Closing the gap: employer branding and employee experience
In this blog, Growth Strategist Adele Lim shares why conducting a cultural audit is essential for sustainable performance and regulatory compliance. She explains how cultural audits help companies assess and align their employer brand with the actual employee experience, reducing people risks.
By Adele Lim
Growth Strategist, People & Culture
27th Sep 2024
• 5 minutes
In this blog, Adele Lim, a Growth Strategist renowned for her expertise in People & Culture and extensive experience bridging Eastern and Western corporate cultures, will share valuable insights on why a cultural audit is key to ensuring sustainable performance and meeting baseline expectations for regulatory compliance. Employer brand experience is a barometer of People risks. Cultural audits allow companies to take stock and close the gap between employer brand and employee experience.
When people cannot be open and honest, trust inevitably deteriorates, and compelling facades continue to flourish. The projection of an idealised image that absolutely contrasts reality is inauthentic branding. It misleads potential hires and stakeholders about a company’s culture and values, ultimately impacting integrity.
However, the qualitative nature of culture and values makes it difficult to create a standard set of requirements, or to address privacy concerns with confidential feedback for example. By integrating cultural audits into the wider regulatory and compliance frameworks and processes, a check and balance gets weaved into existing ones for traction.Why do cultural audits matter?
In high-risk industries such as banking and pharmaceuticals, cultural audits could be mandated sooner, due to the significant impact they have on broader wellbeing and economic impact. Public trust and safety means that integrity-related misalignment becomes a real issue.
From a business perspective, integrity impacts sales and retention of both employees and clients or customers. From a regulatory and compliance perspective, integrity impacts business continuity. Combined, integrity misalignment becomes a measure of both reputational and operational risks.
These risk indicators are precisely why regulators are paying attention to the gap between employer brand and employee experience - it gives information on how prospective candidates perceive a company’s brand and promises as they imagine it translating to a lived experience, versus how current employees are reporting about their day-to-day experience.
The gap acts as a barometer for how significant a ‘red flag’ is, when it comes to integrity. Put simply, it means that the bigger the gap or misalignment, the higher the multidisciplinary risks. Hence, in simple terms, an independent cultural audit can protect our collective future.
But how?
By understanding how cultural audit results convey transparency and authenticity.Transparency and authenticity are essential
Transparency and authenticity foster a culture where ethical concerns get actively raised and addressed. It attracts top talent, retains key employees, and drives productivity. It boosts investor confidence as strong, authentic cultures are looked at as predictors of sustainable long-term growth and reduced risks.
Where the regional culture is traditionally, and in general, dominated by shame and fear due to legacy approaches to parenting, a generation’s capacity to speak up or to be transparent and authentic, suffer consequently.
Walking the talk is not easy when humans have blind spots and can buckle under mounting pressures and competing priorities. Widening of the gap between employer brand and employee experience is indicative of unmet expectations that carry repercussions and undermine engagement and performance. It puts the company’s long-term success in jeopardy.
Overcoming shame and fear to align promises with delivery
In a world of untainted integrity and clear vision, there will hardly be a gap between what we commit to deliver, with what we actually deliver. The reality, however, is way more complicated, as aspirations and expectations, shame and fear, and reputational cost, all come into play.
Shame inhibits open communication, due to fear of retribution, which stifles discussions that are much needed to resolve or mitigate critical issues.
Fear of real and negative consequences discourages speaking up, leading to a culture where truth is distorted for the sake of protecting oneself or the company.
Within the context of companies, the impact is amplified, particularly where shame and fear dominate. It leads to huge performance gaps, harmful working relationships and a toxic working environment.
When there is no room for truth but plenty for eggshells, second guessing and cover ups, the disconnect between what is promised with what is delivered can be painfully jarring, and alarming.
With courage to dig a bit deeper, emotional literacy and intelligence grow, but the journey begins with being shame and fear aware.Will cultural audits be mandated?
Voluntary guidelines which encourage adoption can be found and leveraged without cultural audits being mandated. With greater accountability and transparency in corporate governance, cultural audits are trending well, in line with increasing awareness of the impact of culture on company outcomes.
Given the recognition of culture as a critical component of risk management, and with the increasing focus on governance, cultural audits are already ‘mandated’ by proxy, albeit loosely, and integrated into regulatory frameworks and processes.How to amplify your employee brand experience
Here are 5 key actions that can be taken
Analyse external data
- Look at employee verified reviews on platforms like Flexa.
- How visible is the company on leading websites and socials?
- What are the recurring themes or discrepancies between employer brand and actual experiences?
Clarify employer brand promises
- What does the employer brand stand for?
- What are the composite criteria (values, mission, value propositions, etc) to measure employee experience against?
Compare onboarding and exit interviews
- What areas did the employer brand fail the employee journey?
- How were the expectations created and how did they fall short?
Establish continuous feedback
- How regularly do you collect and analyse employee input to ensure gaps are identified and addressed promptly?
- How does engagement, attrition and absences compare?
Act with leadership commitment
- How do the findings translate to action plans, e.g. adjusting brand messages, policies and communication, that are driven from the top?
- How involved are leaders in discussions and commitment to align brand and experience for consistency across the company?
When companies take stock of their EBX gap and get a sense for the enormity of their problem, they can make informed decisions and take appropriate action to bridge the gap.
This inevitably improves recruitment and retention outcomes, and of course, the overall culture. Through discussions and focus groups, leaders can better understand their own index, and their teams are then empowered to drive meaningful change and close the gap.
It's never too late, and never too early, to mind the EBX gap, and nurture a culture and brand that is healthy, authentic and trustworthy.
Adele is the world's first depth strategist, facilitating innovative solutions to people and culture challenges with empathy and authenticity. Her pioneering work is low-key but bold and locally appreciated wherever she serves. You can connect with Adele and find out more about the work she does here.