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Perks, purpose or pay—which should you emphasize to differentiate your employer brand for prospective employees?
Apologies for the semi-trick question; you read the headline, so you probably already know it’s not that simple.
The key to an effective employer brand is finding balance. Organizations often lean in on only one perks, purpose or pay. While each element can play a role in attracting and retaining talent, they’re most effective together and overreliance on any one of them has different pitfalls.
Successfully competing in the talent marketplace requires a holistic employer brand that hits more than one note, allowing for substantive differentiation. That’s easy to say, of course.
Figuring out things like how to strike the right balance, leverage your strengths or adjust for a shortage in one area … well, that’s not always easy.
But that’s the kind of nerdy challenge we live for. So, let’s get into it—avoiding pitfalls, achieving balance and taking inspiration from organizations doing it well.
Pitfalls of a “One Note” Employer Brand
1. Perks
We’re all familiar with the bells and whistles found at some major corporations, especially in the tech field and in-office settings. Think pool tables, beer on tap, and onsite laundry services. Sounds great, right? Not so fast.
Pitfall: A gilded cage
With amenities such as on-site doctors and high-end daycare, some workplaces are becoming environments that employees neither need to - nor want to – leave. But is that necessarily a good thing?
Pitfall: Smoke and mirrors
No matter how good your espresso machine is, perks can’t make up for an experience lacking in the fundamentals (things like fair pay or work-life balance). Sooner or later employees will catch on and see the pig under the lipstick.
Pitfall: Competitive escalation
Relying solely on perks puts you in a costly cycle of escalation, constantly needing to one-up the other guys with the latest shiny new offering. And, for most organizations this isn’t sustainable.
2. Purpose
Generally, purpose is a good thing. A clearly articulated purpose helps prospective talent understand your mission and gives employees something to rally around.
Pitfall: Relying on sacrifice
No matter how clearly stated—or how noble—we’ve seen purpose used to create an expectation that employees should function as quasi-volunteers, willing to sacrifice their financial/emotional wellbeing for the cause.
In this scenario, focusing solely on purpose can lead to employee burnout and feelings of being taken advantage of, ultimately resulting in high turnover and a lack of continuity that doesn’t benefit your people or your mission.
3. Pay
You probably don’t need a reminder that pay is an important element. We’ve heard over and over that job applicants are only interested in what the salary will be. But are they?
Pitfall: Money in, money out
Even if you’re competitive on pay, overreliance on compensation can create a transactional culture, which typically offers little “stickiness.”
It’s hard to set yourself apart or meet retention targets if you’re only competing on dollars—competitors have a straightforward means of luring talent away.
Creating MORE Balance in Your Brand
Real talk: many organizations can’t deliver equally on perks, purpose and pay. And that’s OK. You can still develop a well-rounded brand by thinking beyond these three elements.
In our years building employer brands with clients, we’ve developed a framework to help them (and you) consider MORE:
- Meaning: What difference are we making?
- Opportunity: How do we help our people grow?
- Resources: How do we support life beyond work?
- Experience: What’s it really like to work here?
Our framework distills what all employers are working to provide into four simple areas. It helps you inventory what you have to offer and incorporate that into your employer brand strategy.
Ultimately, the insights from this framework will help you communicate how you fulfill the full spectrum of employee expectations in ways that motivate the talent you need.
What if you genuinely can’t compete in one of these areas? Don’t try to fake it—if you promise something you don’t deliver on, you’ve only created a new (retention) problem.
Whatever you say needs to be authentic and credible. Speak clearly and compellingly about what you do well in the other areas, and you’ll attract the candidates who value those areas.
Balanced Employer Brands in Action
For the last decade, we’ve been helping clients in many different industries perfect their balancing act. Two recent examples come from opposite ends of the spectrum.
The YMCA of Richmond Showcases MORE
The YMCA is a well-known nonprofit that scores big on purpose… but not as much on compensation. To right the imbalance, we helped them dial up the Meaning, Opportunity and Experience aspects of their employer brand, featuring the workplace culture and the cause.
We also helped them call out other elements of Resources (beyond salary) where they could compete, allowing them to tell a more comprehensive story compensation story.
A Key Lesson:
It’s important to remember that the other benefits you can offer in the Resources category, like healthcare, childcare, paid time off, for example—can be equally powerful motivators as pay.
Border States Redefines Employee-Ownership
Border States, a supply chain solutions provider with a long history of serving customers in construction, industrial, and utility markets, had the opposite challenge.
Despite the numerous benefits that come with working at a 100% employee-owned company, their recruiting and employee communications focused solely on the retirement benefit of the Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP).
This approach wasn’t compelling to all audiences and failed to adequately explain what an ESOP is or highlight the broader benefits of the employee-owned culture.
To address this, we collaborated with Border States to reframe the concept of 'ownership' and demonstrate its impact beyond retirement benefits, encompassing all four categories of MORE.
Then, we integrated these elements into a refreshed employer brand that aligned seamlessly with the company’s new enterprise brand, enhancing authenticity and cohesion.
Following the launch of an external recruiting campaign, Border States experienced a significant increase in job applications and conversions, as well as improved employee engagement.
A Key Lesson:
If you have a particularly strong selling point for talent, don’t just repeat it over and over. Look for ways that advantage impacts other dimensions of the employee experience to create a more balanced and compelling employer brand.
Ready to Dive In?
Hopefully, you’re feeling inspired to take a fresh look at your employer brand. And, if that’s the case, we can help you fall down the rabbit hole (in a productive way).
Our handbook, The Era of the Employer Brand, will help spark ideas, questions and conversation about how your employer brand can best serve you. We’re here to be the human version of that handbook as well—contact us anytime for support in shaping the right brand strategy, expression and experiences for you.
