Five steps to maximising your employer brand

A startling finding from our research was that only three in 10 employees have ever used mental health services offered by their employer. Of those, however, 82% would use them again, and those who know about them and use them are more likely to stay with their employer. When employees feel supported, they appreciate it and they lean in to those supports.

Furthermore, while 78% of employees say it’s valuable for employers to offer mental health supports, those who have used these services are much more likely to say they are effective than those who haven’t. 

Encourage employees to make use of the available mental health supports in your organisation by showcasing them regularly across all your internal communications channels, including email newsletters, noticeboards, internal messaging tools and wherever employees receive updates.

If possible, use testimonials from other employees to underscore the value they have gained from these supports – these can be anonymised, of course.

To ensure potential applicants understand how your organisation values and supports the mental health and wellbeing of its employees, make sure you include this information in job postings and recruitment campaigns, and as part of your diversity and inclusion work. In fact, it may be worth incorporating it as a standard section in all job ads.

Furthermore, if you have specific careers or recruitment landing pages, brochures or other collateral used in campaigns, make sure they specifically address the importance of mental health and wellbeing.

If you have earned accreditation through initiatives such as Great Place to Work, be sure to highlight this and how your mental health and wellbeing initiatives contributed to it.

Outline some of the supports applicants could expect to receive if they are hired, such as your employee assistance programme (EAP), peer-to-peer support or other events, education or services.

To carry a clear message right through the recruitment and onboarding process, take the time to train internal and external recruiters on the topic of mental health and wellbeing.

Make sure they are aware of all the mental health and wellbeing supports and services the organisations offers, and can articulate the value employees put on them.

As we know from our research, this is particularly important to people aged between 18 and 34, and to those with disabilities, so it should be especially high on the agenda in conversations with anyone from these groups.

It’s also worthwhile encouraging all your employees to advocate for the business in these terms when they talk to peers outside the organisation.

Talk to your social media manager or team to ensure that all the work your organisation does to support employee mental health and wellbeing is showcased on social media channels.

By ensuring this topic is part of your regular communications rather than being tied in with specific events or days once or twice a year, it underlines the organisation’s commitment to this vital strand of employee services. And that is key to boosting your employer brand.

It’s vital that those who lead teams or departments in your organisation are fully up to speed on the mental health and wellbeing supports, why they matter, and why it’s important for them as leaders to encourage their teams to use these supports.

Encourage managers to include mental health and wellbeing regularly on team meeting agendas, to address it in one-to-one meetings and to encourage employees to make use of peer-to-peer supports and training.

Likewise, ask senior leaders in the organisation to talk about the topic in company meetings or all-hands, and if they are happy to do so, to touch on how they have benefitted personally from any of the supports on offer.

This doesn’t have to be sensitive information. For example, they could talk about how they started online yoga classes and found this helped them sleep better and have more focus during the day.