Our thoughts17

Every organisation has an employer brand – but only a few have distinctive employer brand assets that make them instantly recognisable and consistently considered by talent. In a world where career options are abundant and attention is scarce, understanding what makes your employer brand distinctive is one of the most powerful levers you can pull in talent acquisition.

Just like consumer brands, your employer brand identity is built from the visual, verbal and behavioural elements that collectively represent what it feels like to work for you. Colours, fonts, photographic style, tone of voice, employer value proposition cues, brand characters, sonic elements – when consistently deployed, these act as shortcuts that help candidates notice, remember and eventually choose you.

This matters because the talent market is saturated. It’s not only competing employers adding noise; even your own recruitment communications can distract from your brand’s essence. So how do you break through?

The power of distinctive employer brand assets

Strong employer brands share the same two success criteria as famous consumer brands:

Uniqueness. Do they recognise it as yours and not someone else’s?
Awareness. Do people recognise this asset?

Think of how McDonalds’ golden arches, Nike’s swoosh, Disney’s castle silhouette, or the unmistakable Coca-Cola script and Cadbury purple packaging bring their brands to mind instantly. None of these requires the brand name to be present; the assets do the heavy lifting.

Now imagine applying that same principle to your employer brand.

What if your careers site look-and-feel, your recruitment campaigns, your EVP visuals, your people photography, or even your internal culture symbols were so distinctive that candidates could identify them in a split second? That’s the real opportunity.

The Ehrenberg-Bass Institute conducted a study showing that distinctive brand assets increased brand recall by up to 300%. Imagine if three times more people thought of your brand when it was time to change jobs? You’d be buzzing, and rightfully so.

When people remember your employer brand more easily, you win in all the places that matter:

• More consideration when talent enters the job market
• Higher relevance among passive talent
• Stronger internal pride and advocacy
• Higher awareness of open roles
• Lower cost per hire

That is the value of a strong visual articulation of your employer proposition – in other words, your employer brand.

Why talent teams need to treat employer brand like marketers treat product brand

A distinctive employer brand:

• Reduces reliance on high‑cost media
• Makes you recognisable even in highly cluttered job boards and social feeds
• Builds cumulative mental availability that compounds over time
• Helps you stand out in competitive categories where roles look similar
• Future‑proofs the organisation against talent shortages

But you can only unlock this by auditing and quantifying the strength of your employer brand assets. Many organisations don’t. They leave employer branding decisions to design trends or campaign‑to‑campaign reinvention. But candidates encode only a fraction of what they see into memory – and inconsistency kills recognition.

Measure, refine and protect your employer brand assets

Product marketers use the Ehrenberg‑Bass Distinctive Asset Grid to assess brand identity assets. We, as employer marketers, should do the same by assessing employer brand identity assets by their uniqueness and awareness.

We can then form a grid that uses these two measures to place each brand element into one of four quadrants. Which will help you decide whether to use, invest in, avoid, or retire each asset.

Use or lose (famous and unique)
These are your true employer brand’s distinctive assets. When an asset is in this quadrant, use it everywhere. It’s strong enough to stand in for your brand name.

Invest (unique but not yet famous)
These elements are distinctively yours, but people don’t recognise them widely yet. These assets need repetition and consistency so candidates can learn them and store them in memory. The aim is to grow them into “Use or Lose” assets over time.

Avoid (famous but not unique)
These are the assets candidates recognise, but they could belong to any employer. These can harm your employer brand by risking associations with competitors. It’s better to steer clear and instead strengthen what is distinctly yours.

Test or Ignore (not famous, not unique)
These assets either haven’t been used enough to gain traction, simply aren’t memorable, or don’t clearly belong to your organisation. For employer brands, this is where “experimental” visual ideas often sit. If repeated use doesn’t shift them toward fame or uniqueness, you should retire or rethink them.

Look at the history of your employer brand too – past symbols, internal rituals, cultural narratives or visual elements may be highly ownable but currently underused. The key is to reduce randomness and increase consistency. Every touchpoint – from job ad banners to onboarding packs – is a chance to reinforce recall.

A final reminder for Talent Acquisition leaders

Every time a candidate notices your employer brand, you earn a chance to build mental availability. But only if your identity is consistent, distinctive and recognisable. This means:

• Fewer visual changes
• Clear, coherent use of branded elements
• Strong internal governance
• Protecting the employer brand the same way marketers protect the corporate brand

Do this, and you’re not just ‘doing employer branding’. You’re building a brand of distinction in the talent market – one that people remember when it’s time for their next move.

Need a little help?

We hope you’ve found this article helpful. If you want help, support or even just a chat about this or any aspect of your employer brand or talent strategy, then drop us a line. Between you and I, much of our best work has started with a cup of tea, chocolate Hobnob and a video call.

TL;DR

Trust in institutions is falling and it’s changing how candidates choose employers and how employees engage. The brands that win in 2026 will earn credibility through employee voice, authentic content and consistent culture. This is where employer brands need to focus.

Rebuilding trust: employer brand trends shaping 2026

2026 feels unsettled. Political unrest. Economic pressure. A growing sense that the institutions meant to guide and protect us aren’t doing their job.

According to the Edelman Trust Barometer (2026), years of broken promises have eroded trust in business, government, media and nonprofits. In many developed countries, trust is flatlining or falling. A striking 70% of people say they’re hesitant to trust someone who’s different from them.

That mindset doesn’t stop at the office door. It’s reshaping how people choose employers. How they apply. How they engage. And how long they stay.

The trust gap is now a talent problem

When trust in employers drops, behaviour changes. Candidates assume their application won’t be reviewed fairly or even seen by a human. So they hedge their bets. Fire off more applications. Lower the intent. Flood the funnel. At the same time, they’re interrogating employer claims more closely. They want proof. Not polish.

Employees feel it too. Only 48% trust their senior leaders (Gartner, 2025). That’s not just a comms issue. It’s a culture and performance risk. But trust isn’t gone forever. It can be rebuilt. And a socially conscious, embedded employer brand is one of the most powerful levers you’ve got.

Here’s what’s shaping that rebuild in 2026.

Trend 1: Employee voices carry more weight than corporate ones

In a low trust world, peer voice beats brand voice.

80% of candidates check the social profiles of current employees before applying (Socialmediatoday). They’re not looking for polished campaigns. They’re looking for signals of reality. That’s why employee advocacy and user generated content aren’t optional anymore. When people tell their own stories, on their own channels, credibility rises.

Bolt, the European mobility app, tested this properly. While their official LinkedIn page saw organic reach drop by 20 to 30%, employee posts outperformed the brand. They scaled to 60 to 70 active ambassadors in 2025, generating €320,000 in earned media value.

When employees own the narrative, trust follows.

Trend 2: Real beats polished

There’s a visible shift away from glossy, corporate content towards something more human. Yes, there’s still a place for strong creative. But on platforms like Instagram and TikTok, stripped back formats win. And so does honesty. This isn’t about chasing trends or being scrappy for the sake of it. It’s about understanding the digital environments younger audiences already inhabit.

Look at Lloyds Banking Group. Their TikTok account, @lloydsbankinggroup, features employee generated content using trending sounds and industry in jokes. Some videos have reached tens of thousands of views. Not because they were highly produced. Because they felt real.

When employers meet people where they are, relevance grows. So does trust.

Trend 3: Give value before you ask for commitment

Trust builds when people feel respected. That’s why we’re seeing more employers give candidates practical value before they apply. Clear advice. Transparent hiring stages. Real insight into what the role involves. It reassures candidates. It also improves quality.

Given that 53% of UK professionals leave a new role within six months due to mismatched expectations (Robert Walters), setting clarity early isn’t generous. It’s strategic.

Barclays are already leaning in. They’re sharing tips and advice via TikTok, partnering with early career employees to offer networking and application guidance. Meanwhile, employees at Sheerluxe have built individual followings by sharing day to day work life on Instagram and TikTok, blending personality with insight.

It’s not recruitment marketing. It’s relationship building.

Trend 4: Close the gap between message and reality

Trends move quickly. Trust doesn’t.

71% of employees say they feel overwhelmed by the amount of change at work. What they want is clarity. Consistency. Alignment between what they were promised and what they experience. Your external message has to match your internal reality. No inflated claims. No campaigns that over promise and under deliver. Your EVP should shape leadership behaviours, onboarding, progression and everyday culture. Not just careers content.

Consistency builds trust faster than novelty ever will.

Trend 5: AI is already shaping your reputation

AI is changing how candidates discover you. At scale.

70% of job seekers use GenAI to research companies, draft applications and prepare for interviews (AIatWorkReport Indeed). Increasingly, AI driven search is the first touchpoint. The challenge? Large language models pull information from Glassdoor, Indeed and other third-party platforms. Places you don’t control.

Those sources are shaping perception before candidates reach your careers site.

That means your content needs to be AI ready. Clear structure. Clean taxonomy. Consistent language. Transparent culture information.

For transparency, I used AI to help refine parts of this article for search visibility. It improved wording and structure. The thinking and perspective are still mine.

That balance matters.

Rebuilding trust starts now

The climate of mistrust isn’t disappearing any time soon. But that creates opportunity.

Employers who invest in authentic, embedded and socially conscious employer branding can differentiate in a crowded, sceptical market.

Trust won’t be rebuilt through slogans. It’ll be rebuilt through consistency. Clarity. Credible proof.

Ready to strengthen trust through your employer brand?

If you’d like to explore how these trends apply to your organisation, or how to strengthen trust through an authentic, culturally-aligned employer brand, we’d love to talk. Get in touch.

TL;DR

The future of TA might be way wilder than you think.

What if loyalty to one employer is dead? What if people dip in and out of jobs like gigs – short bursts, constant change? In this future, TA doesn’t just hire, it builds pop-up dream teams to solve problems in real time.

Imagine Talent pros working side-by-side with business leads, quickly figuring out what skills are needed, and using smart tech to snap the right people into place, again and again. That’s Responsive Talent, and it could be where we’re headed.

To get ready, TA needs to get closer to the action, understand the real business challenges, and build flexible, fast-moving systems. Oh, and Employer Brand? Still vital. But it’s less about logos and more about giving people a brilliant experience every time they work with you. This isn’t a tweak. It’s a total shift. Are you in?

Part 2: A more radical vision

In Part 1, we explored how Talent Acquisition can add strategic value by owning employer brand awareness at the top of the funnel. This time, we’re looking even further ahead – at a more radical transformation.

What if the role of Talent Acquisition was completely reimagined?

Responsive talent solutions: A new model for TA

Picture this: employee loyalty is at an all-time low. Engagement continues to fall, already sitting at just 10% in the UK, according to Gallup. Most people now take on short-term roles and jump between projects, with little long-term commitment to any one company.

In this world, TA looks very different. We can foresee a shift in focus from long-term recruitment to on-demand resourcing, working hand-in-hand with business leaders to quickly scope out needs and build agile, project-based teams.

The TA pro becomes a kind of internal consultant. Someone who can diagnose problems, propose the right mix of talent, and rapidly assemble teams to get things done. It’s all about matching business needs with the right people, in the moment.

In this paradigm Employer Brand still matters. Maybe even more. But now, it’s about designing standout, in-the-moment experiences that constantly build trust and engagement, albeit for short-term gigs.

With the help of Agentic AI, managing those talent relationships becomes seamless. AI handles the logistics, while TA focuses on the human side: building connections, designing great experiences and helping shape business outcomes in a fast-moving, unpredictable environment.

How to get started: 3 essentials

This shift won’t happen overnight. And it may mean a whole rethink (and rename) of the TA function. But no other team is better placed to lead this change.

To move in this direction, you’ll need three things:

1. A solid tech platform to manage talent pipelines and relationships
2. A deep understanding of specific departments or functions within your business
3. A clear, well-supported pilot model to test a more responsive approach

If you’re a specialist TA pro, dedicated to resourcing a specific business function, you already have an advantage. If that’s not you, start by getting closer to a part of the business that’s evolving fast. Maybe a team that’s always recruiting, or that faces regular skills gaps. The more you understand their pain points, the better you can design talent solutions that really work.

Building the business case

Need help building the case? This is where a third-party partner can help. Collaborate on a proposal for how a Responsive Talent Solution could meet the needs of that team in a more agile, effective way.

And don’t forget about Employer Brand. In a world where short-term, fractional talent has lots of options, great brand experiences will make all the difference. It’s how you’ll attract top people, project after project.

Let’s redefine TA together

These are just early ideas. But the future of TA is up for grabs, and there won’t be a single right answer. What matters most is that we keep challenging assumptions and pushing the conversation forward. Together.

Whether you’re interested in:

• Building strategic employer brand (Part 1)
• Exlporing responsive talent models
• Or simply discussing how AI is reshaping TA

We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch. Let’s start the conversation.

TL;DR

A stand-out employer brand starts with clear organisational principles and a compelling EVP, then comes to life through the EB 5Ps: Proposition, Proofs, Position, Persona and Platform. Use this framework to build an employer brand that resonates with candidates and employees and sets you apart as a stand-out employer of choice.

How do you build a stand-out employer brand?

In an competitive talent market, building an employer brand requires more than a compelling employee value proposition (EVP). It demands strategic clarity, cultural insight, and creative execution.

In our last blog we broke down what an employer brand is. In short, it’s your reputation. And these days your reputation as an employer is as important as that of your consumer brand.

But what goes into crafting a truly compelling, stand-out employer brand? And how can you go about building one that resonates with both colleagues and potential candidates?

Here at BrandPointZero, we specialise in building authentic, compelling and accessible brands for ambitious organisations like Cornerstone OnDemand, AXA Partners and iQ Student Accommodation.

Before we dive into the tactical steps of building it, let’s first understand its foundational elements.

Core principles for building an employer brand

The first step is to review your organisation’s core beliefs and principles. This might come in the form of your vision, mission and values – or other strategic framework that sets out why you exist, your big-picture goals and how you intend to achieve these. Having a clear sense of these ensures your employer brand feels connected and authentic to your organisation’s culture.

The Employer brand 5Ps framework

Then we focus on five critical elements (what we call the 5Ps) to bring your employer brand to life. These key components work together to ensure it’s both cohesive and compelling.

1. Proposition (your Employee Value Proposition)
The EVP is your promise to your employees – the value you offer in return for their skills, experience, and time (the ‘give and the get’). A well-crafted EVP reflects not only what your organisation offers but also the shared experiences and benefits your employees can expect. This is the heart of your employer brand and it must be distinctive and aligned with your company’s culture and core principles. Take a look at the EVP we developed for Cornerstone OnDemand.

2. Proofs (of your EVP)
Proofs are the concrete examples and stories that validate your EVP. They include testimonials, colleague success stories, benefits, and any evidence that backs up your value proposition.

3. Position
What makes your organisation unique in comparison to your competitors? Understanding your position relative to your competitors involves identifying what sets you apart in the market and how you offer something distinct to prospective employees. The key here is differentiation: how can you stand out to the talent you’re targeting?

4. Persona
Your employer brand has a personality. The persona defines the body language, attitude, and tone of voice you use to communicate with your audiences. Is your brand approachable and fun or laser-focused and straight-talking? Understanding your brand’s persona will shape how you present yourself across all channels, from job ads to social media to internal communications.

5. Platform
The platform is the campaigable creative idea that you’ll use to communicate your employer brand. Yes, it encompasses your visual identity, but really it’s about something you say and do repeatedly and become famous for. It’s an idea that speaks to your proposition, position and persona, and that you can return to again and again.

How to build your employer brand: a step-by-step approach

But where should all this stuff come from? And how do we go about conjuring it all up?

Building a credible employer brand begins with deep audience understanding – the cultural, emotional and practical drivers that shape employee expectations and candidate perceptions.

We always begin by considering who we’re talking to. By doing this, we can build an employer brand that’s relevant, accessible, and inclusive. The goal is for potential talent to look at your brand and think, “You understand me. And your business is a place where I belong.”

It can be helpful to begin this process by asking two questions:

1. Do I understand the diverse range of cultural identities within my organisation and candidate employee audiences?
It’s essential to consider the different backgrounds, experiences, and expectations of people both within and outside your organisation. In particular, what they currently think and feel about your business as an employer.

2. Do I understand the collective memory of each group regarding their experience of employment?
This involves delving into the shared stories, references, and expectations that your audiences may have regarding the workplace. It’s about knowing how they perceive work, what they value in an employer, and what experiences have shaped their approach to their careers.

Armed with these answers, you’ll have developed a clear understanding of how your audiences think, feel and behave around employment in your sector. Think you’ve got all that? Nice one – you’ve just built cultural literacy for your audience! Now you’re ready to create relevant and compelling brand experiences for them, that deliver on the promise of your EVP.

Embedding your EVP

From attraction to onboarding and retention, every phase is an opportunity to reinforce your EVP messaging across different touchpoints throughout the employee lifecycle.

• Attraction: Job ads, career pages/website and social content that speak directly to your target audience’s needs and desires.
• Onboarding: Design an onboarding experience that reflects your brand values and sets new joiners up for success. This is where you start building your internal culture.
• Retention: The communications and experiences we serve the people inside our business need to be as beautiful and carefully crafted as those outside. So continuously reinforce these through employee development, recognition programmes, and other initiatives that align with your EVP.

Bringing your employer brand to life

A successful employer brand doesn’t start and end with external communication, it must resonate and capture the imagination of your people. After all, they’re your most powerful advocates. There are many different ways to build awareness, pride and enthusiasm from the get-go.

• Launch events: A fun and engaging event can bring your employer brand to life for your employees, bringing them together and help them feel part of the journey.
• Resources and guidelines: Practical but essential to providing colleagues with a guide to your brand, what it means, how it works, and how they can embody it in their day-to-day.
• Creating advocates: Empower your most engaged colleagues to act as ambassadors to champion your employer brand both inside and outside the organisation. You can even gamify the process using tools like Real Links.

Above all, make it easy and fun for everyone to get involved!

Building an employer brand is not a one-time effort, it’s an ongoing process. To keep it fresh, relevant and aligned with your audience’s evolving needs, it’s important to continually nurture your brand, monitor engagement levels, seek feedback from employees, and adapt your messaging and strategies to stay current and impactful.

Frequently asked questions

Q: What is the EB 5Ps framework?
A: The 5Ps – Proposition, Proofs, Position, Persona and Platform – are the five elements used to design a cohesive, differentiated employer brand.

Q: How long does it take to build an employer brand?
A: Employer branding is an ongoing process. While core strategy can be developed quickly, typically within 12-16 weeks, embedding it across attraction, onboarding and retention takes continuous improvement.

Q: Do you need a separate employer brand from your consumer brand?
A: Not separate, but distinct. Talent audiences have different motivations and needs, so your employer brand must communicate in ways tailored to candidates and employees.

Get in touch

At BrandPointZero, we help organisations build employer brands that are culturally relevant, creatively distinctive and strategically aligned. If you’re ready to create a famously effective employer brand, get in touch. We’d love to help.

TL;DR

Cultural literacy – the ability to understand and engage with diverse cultural identities –is essential for workplace inclusion. Instead of forcing employees to assimilate to a dominant culture, future-facing employers build cultural literacy for all groups within their workforce. This approach drives empathy, inclusion, and engagement. Start with 6 key questions about listening and acting.

What is cultural literacy?

In 1988 the author and educator Professor E. D. Hirsch, Jr. published his manifesto ‘Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs To Know’. Hirsch defined cultural literacy as the ability to understand and engage with the history, traditions, and practices of a group of people.

As he put it:

‘Those who possess this shared unspoked knowledge can understand and communicate; those who don’t, can’t. Exclusion from this shared cultural knowledge is a major barrier to equal opportunity.’ 

‘Culture’ in this context isn’t limited to theatre, literature, painting, or music. His argument wasn’t that everyone should be forced to read the same books.

Hirsch’s vision was of a common language of ideas which would add meaning and depth to everyday interactions. This national canon would enable every American citizen to commune, communicate, and collaborate more fruitfully with one another.

Just imagine how powerful this could be in the workplace.

Why cultural literacy matters in the workplace

Technology is fuelling the pace of diversification within modern society. Organisations are struggling to keep up with generational vocabulary and behaviours, let alone starting to tackle the issues of equity and social mobility.

Hirsch believed that a unified frame of reference, established as a matter of policy through education*, would be a great leveller, improving every citizen’s ability to navigate civic, social, and professional situations and thereby improve living standards.

Most employers aren’t engaged in education policy, but some of the ideas above might feel familiar.

For example, those of us working in DEI will recognise that a shared frame of reference and set of experiences can unify a group as strongly as it excludes those on the outside.

And those of us who work on leadership and culture transformation would agree that a canon of ideas – like a shared mission, objectives, values or standards – can drive group cohesion, engagement, and effectiveness.

So, is there anything within Hirsch’s work that we can apply to the business of attracting, engaging, and retaining people at work? To answer that question, it’s useful to think about how his ideas have failed to gain traction.

The problem with a single cultural canon

Hirsch believed that a nation’s cultural canon should be not dominant but dialectic; that it should not be the preserve of one privileged group but should be organic, evolving, and shaped by the diverse identities that comprise the peoples of that nation.

All these years later we still have a long way to go. We believe the testimony of minority groups when they tell us their stories are not told and heard. Where minority groups acquire cultural literacy of the majority group through immersion, the majority is all too often illiterate when it comes to the cultural canon of minority groups.

Given this disparity, it’s natural that some groups should reject the mainstream. When the national canon doesn’t reflect the diversity of that nation’s people, adoption is not empowerment, but assimilation and erasure.

What Hirsch failed to acknowledge is that, regardless of their engagement with the mainstream, individual groups exhibit deep cultural literacy within their own frames of reference. It is a mistake to conflate rejection of a national canon with cultural illiteracy.

A more inclusive vision: Cultural literacy for all groups

Our vision is of a more inclusive future in which organisations build and demonstrate cultural literacy for all the diverse identities that comprise their employee base. Instead of insisting people align with a standard, the future-facing employer will meet people where they are, seeing and accepting them, and delivering experiences and communications which are more accessible, more inclusive, and more magnetic.

6 questions to build cultural literacy in your organisation

The business case for inclusion is clear, and inclusion requires cultural literacy. But where to start? Here are six key questions:

Listening

Q1. Do I understand the diverse range of cultural identities within my organisation and candidate employee audiences?
Q2. Do I understand the collective memory (the stories, references, and shared expectations) of each group regarding their experience of employment?
Q3. Are all groups given sufficient space and safety to share their needs with the organisation without judgement or negative consequence?

Acting

Q4. How can leadership styles change to account for different cultural needs?
Q5. How can communications and experiences adapt contextually to meet different cultural needs?
Q6. How can we build empathy by making cultural literacy a key feature of our corporate culture?

Why this matters now

This last question is critical. Cultural literacy provides a fresh approach to building empathy through our organisations.

Take Gen Z employees as an example: they’re bringing new cultural references, communication styles and workplace expectations shaped by platforms like TikTok. #WorkTok has created an entirely new frame of reference for discussing work culture, calling out toxic behaviors, and setting boundaries.

Employers who lack cultural literacy for this generation often miss the mark. Their communications feel outdated, their policies seem inflexible, and their culture appears unapproachable.

Our report on Gen Z and #WorkTok explores this in depth, showing how cultural literacy can bridge generational divides and create more inclusive, engaging workplaces.

An ability to build and demonstrate cultural literacy will be the defining characteristic of the most celebrated employers of the future.

Ready to build cultural literacy?

Building cultural literacy takes time, intention, and expertise. It requires listening deeply to diverse employee experiences, challenging assumptions about ‘standard’ workplace culture and adapting how you lead, communicate, and create experiences.

Need help getting started? Get in touch. BrandPointZero specializes in helping organizations build culturally literate employer brands that attract, engage, and retain diverse talent.

TL;DR

Part 2 of 2: In Part 1, we explored how consumer brands like Nike, LEGO, and Monzo use cultural engagement to stay relevant and build deeper connections. Now, we’re looking at how employer brands can apply these lessons to attract talent, boost engagement, and build lasting competitive advantage.

What is cultural clout for employer brands?

Cultural clout isn’t just for consumer brands. It’s essential for employer brands too. Culturally aware employers attract diverse top talent, drive higher engagement, build stronger reputations and foster innovation. In today’s ever-changing world, your cultural positioning directly impacts your ability to compete for the best people.

4 ways cultural clout supercharges your employer brand

At BrandPointZero, we’ve been looking at this issue for a while and we think it’s a mistake not to be culturally aware as employers. When you’re relevant, timely and meaningful, you’re also more attractive. So, let’s explore why embracing culture is not just a good idea, but a downright necessity for a thriving employer brand.

How can cultural awareness and engagement benefit employer brands?

1. Attracts greater diversity of talent

Great talent isn’t just looking for a pay cheque; they’re looking for a place where they feel they belong. When your brand resonates with the cultures that matter to the people you’re trying to connect with, you become a magnet for the best and brightest. Are you putting out the vibes of a forward-thinking, inclusive, and dynamic workplace?

According to LinkedIn, 75% of job seekers consider an employer’s brand and reputation before applying.

2. Builds employee engagement

When an employer understands the cultural contexts that matter to its people, then it can design experiences and communications which are more relevant, inclusive, and accessible. And when employees feel connected to their workplace on a cultural level, engagement goes through the roof. Imagine the difference between clocking in at a place that’s just a job versus a place that aligns with your values, interests, and passions. Engaged employees are more productive, more innovative, and they stick around longer. Win-win really.

3. Enhances brand reputation

These days, a company’s internal culture can be more visible to the outside world than ever before. Glassdoor reviews, LinkedIn posts, and social media shoutouts can make or break your brand’s reputation. Look at the likes of Brewdog and Google – both rocked by scandals relating to their workplace culture. By fostering a culture that aligns with positive societal values, you not only keep your current employees happy but also build a strong, attractive public image.

86% of candidates research company reviews and ratings before applying (Glassdoor). Your internal culture is now your external brand.

4. Drives innovation

A culturally aware brand is one that’s in tune with the world and its rapid changes. This awareness fosters an environment where new ideas can flourish. When you understand and integrate diverse cultural perspectives, you’re more likely to innovate and stay ahead of the curve. After all, the best ideas often come from the most unexpected places. 

According to Josh Bersin’s research for Deloitte, inclusive companies are 1.7 times more likely to be innovation leaders in their market and 1.8 times more likely to be change‑ready.

How to Start Building Cultural Clout

Ready to start building cultural clour for your employer brand? There are loads of different ways your employer brand can become more culturally literate. Here’s where to begin:

Be clear on what you stand for.
Make sure there is real clarity within your organisation on your vision, mission and values, what you care about and what that might mean for your employer brand.

Listen. Listen. And keep listening.
Are you plugged into the key channels of informal colleague communication? Teams isn’t for chit chat, but Slack and Workplace (and whatever replaces it) are. And with subgroups open for all sorts of interests and circumstances, they reveal a great deal about the lived experiences and cultural trends that matter to your people. This insight can be invaluable in planning future activations that are in tune with both current and prospective employees.

Talk the talk AND walk the walk.
Once you have clarity on what you stand for and the cultures that matter to your people, then it’s important to define a credible and achievable role for your employer brand in those spaces. Then you can activate, be that through sponsorship, patronage, participation, or even developing a voice of authority.

Support your people to advocate for you in their own way.
Peer referral is the most powerful recruitment tool you’ll ever have. But it only works when it feels authentic. So loosen the shackles a little and allow your people to communicate your employer brand pillars within the cultural discourse of their own social networks. Whether it be through different platforms, content formats, language or perspectives. Doing so will build familiarity, likeability and trust in your employer brand.

Develop partnerships with organisations and causes that your people care about.
This can be equally effective on a local, national or global level, depending on your audience. Ben & Jerry’s is known for its activism and partnerships with numerous social justice organisations. As a strong advocate for refugee rights in Europe, it launched the UP Collective in partnership with The Entrepreneurial Refugee Network (TERN) to help remove some of the barriers refugees face when re-entering the job market.

Embracing culture isn’t just a fluffy, feel-good strategy — it’s a hardcore business imperative. It attracts top talent, boosts engagement, enhances your brand’s reputation and drives innovation. Brands like Nike, LEGO and Monzo are leading the way, showing that cultural awareness and engagement is not just possible but profitable.

As people leaders, the ball is in your court. Start tuning into the cultural currents and be open to how it guides your employer brand’s journey. Not only will you create a workplace that employees love to be part of, you’ll also build an employer brand with cultural clout that stands the test of time.

Ready to build your cultural clout?

As people leaders, the ball is in your court. Start tuning into the cultural currents that matter to your workforce and be open to how they can guide your employer brand’s journey.

Not only will you create a workplace that employees love to be part of, you’ll also build an employer brand with cultural clout that stands the test of time. One that attracts top talent, drives engagement, and positions you as an employer of choice.

Need help building cultural clout for your employer brand?

We’d love to chat about how to identify the right cultural conversations for your brand and develop authentic engagement strategies.

When Gareth Southgate took the helm of the England football team in 2016, the atmosphere was less than ideal. Players were reluctant to don the national shirt and the team seemed a million miles away from reaching its full potential. By the time he resigned, eight years later, his achievements were remarkable, reaching the quarter finals of the 2022 World Cup and final of the Euros in 2022 and 2024. He made fans across the nation dare to dream again. His leadership approach offers valuable lessons for workplace culture, team performance and employee engagement that HR leaders and managers can apply today.

But more than that, he left behind a close-knit, motivated team brimming with confidence, full of players proud to wear the England shirt and willing to go the extra mile for each other. Southgate can’t take sole responsibility for this cultural transformation – his backroom team played its part too – but his journey offers valuable lessons for managing high-performance teams that we can take into the workplace too.

TL;DR

Gareth Southgate transformed England’s football culture through 5 key leadership principles: cultivating psychological safety, leading with emotional intelligence, encouraging accountability, fostering a growth mindset, and leading by example. These lessons apply directly to building high-performance teams in the workplace.

1. Cultivate a positive culture

One of Southgate’s most significant achievements was in transforming the team’s culture. He focused on building a supportive environment where players felt valued and respected. By fostering open communication and encouraging collaboration, Southgate created psychological safety for the whole team resulting in a sense of belonging. And over time, that same psychological safety alleviated the pressure of playing for England… the players started to enjoy being part of the England set up again, leading to moments of self-expression and utter brilliance.

In any high-performance team, cultivating psychological safety can lead to increased motivation and a stronger commitment to the collective goal. In fact, research from Boston Consulting Group highlights that psychological safety is particularly effective at improving the workplace and reducing attrition for women, people of colour, LGBTQ+ employees and people from economically disadvantaged backgrounds.

2. Lead with emotional intelligence

Southgate’s approach was characterised by his high emotional intelligence. He understood the importance of empathy, active listening, and recognising individual needs. By connecting with his players on a personal level, he built trust and loyalty which was evident in the messages of support from each and every one of them when announcing his departure. According to research employee retention is four times higher in companies where managers possess strong emotional intelligence.

3. Encourage accountability and responsibility

Under Southgate, players were encouraged to take responsibility for their performance and behaviour. He emphasised accountability, ensuring that everyone understood their role and contribution to the team’s success. This sense of responsibility empowered players, making them more dedicated and self-driven. Managers can benefit from this approach by clearly defining expectations, encouraging and empowering team members to manage their own workloads (rather than micromanaging).

4. Foster a growth mindset

Southgate’s tenure was marked by a focus on continuous improvement. It could be argued that the team didn’t quite reach its full potential (a trophy would have been nice!) but the team’s progress was undeniable.

He instilled a growth mindset in his players, encouraging them to learn from setbacks and view challenges as opportunities for growth – just look at the drastic improvement in England’s penalty taking! This attitude helped the team to evolve and adapt, leading to consistent improvement. In any high-performance setting, fostering a growth mindset can drive innovation, resilience and higher levels of engagement. And the impact’s proven. Organisations with a strong growth mindset culture see 47% higher engagement and 34% stronger commitment to their company (

5. Lead by example

Gareth Southgate’s leadership style is a testament to the power of leading by example. His calm demeanour, work ethic and integrity set a standard for the team to follow. By embodying the values he wished to see in his players, he inspired them to mirror these behaviours, increasing trust, improving communication and enhancing team morale.

Key takeaways: Applying Southgate’s leadership to your workplace

Gareth Southgate’s transformation of the England football team offers insights into managing high-performance teams. By cultivating a positive culture, leading with emotional intelligence and creating psychological safety, he turned a struggling group of individuals into a cohesive, motivated team. A team that England fans are proud of. These principles should be applied in any environment to drive success – thank you for the lessons, Gareth.

If you’re looking for support in developing a workplace culture where your people will thrive, then why not get in touch? We’d love to chat.

The UK Social Mobility Awards fundraising gala returned as an in-person event on 13th October 2022. Organisations and Institutions committed to advancing social mobility across the UK came together to celebrate their work and share best practice. And we were delighted to be presented with a Leading Light of Social Mobility award.

As an employer brand agency specialising in building inclusive workplace cultures, social mobility is core to our mission. This award recognises our commitment to helping organisations create fair, accessible pathways to talent, ensuring that background is no barrier to opportunity.

The UK Social Mobility Awards (SOMOs)

If you’re not familiar with them, the UK Social Mobility Awards recognise organisations which are prioritising social mobility. For example, through recruitment processes and progression programmes, outreach within the local community, or by developing innovative ways to create change. Organised by leading societal change charity, Making The Leap, they’re the brainchild of Tunde Banjoko OBE. Hats off to Tunde and his team for all of their hard work, and massive congratulations to all of the worthy winners!

Our Social Mobility Contributions in 2022

Our Leading Light award acknowledged the contributions we made to social mobility in 2022, including:

• Facilitating the UK Social Mobility Awards – Promoting and supporting the awards.
• Social Mobility Business Seminar – Supporting the annual seminar where organisations interested in this topic came together to deep dive into the topics that really matter.
• Advisory Board membership – Our position on the social mobility Advisory Board, working to advance social mobility across UK businesses.
• Social Mobility podcast – Contributing to thought leadership through the Social Mobility Podcast.
• Social Mobility Awareness Day – Involvement in the inaugural Social Mobility Awareness Day to raise awareness nationwide.

To say we’re honoured to receive it is an understatement. We’re incredibly proud that we’ve started to make a small difference. But we recognise that building inclusive workplaces is a continuous journey. As we continue on our journey, we hope to encourage and support all of the amazing organisations we work with on theirs. Because that’s how we can make change really happen.

Working with us on Social Mobility 

If your organisation is committed to advancing social mobility and wants to embed this into your employer brand strategy, we’d love to hear from you. From defining inclusive EVPs to building recruitment campaigns that attract diverse talent, we help businesses turn their social mobility commitments into authentic employer brand stories. Get in touch to explore how we can support your journey.