How we can boost your employer brand and why it matters

Have you ever had a job you haven’t enjoyed? I’d be surprised if many people answered ‘no’ to this. If you have - I’m happy for you, truly. But for those who imagine they’re leaving the office for the last time, every time, and for those who feel the urge to miss their stop on their morning commute, every commute, you’ll know the effect this has on your happiness and productivity.

When you’re stuck in a job you don’t like, the idea of ‘engagement’ is completely alien. And when employees are disengaged, it has the potential to cost companies roughly 18% of their annual revenue.

So, why invest in boosting your employer brand? 

It’s not just the key to a fun workplace and a great culture. It’s an essential part of ensuring employees are engaged. Which, as we’ve covered, is a crucial commercial consideration. Especially considering that disengaged employees are more likely to leave, and replacing them is another significant expense: the cost can range from 50% to over 200% of the departing employee’s annual salary.

This is where Wiser comes in. We improve talent engagement, retention and attraction through boosting our clients’ employer brands. Bringing in better talent, faster. Retaining more engaged employees, longer. 

But what does this involve? Here are four of our key service lines.

An EVP is the centrepiece of your employer brand. It tells the story of who you are, what you offer employees, and why people enjoy working for you. It articulates the key reasons talent should join your company and cements the key reasons they stay. It's not just words on a website or a wall - it’s the real value you offer talent. 

It matters because, without it, your employer brand would be like a ship without a compass, rudder or anchor. In other words, you won’t have a clear direction, nor a means of following that direction. As a result, talent won’t understand what makes you different - which means they’ll either ignore you or choose the competition. You also risk alienating your own people by creating a culture that lacks clarity, without shared ideas for employees to gather around. 

Companies often make the same mistakes when crafting an EVP, such as using generic language that could apply to anyone else, and leading with granular details rather than inspiring talent around the purpose of the role. 

At Wiser, we build EVPs that are rooted in research, accounting for the expectations of your key talent groups, the reality we’ve heard from your people, and what your competitors are saying. The result is something authentic, compelling and usable: a platform that impacts everything from recruitment campaigns to internal engagement.

For Frasers Group, we used in-depth research to develop a bold, three-pillar proposition: Own It. Think Without Limits. Be Relevant. This captured the pace and entrepreneurial spirit of Frasers, becoming the foundation for a refreshed employer brand and its activation across early talent and digital channels. The result? Repositioning Frasers as a serious contender for ambitious, high-performing talent.

If an EVP is what you say, employer brand guidelines are how you say it. Voice guidelines will ensure your EVP is being spoken about consistently, bringing your employer brand to life across every platform and each moment. Visual guidelines further elevate your employer brand, ensuring it feels recognisable and real.

Ultimately, a great EVP loses power if it’s communicated inconsistently. These guidelines help every touchpoint feel like you.

Companies make the mistake of crafting guidelines that are either too vague or too specific. We take a goldilocks approach here, ensuring we get it just right. This means that each guideline is unique to you, yet actionable for anyone. We create practical toolkits and clear examples to showcase how you can put your guidelines into action in different situations.

This is what we did for the BBC, developing clear, usable employer brand guidelines. informed everything from inclusive representation principles to how talent messages should look and sound across job ads and social campaigns. The result was a united employer brand activation that felt unmistakably like the BBC, delivering 899K+ impressions and thousands of career site visits in the first month alone.

Okay, so we’ve covered what you say, how you say it and why you say it. We’re making good progress. But this lineup of services wouldn’t be complete without the who and the where. And what better place to look than social media. It’s one of the most powerful employer brand channels out there, enabling companies to reach the widest possible audiences.

In other words, it’s the door to limitless talent attraction opportunities. It’s a space where everyone and anyone can get a feeling for your employer brand, understanding who you are and what your culture is like. 

At Wiser, we realise the scale of this opportunity. That’s why we’ve got a whole social media team, who help our clients leave the best possible impression online. What does that involve? Creating content that’s human, engaging and aligned with your EVP. Oh, and managing it meticulously - so that each post lands at the right time. This content can include brand champions and UGC, creative campaigns, content planning, and more. How do we make sure it’s working? By tracking the performance of everything you post, meaning that social media becomes an engine for engaging talent, rather than just a place to post fun photos. 

This is the approach we took with King, developing an employer brand social strategy that drove millions of impressions and a 241% increase in monthly applications. The secret to this success was a dedicated team and a true understanding of the EVP, enabling us to show people the personality behind the brand in an authentic and effective way. 

You should think of your careers site as your shop window; it’s where people go to get a look into your culture, to size you up, to decide whether they want to step in or to keep on walking. 

A careers site is often the first interaction someone will have with your employer brand. If it doesn’t inspire and inform, you’ll miss out on some great talent applying. If a visitor leaves your site with either a load of questions or a complete lack of interest - you’ve failed. This means it needs to be sleek and easy to navigate, balancing visually-engaging content with useful details.

For too many companies, this is the case. The majority of careers sites out there feel like they’ve been copied and pasted - they’re generic, outdated or disconnected from the real employee experience. 

Luckily for you, we’re experts on careers sites, with a brilliant team dedicated to designing and building them. We blend functionality with brand - ensuring the UX is precise and fluid, while incorporating our employer brand expertise to let your EVP shine.

For Soho House, we created a careers website that reflected their creative culture and global presence. Built on insights from talent across multiple international Houses, we redesigned the candidate journey with a mobile-first mindset and refined UX. The result was a sleek, confident careers site that brought the people and personality of Soho House to the forefront - driving 49,310 applications in launch month and a 36% increase in applications overall.

In today’s competitive job market, boosting your employer brand is no longer optional - it’s essential. 76% of job seekers research a company’s reputation before applying. A strong employer brand can reduce cost-per-hire by up to 50%, and lower turnover by around 28%. What does this mean? It means that investing in a clear EVP, consistent guidelines, an engaging social media presence and a compelling careers website is a smart move.

It won’t just help you keep up with competitors - it’ll propel you into the lead.