Employee Advocacy: definition & recruitment benefits

Employee Advocacy: definition of this HR leverage

Employee Advocacy: a term used to describe a strategy in which employees become their company's voice within their professional and personal networks. When the process is successful, they become true company ambassadors.

Their actions, especially on social networks, include: 

• sharing and supporting company content
• promote their experience within the organization they work for

Their influence can be a real asset, benefiting the company's reputation and e-reputation. How so? Because they trigger something that companies struggle to achieve with corporate communications alone: building trust. This approach is part of a more global process of improving employer brand awareness, and can have a significant impact on a company's attractiveness, particularly in a competitive recruitment context.

Why is Employee Advocacy a relevant leverage for HR and recruitment?

Employee Advocacy is an effective approach to boosting a company's visibility, and therefore helps convince more qualified candidates to apply.

• Increased employer brand visibility: employee publications generate more engagement than company publications. They are seen as more authentic and reach potential candidates through direct or indirect recommendations.
• Easier sourcing: an employee who shares a job vacancy with his or her network increases the chances of attracting qualified candidates, thus complementing a Recruitment Marketing strategy.‍
• Employee commitment: encouraging internal teams to become ambassadors strengthens their loyalty and can help retain them.

Definition: what is an Employee Advocacy program?

While the term “Employee Advocacy” is clear enough, it's only the main idea. To turn it into reality, you need to transform the concept into an action plan specifically linked to your company's organization. This is what an Employee Advocacy program is all about.What exactly is it? It's a framework that enables a company to:

1. Capitalize on its employees to develop its Employee Advocacy strategy
2. Better control the influence of their actions and monitor results
3. Motivate and encourage employees over the long term

In the end, there are always employees who are proud of their company (good thing!); some even spontaneously share messages on it. A great boon for companies!But when you have defined objectives, it can be interesting to better organize this type of outspokenness. This doesn't mean preventing or forcing, but rather guiding employees.A minimum requirement for setting up an Employee Advocacy program is to create:

• A best-practice kit: what is appropriate on each social network, examples of successful publications, what can be shared and what must remain confidential, etc.
• A library of content to share: articles, news, infographics, testimonials, visuals, etc. All this should be made available so that employees can pick and choose what interests them.
• Regular internal communication about actions: successful posts, feedback from employees, perhaps even rewards for the most committed employees!
• Discussion sessions on the topic: employees can ask questions, either at meetings or webinars, or via a contact e-mail address. 

Which companies can set up an Employee Advocacy program?

‍Companies of all sizes are well advised to set up this type of program, even if its scope will vary according to the number of employees, the sector concerned, and so on.However, there are a number of key prerequisites:

• Have a defined, if not strong, corporate culture: employees need to feel committed to and in tune with the company's values. To achieve this, you need to take the time to define and share them.
• Don't force employees: they must be free to express their feelings and share authentic content, even if you guide them with best practices and a few rules (particularly for sensitive, confidential content). You'll need to be patient and educational.
• Have relevant content to relay: the company needs to produce and make available content that is of interest to employees and their audience. This means thinking about who will be in charge of it, and how often.
• Train and support teams: not all employees are comfortable speaking out on social networks. Support is needed to help them adopt best practices. You need to be ready to answer their questions and support them. 

Distribution channels for Employee Advocacy content

Yes, social networks are the main channel for Employee Advocacy. These may include professional networks, such as LinkedIn. But it could also go further with personal networks like Instagram, Tik Tok, Facebook or even Snapchat.But that's not all! Employee Advocacy is above all about giving space to employees' voices, and this can also be done in other highly relevant ways:

1. Inviting employees to job events so that they can share their experience with stand visitors
2. Make videos with testimonials and share them on your communication channels: career site, candidate communication campaign, advertisement, job offer...
3. Suggest that employees post their opinions about the company on impartial online review sites
4. Participate in the creation of expert content such as blog articles or masterclasses

Definition and role: who is responsible for Employee Advocacy in a company?

Employee Advocacy is a useful mechanism for the entire company, yet it often remains unclear who is responsible for it. In fact, this is one of the risks in its implementation that should not be underestimated: who is in charge of its strategy and concrete application? Change management can't be improvised! If it isn't defined, the project can quickly run out of steam. And that's a shame...

Several teams are involved (depending on the size of the company and its organization, they obviously vary):

The HR team and recruiters: as the aim is to involve employees in order to boost brand awareness and attractiveness, the HR team and the recruiting teams are essential for defining objectives and involving employees in the project. They also monitor applications resulting from Employee Advocacy actions.

The external communications and/or marketing team (and in some large companies, the e-reputation and social media teams): these experts have visibility over the company's e-reputation, and can help define best practices and monitor results. They are also often content providers to help employees animate their networks.

The internal communications team: sometimes autonomous, sometimes attached to the HR department, sometimes part of a larger “Communications & Marketing” team, the role of these experts will be to share information with employees, via internal events, an intranet, posters or newsletters.

Bonus - Top Management: even if it's not exactly a team, the support of Top Management (or even its involvement) will provide what this type of project needs to survive in the long term: a sponsor!

Ideally, Employee Advocacy should be a shared responsibility, with collaborative and coordinated actions between these different parties (especially HR & Marketing). But don't forget that you still need a single project manager, and above all a clear definition of everyone's roles and responsibilities, so that the results benefit... everyone!

Let's not forget, too, that employees have a key role to play in this corporate project, and their role needs to be defined well in advance to facilitate the implementation of the Employee Advocacy program.

Employee Advocacy & Referral: two complementary definitions

Some of the content shared by employees as part of an Employee Advocacy program may be job offers.

In this case, it's the first stage of referral, which, as a reminder, means that a company's employees recommend profiles from their network to apply for job vacancies.

In fact, the two mechanisms are so similar that it seems odd to separate the two following ideas: an Employee Advocacy program and a referral program.

The two go hand in hand, and that's why CleverConnect offers a solution that combines them. A digitalized referral program that enables employees to automatically and easily share:

• stories (employer brand content provided by the company)
• job offers

👉 Discover our digital referral solution

‍These actions not only raise the company's visibility, but also make job opportunities more accessible. Each action is worth a number of points defined by the company, and these points can eventually be exchanged for rewards. This is the gamification principle that multiplies employee motivation over the long term!

Employee Advocacy is therefore just one part of a broader strategy leading to the optimization of a company's attractiveness, whether for talent, but also more broadly for its different stakeholders.If properly managed, it can bring significant benefits to the organization, enabling it to reach a much wider target audience, accessible only through its employees.