By Callum Macrae, Marketing Director
“We can’t find the right people.”
“There’s a skills gap.”
Talent shortages are real, competition for good people is fierce and recruitment has become both harder and more expensive.
What consistently surprises me, though, is what happens next.
When I ask those same leaders how their business shows up to potential employees, what their employer brand actually communicates, how visible their culture is from the outside, or why someone would choose them over a competitor – the conversation often goes quiet.
Not because they don’t care, but because employer branding is still widely viewed as a nice-to-have, rather than a commercial lever.
Yet if talent is one of the biggest barriers to growth, it’s worth asking why so many organisations are under-investing in the very thing that influences who wants to work for them.
The talent gap and its impact on ROI
The talent gap is a real and present issue for many sectors, with 68 per cent of UK small and medium sized businesses struggling to attract skilled staff.
This talent shortage doesn’t just affect recruitment, it has a significant impact on a company’s overall performance and ROI.
When businesses can’t find or retain the right people, productivity suffers, innovation slows and financial targets are harder to reach. Talent is the engine that drives business success and without the right people, a business cannot function at its full potential.
Investing in talent, therefore, isn’t simply about filling roles. It’s about enhancing performance, reducing turnover costs and creating an environment where people can do their best work. All of this contributes directly to stronger commercial outcomes.
For many businesses, however, the solution isn’t just about finding more candidates. It’s about attracting and retaining the right talent by positioning themselves as an employer of choice.
That’s where employer branding comes in.
When businesses focus on talent but overlook employer branding
In the race to fill vacancies, many businesses focus primarily on short-term hiring tactics like posting job ads, recruiters, higher salaries or sign-on incentives.
While these approaches can deliver results in the short term, they rarely address the root cause of the problem, their employer brand.
Businesses that say talent acquisition is their top challenge but don’t invest in employer branding are missing the fact that the quality of talent you attract is directly influenced by how your company is perceived in the market.
Employer branding is about building a reputation as a place where people are valued, supported and given opportunities to grow. It’s about making your culture visible and credible, not just internally, but to the outside world.
Unfortunately, many businesses neglect this long-term strategy, focusing only on filling positions without investing in the foundation that will attract the best talent.
The ROI of investing in your employer brand
So why should businesses care about employer branding? Because it quietly influences the four areas that have the biggest impact on commercial performance: who you attract, who you keep, how people perform and how your business is perceived.
- Talent attraction becomes intentional, not reactive: Organisations with a clear and credible employer brand are not simply more visible, they are more selective. When people understand what a business stands for, how it supports growth and what it expects in return, the right candidates self-select in. This leads to fewer but higher-quality applicants, reducing time-to-hire and improving long-term fit.
- Retention improves because people stay for more than pay: Where culture is clear and consistently experienced, loyalty follows. Employees are far more likely to remain with an organisation they feel aligned to, valued by and able to grow within. This stability reduces the hidden costs of churn, from repeated recruitment cycles to lost knowledge, momentum and morale.
- Engagement rises because people believe in where they work: People perform better when they feel proud of the organisation they represent. A well-defined employer brand gives employees a sense of belonging and purpose, which in turn drives higher levels of motivation, collaboration and discretionary effort. Over time, this compounds into stronger performance and more resilient teams.
- External trust is shaped by internal culture: How a business treats its people increasingly shapes how it is perceived by clients and customers. An organisation known for valuing its employees builds trust beyond the workplace, reinforcing credibility in the market. That trust doesn’t just support recruitment, it influences buying decisions, referrals and long-term relationships.
Steps to strengthening your employer brand
Here are some actionable steps you can take to enhance your employer brand:
- Cultivate a culture people actually want to be part of: Culture isn’t what’s written on the wall, it’s how people experience the business day to day. If the environment is supportive, inclusive and consistent with your values, that culture becomes your strongest employer brand asset.
- Engage with staff and act on what you hear: Listening alone isn’t enough. Employees need to see that feedback leads to action. When people feel heard and involved, trust grows and trust is what drives loyalty, advocacy and discretionary effort.
- Define your values together, not from the top down: The most credible values are co-created, not imposed. When staff are involved in defining what the organisation stands for and how those values show up in practice, they become something people live by, not something they roll their eyes at
- Invest in development and wellbeing as part of performance: People stay where they can grow and perform sustainably. Clear development pathways, learning opportunities and a genuine focus on wellbeing signal long-term commitment, creating the conditions for consistent, high-quality output.
Employer branding is often dismissed as a “nice-to-have” because its impact isn’t always immediate. But organisations with a strong, authentic employer brand tend to be far better equipped to navigate talent shortages, market uncertainty and periods of growth.
When businesses struggle to attract or retain the right people, the issue is rarely a lack of candidates alone. More often, it’s a question of clarity, consistency and credibility in how the organisation shows up from the outside.
Because talent challenges aren’t solved by better job ads or higher salaries in isolation. They’re solved by building cultures that people want to join and feel motivated to stay within.
If talent is becoming a constraint on growth, we help businesses use employer branding to attract, retain and engage the right people.
Get in touch to explore what that could look like for your organisation.
