In the renewable energy sector, a strong employer brand is key to helping your business stand out. With the renewable energy sector facing rapid growth and increased competition over a small pool of candidates, an employer brand is a vital part of renewable energy recruitment.

You may believe that a strong employer brand is only relevant to large, well-known house name businesses, but it benefits organisations of all sizes and recruitment budgets.

What is an employer brand?

An employer brand is the reputation your organisation has as an employer. It is your organisation’s narrative and is the perception of what it is like to work at your company from an external perspective. This insight is crucial as it has the power to shape whether someone pursues the opportunity to work with your business or not.

A great employer brand will help you to attract new employees and retain them. In contrast, a bad reputation can dissuade professionals from wanting to work with you and to join your competitors instead.

What forms an employer brand?

Your employer brand is shaped through the perceptions and experiences associated with your business, which includes:

• Previous/ current employees’ experience of your company, the organisation’s culture and management, shared online through Glassdoor or to industry peers through word of mouth
• Candidate’s experiences of your recruitment processes, including how your hiring managers, HR personnel, talent acquisition specialists or external recruiters interact with them - shared online or to industry peers
• Your company’s culture, benefits, vision and values that are communicated online or in person

Working on improving your employer brand can take time and can be undertaken by your internal HR/ talent team or recruitment specialists, who can help to improve candidate and employee engagement and experience.

You have the power to shape a clear and well communicated employer brand as part of your renewable energy recruitment marketing. Your marketing team can work to ensure that your employer brand is present throughout your website, social media platforms and other collateral.

How can a renewable energy business create a stronger employer brand?

Showcase values and mission

Your organisation’s ESG (Environment, Societal and Governance) directives will be a major selling point to many renewable energy specialists and should form a large part of your employer brand identity.

85% of graduates say it is vital that they work for a company that has a positive environmental impact. Signposting through social media, digital campaigns and your website how your company actively positively impacts the environment, will help to form your company’s image and employer brand. Additionally, it is important to not only signpost your values but to demonstrate how these values are achieved and worked towards. This can include blog posts or sections on your website about how you achieve these actions, not just that you find them important. This in turn, will attract environmentally conscious individuals who can trust your actions reflect your words.

When candidates have never worked with or heard of your company before, your mission and values can help to communicate your overall goals as a business.

Improve recruitment processes

A candidate’s experience of your recruitment process, forms part of your company’s employer brand.

With competition so high in the renewable energy sector, the chances of another business poaching your candidate during the recruitment process is much greater. Renewable energy is a relatively small field, so word of mouth between professionals is something you must consider. Therefore, if your company provides a bad candidate experience (long delays, no interview feedback, changing requirements and specifics around the role, irrelevant interview questions etc.), this will form a poor reputation around your recruitment. This will affect your employer brand and could impact the quality and number of candidates who apply to work with you.

Improving your recruitment process to ensure it is efficient and provides an informative and positive candidate experience, will help to reform a poor employer brand and upgrade your renewable energy recruitment.

Create a fantastic EVP

Creating and effectively promoting your EVP (Employee Value Proposition) is an important part of your employer brand. Your EVP is made up of:

• Employee benefits
• Compensation
• Training and career opportunities
• Work culture

Two of the major pain points for renewable energy talent is the issue of relocating and a lack of career progression/oversight into how careers could develop in the long-term. These are known talent challenges in the sector and a core reason why people either leave the sector or aren’t attracted to it in the first place. Therefore, it is crucial for your organisation to clearly promote and signpost your EVP and showcase all the positives your business does offer candidates in order to attract them.

Promote diversity and inclusion

Signalling your company’s commitment to diversity and inclusion through your website, social media channels and recruitment process can help boost your employer brand as an equal opportunities’ employer.

As 86% of candidates believe that an organisation’s approach to DEI is an important factor in choosing which company to apply to, thus doing so can help improve your renewable energy recruitment campaigns. It can increase attraction to your roles from socially conscious individuals and those from marginalised communities who will know that they will be treated with respect.

How can a strong employer brand help renewable energy recruitment?

Attract candidates

88% of job seekers look into a company's employer brand when applying for a job. As many renewable energy companies face large skills gaps, the competition for each candidate is heightened. If you have an effective employer brand, with clear references as to why you are a great company to work for, it will help your business stand out in the crowd.

Increase quality of candidates

Your employer brand should communicate to candidates what it is like to work with you, including aspects such as your benefits, company culture. A clear employer brand that is well understood by candidates will help to deter those that aren’t suitable for the role because they have differing motivations and requirements to your organisation.

This will help to reduce the amount of applications from people who would not be a good fit or who would leave your organisation soon after starting.

Secure great talent before your competitors

One of the major advantages of a strong employer brand is the ability to attract and secure great renewable energy talent before they are hired by anyone else. With 75% of renewable energy businesses struggling to hire talent, each company is competing to get the right talent for their projects. 94% of candidates are more likely to apply for a job at a company that actively manages its employer brand, and 69% of candidates would reject a job offer from a company with a bad employer brand.

These statistics highlight how much of an effect employer brand has on renewable energy candidates, and if you were to have a great employer brand, you are much more likely to secure a talented new hire before your competitor.

If you would like support in hiring a renewable energy specialist, please get in touch with our team here.