Canadian HR professionals are dealing with one of the worst employee shortages in recent history.
A labour shortage, an aging population, and demand for skilled workers mean companies are facing the recruitment perfect storm. The line is blurring between marketing and recruiting and the brands that harness the two can build employer brands that break through the competition.
The benefits of an employer brand
Stand out in a competitive market
An attractive employer brand draws star employees from a limited labour pool who want to work for you.
Lower your recruiting costs
Generating awareness for your brand leads to candidates seeking you out and not the other way around, meaning less time (and money) spent on actively recruiting.
Retain and engage your employees
Companies who invest in their brands and reputation see higher employee morale and lower turnover.
Working with UpHouse
UpHouse walks the line between an outside advertising agency and a member of your in-house marketing department.
We don’t minimize or replace the talent you already have. Instead, we fill in the skill gaps and offer guidance along the way.
Think of us like consultants but better. We’re not just going to make recommendations, we’re willing and able to put in the work that will help you elevate your brand.
The UpHouse team enjoying a lunchtime creativity exercise.
Our employer branding & recruitment marketing services
Employer (recruitment) story
A compelling employer story brings meaning to your employment experience. This ~400-word story forms the base language for crafting messaging for each audience and any assets we create.
Visual identity
Align your current branding to better reflect your employer brand through effective and consistent use of photography, graphic elements, and treatments across all materials.
Career website
Streamline candidate engagement, job search, and applications with a career site that reinforces your employer brand and provides a standout user experience.
Overview videos
An overview video for your company or specific departments or careers is one of the best ways to bring your employer brand to life and showcase the employee experience.
Employment manual & job descriptions
An updated (or new) employee manual will reflect your updated brand, incorporating brand language into your job descriptions.
Digital marketing assets & promotion
Generate awareness of your employer brand and promote specific career tracks and job postings as they arise with short-form videos, digital graphic and text-based ads, and organic social posts.
Recruitment marketing in action
Red River Mutual (RRM) expected to double its workforce in the next 5 years, which meant a need for aligning its recruitment strategy with its marketing efforts.
The RRM human resource and marketing teams approached us for help developing a campaign that tells the authentic story of what it’s like to work at the company and the opportunities it presents. By interviewing and consulting with RRM staff, we learned their employees come from a variety of industries and areas of study, so the campaign needed to grab the attention of a diverse group of professionals.
We proposed three employee profile videos highlighting a residential underwriter, farm underwriter, and loss prevention specialist’s stories, as well as a more general campaign video that wove these stories together and showed a broader picture of what it’s like to work at RRM.
We used slow-motion stock video coupled with a voiceover and animated text overlays to capture the idea of people writing the next chapter in their stories at Red River Mutual. The scripts were still rooted in real employee experiences from our focus groups, maintaining the thread of authenticity we were chasing from the beginning.
As a Canadian Student Work Placement Program (SWPP) that subsidizes up to 75% of students’ wages, TECHNATION needed help with their newest Career Ready campaign to encourage employers to rethink their current hiring strategy and spur students to get involved at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic was just getting started.
When the pandemic hit, remote work became more prevalent, making the Career Ready Program perfectly positioned to adapt to this shift. Our task was to build interest in TECHNATION’s Winter campaign, which advertised four-month work placements from January to April.
To build interest before the application period opened, our goal was to begin running advertisements in October 2020. As this was their first paid advertising campaign, they looked to us to help them get the most out of their budget.
To do this, we took a targeted digital approach, creating a series of short, shareable videos aimed at both employers and students. We made sure to convey the eagerness and ambition of the young demographic and used vibrant, energetic branding to capture the attention of both employers and students.
The videos were distributed on LinkedIn for employers and Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok for students. As a result of the campaign, TECHNATION received an avalanche of applications, achieving their target of 3,300 student work placement subsidies two months ahead of schedule.
We enjoyed working on the program so much that we even hired our own Career Ready student!
Johnston Group, a top employee benefits plan provider in Canada needed a video campaign to showcase the features of their Chambers Plan product, which offers affordable employee benefits to small and midsize businesses.
The pandemic prompted Johnston Group to quickly pivot their marketing tactics and focus on features that supported virtual work. With a social media campaign in mind, we proposed a series of short animated videos highlighting these features that helped business owners adapt to the pandemic, including coverage for virtual health appointments, their Employee Assistance Program, and a fully digital benefits platform for employers to manage their account.
Producing these videos within a matter of weeks, we ensured the message got across with or without sound and used a fun, minimalist aesthetic with a black-and-white palette and a spot colour for interest. The videos earned good reach and engagement relative to other social posts, and the creative continued to perform well as a paid campaign driving Messenger conversations through Chambers Plan’s Facebook page.
Let’s talk about your brand
Whether you’re curious to know more or ready to build the employer brand of your dreams, send us a message and we’d be happy to discuss what we can achieve together.
