Employer Branding Summit 2023: What You Missed

At the start of the month we held our annual Employer Branding Summit, and it was a special one – it was our first event held in-person in nearly three years! Kindly hosted by ODEON Point Square, we heard from a variety of different speakers on the importance of carving out your brand in an increasingly competitive market, and got some lunch and special treats along the way! Read on to find out the full summary of the day.

Marina Rivas, Marketing and Brand Manager at Great Place to Work Ireland – Employer Branding Best Practices

I was first up to speak about Employer Branding and how the role needs to be clearly defined within your organisation – is it HR, is it Marketing, is it a new role altogether? I also shared the importance of employee advocacy and employee-generated content, alongside some examples of this from Great Place to Work clients like Distilled. 

Click here for more tips on how to make your employees your best ambassadors.

Scott Thompson, Partner and Co-Founder at Stories Incorporated – How to Tell Employee Stories

Stories Incorporated has worked with some of the world's top employer brands to uncover employee experiences and create content libraries for recruitment marketing, employer branding, and much more. It’s all well and good to encourage employee advocacy, but if your employees aren’t sure how to actually tell their story, what’s the point? Scott built on his years of expertise in the industry and shared with us how to actually facilitate the storytelling in order to make it come to life – taking an employee’s experience from a testimony into a full blown story that can be really understood by potential candidates to get a sense of what your company culture is really like.

Check out our blog featuring 7 ways you can share employee stories on social media.

Louise Lahiff, Director of Strategy, Planning and People at Version 1 – Recruitment Strategies in a Competitive Tech Talent Market

Louise followed up, giving us a slightly different insight – one from a tech perspective. She shared what may have been a new term for many audience members – “employer fencing”, which allows you to target a particular location at a particular time to get your brand and story in front of the right audience. She also spoke on the importance of not shying away from your company’s true culture and how even though your company (likely) has its downsides, you can try turn these into positives for the right candidates – “if you can’t fix it, feature it”.

David Nally, Head of HR at Woodie’s – Showcasing Diversity & Inclusion through Employer Brand

After a short break (and with popcorn boxes in hand!), we heard from David from Woodie’s, who have prided themselves on their extensive Diversity and Inclusion journey over the years. Woodie's is accredited as a Gold Investor in Diversity by ICDI, as well as ranking as one of Ireland’s Best Workplaces for Women. David took us through their journey from 2014 to the present, emphasising the need for organisations to maintain authenticity to showcase this, rather than performativity.

Check out our blog article featuring 20 ideas for cultivating diversity and inclusion at your company.

Joanne McLaughlin, Head of Marketing at Esri Ireland – Employee Advocacy in Building a Strong Employer Brand 

Joanne took us through Esri's journey in Ireland since 2002, helping organisations solve problems by understanding the impact of geography on their business. Joanne emphasised the need for not just employee advocacy, but showcasing employee stories - through their campaign "Work with Esri Ireland", different employees were profiled by Esri and focused on their personal interests outside of work. In this way, Joanne maintained the importance of showing appreciation to employees wider than just a work capacity.

Fania Stoney, Business Development Strategist at Great Place to Work with Michael Metzger and Kate Percival – What is talent really looking for? (with TUD)

Fania chatted with lecturer and former TUD student Michael and current TUD student Kate about the current talent market and what the new workforce are looking for in an organisation. The two showcased the difference in individual employee needs, with Michael emphasising his need for some type of remote working and Kate more craving that office presence. Little things like this prove how important it is for organisations to actually listen to potential candidates like Michael and Kate, to constantly be able to adapt and improve for the new workforce.

Carolina Guillen, Head of Global Talent Marketing & Engagement at HelloFresh – Powering Up Your Employer Brand by Upskilling your Recruitment Team

Our second-last speaker, Carolina brought examples from her time at HelloFresh. She spoke about how to inspire talent acquisition leaders to promote employer branding so it's being focused on in all areas of the organisation, not just marketing, bringing a fresh (pun intended) outlook to our attendees on how to approach getting your brand out there.

Emma Tolhurst, Executive Director, Brand-Led Employee Experience EMEA at Landor & Fitch – Brand-led transformation: Are you good enough?

Emma closed off the morning building on her direct experience in the world of Employer Branding at Landor & Fitch. Speaking on a wide range of examples (including her experience ideating a new Brand-led Employee Experience for Gucci talent!) she emphasised three ways to transform your brand: see your world through a brand lens, people-power your business and incorporating your brand into your business strategy.

Overall the day gave us some amazing insights into the world of Employer Branding and it was extremely useful to hear from such a wide range of companies and experienced speakers. It was an honour to have such esteemed figures all in the one room, and we were so happy to see everyone in-person again for the first of many events of 2023. 

Thank you so much to everyone who came to the event as well as our amazing speakers, we hope to see you all again very soon.

Some comments from our attendees ... 

"Very informative and thought provoking content delivered."

"Having it in Odeon was a novelty and was cool for me. I especially liked the popcorn and free tickets. It was a very pleasant surprise."