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Branding has moved beyond sales and marketing and into the world of hiring and HR in the past few years as the concept of employment branding has experienced a significant upsurge.

First introduced in the early 1990’s the term “employment branding” refers to the whole of an organization’s efforts to communicate what makes it a desirable place to work. Typified by national companies like NPR, Google, Zappos, REI and local companies unique to every community, the importance of employment branding is staging a revolution.

Driven in large part by the mainstreaming of social media recruitment channels and word of mouth job hunting, employer branding lends itself easily to nonprofits.

Don’t believe me? Well, because values are often the underlying structure for an organization’s reputation (aka branding), many nonprofits can easily incorporate their pre-established mission into their employment brand. By doing what you love, and what you believe in, you (and your employees) have probably already worked toward creating a strong employment brand.

Research backs the importance of successful employment branding. Over and over again workers report that starting salary is less important than their perception of the organization and the satisfaction that they receive from the employer’s culture.

So what can you do to build a powerful employer brand?

• Start internally. The easiest way to begin building a strong employer brand is by ensuring that your employees are 1.) happy with their jobs and the company, and 2.) are telling others about how much they like the company. Take the time to make sure that employees are being thanked for their hard work and are recognized for their contribution to the company. Additionally, find workplace perks that fit within your company culture and offer them as added incentive for a happier workplace.

• Engage with the community. Another simple way for nonprofits to improve their employer branding is to actively engage with the surrounding community. Too often it’s easy for agencies to forget about groups not directly impacting their work, but offering community open houses that expose your nonprofit to new and nontraditional groups can extend goodwill throughout the community and open your organization up for exciting new networking opportunities.

• Address negative branding immediately. Even when everything’s going great, the smallest rumor can quickly bring down years of good branding. And because bad things happen, often with little warning, it’s best to have a pre-established crisis plan that helps keep your employment branding safe.

• Ensure that employees are treated well when they leave. When good employees leave voluntarily, celebrate their successes one last time, and give everyone the chance to say “thank you!” for all of their hard work.And even if an employee is fired in disgrace, don’t bully them or otherwise act poorly. An unemployment trust, like UST, can help you train your managers and supervisors to properly document all infractions and warnings so that you can gracefully (and successfully) fight any improper unemployment benefits charges later on. Learn more about how UST can help you lower unemployment costs at your agency.