measuring the roI on employer branding.

While organisations globally are strongly focusing on employer branding, there's no denying that employer branding involves greater and persistent efforts. From acquiring management buy-in and assigning the necessary budget for employer branding initiatives to allocating resources required to set up a cross-departmental cooperation between marketing and HR, a host of factors have to be considered to create a strong employer brand. It consequently becomes critical to track and measure the returns on the employer brand investment.

Employer branding: Metrics to measure

An employer brand ultimately aims to enhance the brand ranking, cut down the time taken to fill vacancies, boost employee satisfaction, reduce employee turnover, and achieve higher number of qualified applicants. It is this data that presents a deep understanding of the organisation's employer brand in the market.

The success of an employer brand can also be measured by retention rates and ease of placing new talent in vacant positions. Multiple studies indicate that retention rate is the most commonly used metric to measure ROI on employer branding, followed by employee engagement, quality of hire, cost per hire, and number of applicants. The following are some of the important metrics used to measure the ROI on employer branding:

• Time-to-fill ratio
• Quality of hire
• Cost per hire
• Number of employee referrals
• Employee satisfaction
• Employee engagement
• Brand awareness and attractiveness with prospective employees
• Number of applications per position
• Cost of turnover and on-boarding programmes

It is absolutely critical to align metrics with business objectives while measuring the ROI of an employer brand. No matter what metric the organisation uses to measure the value of the employer brand spending, it invariably depends on the business and recruiting objectives.

Organisations must perform a strategic audit of the employer brand in order to define the objectives and identify where the investments need to be focused. If an organisation is able to classify the cause and effect of attracting and retaining the best talent then it is easier to focus branding efforts on these activities.

For instance, if an organisation launches an employer brand strategy in the first year and by the second year if the organisation becomes more adept at engaging with the target audience, it can decide a specific metric and track conversion rates.

In case of social networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn, the followers who become members of the online talent community can be targeted and communication with them can be enhanced.