The employee engagement and talent brand connection
This post is an excerpt from our downloadable guide to content marketing & employee stories for employee engagement and talent brand.
Employee engagement and talent brand have historically been
viewed as separate initiatives, each living under the purview of
different roles within companies. While the employee engagement
and talent brand teams may have interacted occasionally, they
had very distinct missions within the organization and, thus, were
measured on very different metrics.
The link
Over time, the lines between the two roles have started to blur, and
we believe it’s for good reason—specifically that employee
engagement and talent brand are inextricably linked.
On the surface, the connection between employee engagement
and talent brand makes sense. When the company invests in
culture, employees will feel more engaged and will represent the
company well when they talk about working there (i.e., when
they’re intentionally or unintentionally influencing the company’s
talent brand).
At first glance, it’s a linear relationship:
Culture and Engagement → Talent Brand
Digging deeper, there’s a hidden force at play that makes the
relationship much more impactful than a simple linear relationship.
Stories tie them together
The hidden force is stories. Stories act as a gravitational pull that
tie Culture and Talent Brand together, like this:
Employee engagement and stories
Sharing stories of employees with employees increases employee
engagement, creating a positive loop that reinforces culture and
builds talent brand.
When organizations share real employee stories that embody the
company’s culture or values, the stories have the effect of
strengthening the connection between employees and the culture
and values. Strengthened connections between employees and
the culture translates to increased employee engagement.
Engaged employees thrive in the company’s culture, acting in a way that inspires colleagues and creates new stories to be captured. These stories reinforce the culture as they build more connections between employees and the culture.
Talent brand and stories
In addition to building connections between employees and the
culture, the stories also prove to candidates that the culture being
described is real. The candidates who can see themselves thriving
in that culture are more likely to apply. They join the company very
engaged—having just consumed the stories—and reinforce the
culture with their own actions.
And the cycle continues.