniques.
Netflix, one of the best online streaming companies globally, is a great example of listening and treating employees as valuable assets.
3. Come up with a unique employee value proposition for your brand
Next, using these insights, you have to develop a brand new unique value proposition for your company. EVP basically represents what a company stands for, needs, and offers as an employer. It is a key factor in Employee branding since it is a marketing message and a promise made to your employee, explaining what works and whatnot.
4. Educate employees about your brand
Educating employees about your brand will transform them into brand ambassadors, who can add value to the whole employee branding techniques you are looking forward to fulfilling.
Please provide them with internal brand training sessions to raise awareness and recognize the brand’s vision and goals so that they can be on the same boat as yours.
5. Get support from the current employees
For job seekers, the main source of getting information on your brand, culture, and value is from the existing employees. 50% of professionals say they won’t go for an organization with a bad reputation, even with a pay rise.
So, how to make your employees in favor of employee brand engagement ideas of your company?
You can offer learning and development opportunities, offer a special payout for achievements or best referrals, or organize community events for this purpose, thus making the workforce share their positive experiences in the company.
The employee-orientated culture of Salesforce is one of the best examples of this. They leverage the employees to share diverse and inclusive posts that cover content from cooking experiments, performance awards, family milestones, and staff events.
Another example is the #InclusionStartsWithI campaign launched by Accenture. They came up with a video featuring their employees' diversity-related struggles, especially in an era in which discrimination of all kinds prevails.
6. Optimizing your hiring strategies
4 out of 5 candidates say that the candidate experience they receive while the hiring process is a sign of how a company values its people.
So, you have to ensure that the potential applicants have a smooth onboarding process. Make them excited about future roles and related opportunities, right from the start. This will help in interested employee brand engagement ideas in the long run too.
Digital Ocean, a cloud infrastructure service provider, sets the best example of how to make the onboarding experience better for a candidate. They have added a ‘candidate resources & help’ page in their career section. It is basically a guide on what a candidate should expect at the interview, with some commonly asked questions and answers. Interesting, right?
7. Spread the word through social media
Share testimonial videos, fun posts, photos, and slideshows through various channels like social media to tell your employee's stories, preferably by the employees.
A study by Weber Shandwick, a global public relations firm, shows that 98% of employees use at least one social media site for personal use, of which 50% are already posting about their company. So make the best out of that for employee branding by trying out various employee brand engagement ideas.
Swiggy is yet another Indian start-up with a great LinkedIn presence where they display glimpses of life at Swiggy and encourage employees to engage. Check out the invitation to a performance by B Minor, a music community, of Swiggy employees or ‘Swiggsters’ as a part of the Swiggy Communities Unwrapped series.
Which platforms work best for employee branding?
Social media remains the top channel, especially platforms like:
- LinkedIn – for professional branding and hiring
- Instagram – for showcasing culture and events
- Facebook – for community engagement
- Glassdoor – for honest reviews and testimonials
Other effective tools include:
- Company websites and career portals
- Employee referral programs
- Online communities and forums
Utilizing these platforms strengthens employee brand engagement and ensures consistency across touchpoints.
How Empuls helps build a strong employee brand
In today’s competitive world, your employer brand isn’t built by campaigns — it’s built by your people. Empuls empowers organizations to naturally turn employees into brand advocates by boosting engagement, recognition, communication, and loyalty. Here’s how Empuls strengthens your employee branding efforts.
Aligns employees with your vision and culture
Empuls’ social intranet acts as a central hub to share company updates, celebrate milestones, and foster transparency. Through town halls, AMA sessions, and community groups, employees feel deeply connected to your values, mission, and culture.
Key features:
- Social intranet for news, wins, and updates
- Community groups for deeper connections
- Town halls and live interactions with leadership
Turns employees into authentic brand advocates
Recognition is one of the most powerful tools for employee branding. Empuls makes it easy to acknowledge achievements, reinforce core values, and encourage employees to share their successes externally through social media integrations.
Key features:
- Peer-to-peer recognition and core value badges
- Wall of Fame (interactive and TV mode) to spotlight achievers
- LinkedIn integration for social sharing of recognitions
Enhances candidate and new hire experiences
The employee brand journey starts at first touch. Empuls ensures candidates and new hires experience a warm, engaging onboarding with automated greetings, onboarding surveys, and welcome kits.
Key features:
- Onboarding and lifecycle surveys
- Automated first-day celebrations and milestones
- Digital signage to spotlight new joiners
Boosts employee engagement and retention
Happy, engaged employees are natural brand ambassadors. Empuls keeps employees motivated with timely feedback, personalized recognition, milestone celebrations, and AI-driven nudges to ensure no achievement goes unnoticed.
Key features:
- Pulse, eNPS, and lifecycle surveys
- AI nudges for achievements and recognitions (powered by Em)
- Service awards and customized milestones
Strengthens online employer brand presence
Empuls fuels external employer branding by encouraging real employee storytelling. Recognition posts, achievements, and brand moments shared across platforms like LinkedIn and Glassdoor build credibility and attract top talent.
Key features:
- Social feed and social sharing for wider visibility
- Capture employee testimonials and highlight brand moments
Start building a stronger employee brand with Empuls today. Book a demo
And most importantly...
Today it’s all about being ‘in the front row.’ The same goes for the reputation of a company, in which employee branding plays a major role. So, try to communicate with your employees about what your organization stands for- your values, vision, mission, goals, and their role in it.
2/3 of recruiters predict that the importance of employer branding in their organizations will rise in the next 12 to 24 months. That is, nowadays, companies are more interested in employee branding than employee branding. This dramatic shift from the ‘idea of creating a perfect working place where employees love to work’ in to’ transforming the working space in a way employees like’ will make some heavy changes in the way businesses work in the future.
Give some time for the employee branding ideas to get implemented. This way, you can hire top talents, improve your existing employees' efficiency, and reduce salary spending, ultimately increasing the overall productivity and revenue.
Discover how Empuls can help you engage, celebrate, and inspire your people. Talk to our experts
FAQs
1. How does employee branding reduce turnover?
When employees are aligned with the company culture and feel valued, they are less likely to seek opportunities elsewhere. Data shows that strong branding can lead to a 28% reduction in turnover.
2. Can employee branding lower hiring costs?
Yes. A poor employer reputation can increase the cost per hire by at least 10%. Positive branding encourages referrals and organic interest, reducing recruitment expenses.
3. Is employee branding only for big companies?
Not at all. Startups and SMEs can benefit too. With digital platforms, even small companies can create strong brand narratives and reach global talent pools.