The rise of employee branding (& Internal marketing)



Few months back during the pandemic lockdown, a new colleague joined us. The entire on-boarding and introduction happened online. In fact, even today the regular interactions are happening virtually. The more I keep thinking about this new way of working, the more I’m convinced about the importance of internal marketing & employee branding. The stuff neither the marketing folks at client side and the agency folks are least interested in. 

The future of work will change due to Covid19 pandemic. Whilst many offices may go back to normal way of working, many others will shift towards a new way of working. Some will still continue to work remotely (Home), some will go back to working from office, while practicing social distancing (work bubbles)… In short, EX (Employee Experience) will no longer be about close proximity working, but rather about Distributed Working.


Traditionally, employee branding involved lot of high touch activities. Being in the office physically, exposure to Internal signages/messages, meeting colleagues, training programs, parties/events, give-aways, and the once-in-a-while emailers and newsletters.


In the new way of working, the act of physically meeting and interacting will reduce, the symbolic ‘under-the-same-roof’ will not be prevalent, the employee engagement too will see a dip. In fact, many real world ‘symbols’ of identity that an employee experiences in their daily work life will disappear. In this scenario, the need for virtual communication and engagement becomes important. 


So how can companies keep the employee behaviour aligned with company goals/vision & culture?

  • Online Branding
    • Email Signature
    • Virtual Backgrounds with Company logo/branding for Video/collab tools
  • Communicating shared goals/vision
    • Newsletters
    • Using Intranet/Chat rooms
    • Digital Hangouts/Weekly Townhalls
  • Inter-personnel interactions
    • Virtual buddies/Dream 11 teams
    • Online games
  • Physical
    • Office merchandise that employees can use and is in front of them regularly - Notepads, pens, Coffee Mugs, Water bottles, T-shirts, Laptop skins, etc., 
  • Shareable content
    • Most employees are active on social media. Give them exclusive content that they can share in their social networks (branded GIFs, Infographics, E-cards, etc)


These are few of the thoughts on how you can get employees engage with the company initiatives and build love for the brand. This helps in also aligning each other to shared vision and objectives, motive them to work together, loyalty towards the organisation and also spread the company brand and message


Happy employees means happy customers; happy customers means happy shareholders; happy shareholders means happy management


So what’s happ(y)ening in your company with regard to employee branding?

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