A Strong Employer Brand Can be the Key to Hiring Great Shift Workers

It seems counterintuitive that a traditional business would be forced to compete with multi-billion dollar technology companies for shift workers, but companies like Lyft, Uber, Upwork, and others are in perpetual need of part-time shift workers, and they do a great job of attracting them. That means that traditional businesses (that were previously used to doing very little to receive countless job applications) now need to level up their game.

How? One way to do this is to use strong employer brand as a competitive advantage.

Employer Brand as a Competitive Advantage

An employer brand is the aggregate sentiment about what it’s like to work at your company from management, current employees, customers, social media and most importantly in this case – potential employees. In short, your employer brand is your reputation as an employer. We all know reputations are important, and managing yours as an employer will be critical when it comes to competing for shift workers.

For one, a strong employer brand reduces turnover by 28%. Perhaps even more importantly, 69% of workers say they won’t take a job with a company with a bad employer brand even if they’re unemployed.

So how can you make sure your reputation as a top-notch employer is as polished as it should be?

The first step is to develop and establish your employer brand.

Develop Your Employer Brand

Start by asking yourself some questions about your company:

1. What sets the company apart? Why is it a good place for current employees to work, and what makes it an attractive place for potential recruits?
2. Is your compensation and benefits competitive? Does it set you apart?
3. What positions are you looking to fill with shift workers? What type of candidate would be best suited to the role? Once you’ve answered these, start thinking about what type of candidate would find you appealing as an employer.
4. What kind of candidates have you already hired in the role? What types of people have been successful in it before?
5. Is there anything about the current perception of your company as an employer that is affecting your ability to attract high-quality candidates? This is about magnifying good news and being aware of red flags.

Promote Your Employer Brand

Once you’ve established a positive employer brand, it’s time to promote it. This starts with making your job posting into a compelling story, making your career page into a hub to sell your opportunities, and never ignoring the importance of growing a community on social media. Traditional businesses of any size can take a page out of the tech gig economy playbook and promote their employer brand through localized social media advertising, optimized career pages, employee referral programs and more.

More specifically, highlighting successful employees in social media feeds or even local media can help get the word out, helping potential candidates see themselves in the role. Another good idea is to start thinking of your offerings to employees in the same way you think of your general market offering. Advertise the fact that you have great compensation packages for your shift workers, or that you have a family-friendly time-off policy, or that your turnover rate is very low – whatever your assets may be – it’s important to get the word out.

After all, companies like Uber and Lyft don’t just casually promote their offerings, they buy ad spots on the radio, they put up enormous billboards near heavily trafficked intersections, they run pay-per-click ads on the web, and they insert themselves on the channels they know their target candidates are exposed to every day and make them a direct pitch: Make 60k a Year with Uber, Make $1200 a Week With Lyft.

Their goal is make people constantly think that their company is a great place to work and that there is a always a new gig available. So, make sure you’re doing the same. When you establish a positive employer brand, highlight your current happy employees, and promote how awesome it is to work at your company, you can make sure your workforce is scaling too.