Once you have finalised your employer value proposition, it’s time to pull together your wider employer brand architecture and brand guidelines. This will act as the blueprint for your employer brand, and ensure you are delivering a consistent message across all internal and external touchpoints of employer brand communication.
Below is a breakdown of what you will want to include in your document:
Background / Definitions
There will be multiple people who will need to have access to your brand guidelines, not all of which will have prior experience or understanding of employer branding. For this reason it’s advisable to include some key information and definitions around employer branding and employer value proposition to give context of what you are covering.
Employer Brand Architecture:
Here are some of the key things to include in your employer brand architecture and brand guidelines document for your organisation:
Employer Brand Essence
This will be a concise representation of your employer brand. Select keywords that best communicate your employer brand, and back this up with a couple of sentences to explain this to people who will communicate your employer brand.
Employer brand vision
Your employer brand vision provides a look at your future aspirations as an employer. Where is the employer brand going? What do you and your team want to achieve?
Employer brand values
Employer brand values should align with your corporate brand values, so you will want to include these and demonstrate how these values are upheld through your people strategy.
EVP Tagline and Pillars
If you haven’t already formalised these you’ll want to check out our last blog: Building your Employer Brand – Creating your Employer Value Proposition. This is arguably the most important part of your employer brand architecture, so it’s important you get this part right!
Hashtags / Slogans
Are there any slogans (in addition to the EVP tagline) or hashtags that you will be using to promote the employer brand? Ensure these are listed clearly in here to ensure brand consistency.
Brand voice
The way you communicate the employer brand is likely to be different from how you communicate your corporate brand, so you will need to outline this here. For example it may have more personality, it may be more relaxed etc.
Typefaces
Just like your corporate brand will have preferred typefaces used on the website / marketing materials, you will want to outline these for your employer brand. Be sure to include font type and size for headlines and body copy.
Colours
Whether you stick to your corporate brand colours or choose to use a slightly different colour palette to communicate the employer brand, you’ll want to include the exact colour codes to ensure users know what to use on any marketing materials for your employer brand. List the CMYK, RGB and HEX codes and include a colour illustration to avoid any confusion.
Logos
Many brands will use the corporate brand logo for their employer brand promotion; however some may create a standalone brand identity which includes new logos. Whichever option you choose, ensure you highlight which logos you are happy to be used, and any brand restrictions for usage (e.g. only on a white background, certain mm to surround logo when used etc.). Ideally you will link to the downloadable logos in different formats (e.g. PNG for digital use, EPS for print etc.) as well.
Visual style
If you are creating any graphics to communicate the employer brand (e.g. a social media graphic to attach to a vacancy link) you will want to highlight the visual style / link to graphic templates that can be updated by the user. To make this accessible to lots of users you may choose to set up a Canva account and create template graphics in here that can be easily updated.
Guidelines / usage
Finally, you will want to outline any restrictions for usage, and some best practice examples for employer brand communication.
Ready to promote your employer brand? Keep your eyes peeled for the next edition in this blog series to see how to bring your employer brand to life through your website.
