Look to 'lived experience' data to inform your talent brand transformation

Chief HR officers are increasing their budget allocations for reevaluating or establishing their employee value propositions (EVPs), which are the research-driven value points of what a company offers in return for the employee's skills, expertise and commitment.

Companies are also increasing spending on their employer brand, articulating the EVP and the internal culture through a cohesive visual aesthetic and narrative.

All of this is brought to life through recruitment marketing, which is candidate-focused messaging campaigns across various digital and physical platforms that reflect an ideal place of employment. You now have the right tools to help increase awareness and consideration of your company among the millions of prospective candidates who are either actively or passively open to new opportunities. But some questions have historically never been asked until recently: How do we ensure that this employer brand is diverse and inclusive while selling a company culture rooted in reality?

Many recruiters have been tasked with increasing the diversity of their candidate slates in support of the more significant effort to improve the numerical representation of Black and other marginalized talent groups at their organizations. They've had to rely on the same tactics that every organization is utilizing to connect with people from marginalized groups. If everyone is trying to source talent from the same HBCUs and professional organizations like NSBE, NABA or Black Girls Code, for example, what will help these companies stand out?

Many companies are betting on the power of a strong employer brand to help differentiate themselves from their competitors and attract more Black and marginalized groups of talent while also retaining existing employees from these same groups.

In today's labor market, the tightest on record, it's critical for employers to evaluate their value propositions - their promise to employees and candidates - in relation to the actual lived experience of employees, and lastly coupled with jobseekers' top needs. How do employers create cultures that deliver on such myriad expectations?

Shaker shares some key questions to ask to aid in this employer discovery and action-planning,:

• How do we ensure that the employer brand is diverse and inclusive while selling a company culture rooted in reality?

• What would it look like if employer branding and DEI approaches merged?

• Introduce a cutting-edge data-driven approach to developing culturally inclusive employee value propositions (EVPs) that hold up a mirror for organizations to better understand who they are through the lens of their marginalized employee base's experiences.

• How these new insights are used to develop an employer brand that speaks to who they are, who they desire to be and how they are working to bridge the gaps between reality and aspiration for all their employees.

• How this approach helps companies develop more specific DEI strategies, as well as a more authentic employer brand expression.

• John Graham, VP of global employer brand diversity and culture at Shaker Recruitment Marketing.

Shaker Recruitment Marketing is a longtime partner of The Daily Herald's and proud to support its mission to be the leading provider of news, information and business solutions for suburban Chicago.

Shaker is an employer branding and recruitment marketing agency, specializing in brand activation, target talent campaigns including digital and social media strategies, the candidate experience, custom-designed career sites, tech stack consult and integrations, and metrics reporting.