After the coronavirus crippled the global economy, not sparing even the labour market, the majority of the employees in Singapore are rethinking their career choices and also most companies are now focusing more on employer branding after struggling to remain afloat for months. But you might ask yourself; does it make it sense to think about employer branding at a time like this? It is completely understandable that some companies might pay less attention to it, mainly because they are focused more on remaining afloat. The reality of the situation is that hiring has gone down dramatically, and the chances of employees leaving one job for another are now pretty slim. But still, even with all this going on, you might want to include employer branding into the mix, as it’s also important. Here is why:

Employer branding is all about engagement – when we talk of employer branding, we are not only talking about recruitment and retention, but also about engagement. Now, this engagement is the one that gets severely tested at a time like this, in that, the survival of the company partly depends on the engagement of its employees.

Even though it only takes a short time to ruin employer branding, it will take a long time to generate results – in this case, consistency and coherence are very crucial. By ignoring employer branding at this time, you will be interrupting the process, meaning that you will be forced to go back to the drawing board again. And because of the unfulfilled promises, you will have lost your confidence and credibility.

Employer brand promises might become irrelevant – a company looking to be strong, particularly at a time when the labour market is reshaping itself, can’t do anything regarding its employer branding. If the pandemic led you to not fulfilling your original promises, new and altered promises have to be formulated and shared with the employees in parallel.

So, what can we learn from this period?

In times of recession, job security becomes much more important while wages become less important. The criteria of choosing a company did change, slightly, but the importance of a conducive work environment remains unaltered. Now, what happened is that, because of the pandemic, not only did job security drop, but other criteria including wages, work atmosphere, job content, work/life balance, future opportunities, as well as attention for environment and society did experience a decline. This means that the recession triggered by the pandemic was way worse than anything ever experienced before. So, the deeper the recession, the greater the damage to your employer’s brand. This crisis has had a huge impact on companies’ employer brands. But for a company that is consistent with its employer branding efforts and also demonstrates a greater commitment to the workforce and the larger society will certainly be the leaders of tomorrow’s labour market.

Final thoughts

The world, as we used to know it, no longer exists. And as we settle in the new normal, the employee value proposition factors that candidates used to look out for from the employers have also dramatically shifted. This makes it super important for organizations to boost employee engagement as well as attract the right talent with an enhanced employer brand.