Let’s face it. To attract and retain top talent today you and your organization must adapt, expand, and grow. Today, candidates, and we’ll say in particular LGBTQ candidates, evaluate your organization as a potentially good fit for them personally and professionally. The LGBTQ community in particular will often prefer an employer with great LGBTQ welcoming policies, benefits, and business practices over a competitor with less but a sexier role. They want to know that the prospective employer values them, their skills and the unique perspective they hold. It has been proven time and again that companies that whole embrace diversity financially thrive.Sure, they want to be valued and have a great career path, but when push comes to shove being valued authentically wins hand down. This means that no matter the size of the organization, or the roles you offer, building your culture matched with supporting policies and benefit is key to attracting and creating top LGBTQ talent.
You are Awesome. Are Candidates Aware?
In the 14 Ways to Support LGBT Employees article I described the differences between diversity, inclusion and being welcoming as:
A simple analogy is:
- Diversity is being invited to a party.
- Inclusive is while at the party, a cute person asks you to dance.
- Welcoming is dancing like you have no cares in the world and no one is watching. Dang, check out those moves!
- World-class is you inspire everyone to jump up to dance just as openly and boldly.
- Everyone raves what an amazing party it is. Selfies are snapped and shared. It goes viral on social media. Your brand becomes the hottest epic party.
What is Employer Branding
Employer branding is the company’s reputation in the job market. It influences whether candidates view the employer as a “preferred employer”. This will ultimately make them decide whether to apply to the job position, or not. The right employee value proposition can thus make or break a hiring situation. Employee value proposition (EVP) is nothing but what you are offering your potential future employees—good culture, LGBTQ friendly policies, benefit and practices (which can include inclusive supplier diversity, inclusive marketing, political donations a d more), emploer perks (tuition reimbursement, etc), competitive compensation, work-life balance, community I volvement(sponsoring LGBTQ no -profits and businesses, if there is an LGBTQ employee resource group and it’s activities (such as outtings, mentorship, participation in Pride, etc) and more.
What OutBüro has found is that even those employer who are generally know as great employers for LGBTQ have extremely poor visibility of all their activity and efforts. Meaning they have poor Employer Branding targeting LGBTQ canidates. We searched and searched for Company X plus LGBT and many variations seeking employer positive content as a candidate might and usually found very little and in most cases nothing at all. So, how are candidates supposed to know? Effective employer branding speaks to and reaches the target candidates. For LGBTQ candidates, OutBüro is your best choice. Although a fairly new company the founder of OutBüro, Dennis Velco, has over 12 years serving, reaching, and building the LGBTQ professional community. The OutBüro site is your tool to consolidate your employer branding message, demonstrate all you do today while on your path to maturity as an employer. Communicate your messages, engage with business owners, industry professionals and potential candidates. We are here to help and guide through our professional consulting services directly or as needed through our approved network.
Getting the right people to apply not only optimizes recruiters’ efforts and hiring costs but also improves later-on new hire engagement. But this process begins much before the recruiter even sees the candidate profile or meets him or her. It starts at the employer branding stage.
Continuing with the party analogy, Employer Branding is:
- The idea to have a party
- The planning, and preparation, cooking the food on the grill, getting the drink station set up, setting up the sound system and getting the music linned up (will there be a live DJ or streaming music), cleaning the house and pool, ensuring enough supplies all around (plates, cups, utensils, ice, napkins, toilet paper, garbage bags, etc), setting up additional seating, dramatic lighting, and depending on your party the list could continue.
- Plan for parking, clean up, and more.
- Inviting all the guests, extending it to their choice of plus one or more. You might want to notify the neighbors.
- Being ready to ask a rude part guest to leave.
So let’s delve into that in case it’s not clear. Opening your doors as a business and choosing to focus on being conscious of your efforts to be an employer that embraces diversity is the idea to have the party.
For planning it, checkout these articles:
- 14 Ways to Support LGBT Employees
- LGBT Diversity And Inclusion: Benefits Company, Employees and Customers
- LGBTQ Consumer and Employer Branding are Commingled
- LGBTQ Employer Branding Platform Supporting LGBTQ Corporate Equality
Get Started
At OutBüro, we don’t expect you to be perfect. Showing up and starting is what is important. Mistakes happen, it’s how you grow from them that defines you. No matter where you are in your openly embracing LGBTQ equality, OutBüro is for you and ready to help. The important thing is to begin. Any current or recent past employees may add your organization. Meaning your organization may start receiving rating/reviews even if you aren’t officially present. The best approach is to be proactive, control what is on your employer listing, receive customer and candidate inquiries, and engage on the platform.
- Register for your individual professional membership.
- Begin checking out the site.
- Add your organization with a 45-day free trial.
- Schedule a conversation with our team so we may get to know each other and answer questions you might have and get you started out on the right track.
Get involved!
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