Have you heard that joke that every item in an employee manual should be named for the person who necessitated that rule? The drinking at work social engagements is the Chad Rule, for example (he knows what he did)? Yeah. Employee manuals are kind of the worst. Don't take my work for it. Fistful of Talent agrees with me, calling it the "worst HR document ever." I bring this up because anything that sucks that people see is an opportunity to support your employer brand.

I have mixed feeling about this article on why every company should make professional development a core element of their brand promise. One, yes, many many many candidates and employees want development, but even when they want it, they don't want/value it the same way. Some want classrooms and certifications. Some want mentoring and coaching. Some want the freedom to experiment and fail. And yes, there are some great talents who don't look to their employer as a source for development. Over at the day job, we have lots of data that lots of people want development, but it is by no means universal. Development is popular among some talent, but to say that every brand should define their brand around it is a little myopic. That said, it's an area where many companies ignore to their detriment.

More and more businesses are looking to their own brand purpose to create a stronger brand foundation as everything seems to change every second around it. If your company is thinking about purpose (or you’re starting to spark those conversations), it might help to understand how purpose works and how businesses can leverage purpose strategically (also, companies don’t have purpose, people have purpose, and you’re in the people business, remember?).

I’m not pointing fingers, but let’s be honest: its easy to define an employer brand when we treat work as a place to go and not as a thing you do. (This article on the future of working kind of made me realize how much we define the issues we solve to make the answers easier to accomplish. Turns out people are messy, and when you can’t just focus on the place, it gets messy to try and explain why people do what they do.)

Brands are things humans build feelings around. Are you thinking about what emotions you want to encourage and when?

Oh, hey. Here’s Marketing Week making a clear case for how your employer brand supports your customer brand. Trust me, they don’t care about recruiting or niceties like candidate experience. They only can about making and keeping customers. Slip this under your CMO’s door.

Look, this is something I am grappling with because I really want employer branders to think… deeper. It’s not just putting out little videos and polishing up career sites, but helping leadership think better about their brand. One of the ideas I haven’t gotten my arms around but think is special is the concept of cognitive dissonance. We want what we want, but what we want might not align with our stated values. A company who can help its customers overcome that cognitive dissonance is one who can win a long time customer. Like i said, I’m not sure how we can use this idea, but I’ve been thinking about it a lot.