A TO WORK W

hile a strong brand is important for attracting clients to your business, creating a solid and impressive employer brand can help your business compete for and retain the best talent. The idea is to position your salon or barbershop as the employer of choice – the business everybody wants to work for in your town or location, according to Alice Kirby, founder of Lockhart Meyer Salon Marketing and Salon Social Club. ‘It’s about creating a positive image and highlighting what a great place it is to work,’ says Alice.

The importance of branding

Employer branding serves two major purposes for any organisation, whether small or large: attracting new talent by enhancing the appeal of belonging, and retaining existing employees with job satisfaction through thoughtful communication strategies.

‘Building and nurturing your reputation as an awesome place to work is worth spending time and effort on because it does attract people – whether you have employees, rent chairs and spaces, or run freelance collectives,’ says Alice. And attracting talent is crucial right now, considering the industry’s current recruitment challenges. Stark data collected by the NHBF in its 2022 skills report reveals that 57% of hair and beauty businesses have unfilled vacancies, and more than half of vacancies have taken businesses over 16 weeks to fill.

‘Everybody’s trying to recruit right now, but putting out adverts and waiting for people to line up doesn’t really work these days, because anybody who’s any good has got so many choices,’ Alice notes. She believes this is why employer branding has really come to the fore and could also help with recruitment costs.

Developing Your Brand

Rebecca Peters, research adviser at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), suggests considering thefollowing factors:

1 DISCOVERY: Find out how your employer brand is currently perceived by staff.

● This could be done via employee surveys, focus groups and audits.

● Are the results as expected?Could areas be improved on?

2 ANALYSIS, INTERPRETATION AND CREATION: Build on your findings to create a clear picture of what your business stands for, offers and requires as an employer. This is your value proposition to employees.

● This could include defining brand qualitiesand values, developing an overall creative brief, and mapping company characteristics.

● Identify the culture of your business soit’s clear what it’s like to work for it.

3 IMPLEMENTATION AND COMMUNICATION: Now it’s time to apply your brand.

● This could include launching it internally (on your website or social media – see Alice’s Points to remember overleaf), and applying it to induction, applicant information and assessment processes.

4 MEASUREMENT AND OPTIMISATION: Monitor progress and maintain momentum.

● For instance, check internal and external responses to the new brand.

● Meaure improvements in recruitment and retention figures.

● Reward and recognise employees who demonstrate company values in their working lives.