The importance of leaders in bringing your employer brand to life
You’ve defined your employer brand. But creating it is just the first step.
An effective employer brand is essential to any organisation’s strategy for attracting, engaging, and retaining brilliant people. It should capture the essence of your organisation, highlight the challenges and opportunities ahead, and paint an honest picture of what it’s really like to work there.
It’s a powerful attraction tool, but its real impact comes when it’s deeply embedded into your organisation. Successfully activating the brand internally builds a unified culture and gives your people a shared sense of purpose. When employees live and breathe the brand, they feel empowered to share its story across the organisation and beyond.
So, how do you get everyone to engage with and live the brand?
Employer brand ambassadors are crucial; these are influential people who embody the brand and motivate, inspire, and bring others along. Who better to lead this than your leaders?
Leaders have unparalleled reach. Through their visibility, their actions set the tone of the culture, influence behaviours, and drive alignment. When they embody the employer brand, employees see consistency between your organisation’s words and actions, which builds trust in it. That’s how the employer brand becomes more than a message; it becomes a movement.
How you can turn leaders into employer brand ambassadors:
Developing the employer brand
Involving leaders in the development of your employer brand is a way to engage them from the start, ensuring they understand its importance and feel a genuine connection and commitment.
Tools to champion the brand
Inspire leaders to take ownership of the brand and empower them with practical tools, such as leader toolkits, to confidently bring the brand to life across their teams and functions.
Connect the brand to business objectives
Leaders can link the brand directly to your business objectives and mission. By showing how the brand strengthens your culture and drives success, they make it meaningful for their teams.
Lead by example
Leaders should embody the employer brand every day. By consistently using the brand in meetings, town halls, roadshows, and more, they motivate and encourage others to do the same.
Amplify the brand externally
Encourage leaders to amplify the brand externally through social media, conferences, and industry events and carry it into client conversations and partnerships.
An employer brand becomes transformative when it’s consistently lived across the business. Leaders can make that happen. Through their visibility and commitment, they inspire, motivate, and engage people, propelling your organisation’s ambitions forward and turning a message into a movement.
Emmie Lambert - Employer Brand Activator, Dawson Walker
