To build and maintain an employer brand successfully, we believe that organisations must meet the following conditions:

1.    Be aware of your differentiators as an employer. Your specific qualities as an employer – for example, potential for growth, learning opportunities, benefits – can be incorporated in your employer brand.

2.    Be proud, and show it. In creating an employer brand, there is no room for false modesty. You should be open about your qualities and demonstrate them. This can help in becoming a benchmark organisation that your peers and potential employees look up to.

3.    Achieve public recognition. To increase awareness of your HR best practices, it is important to create visibility in order to generate discussion among your employees, potential employees and other stakeholders.

4.    Use employees as spokespersons to convey your message. Your employees are the best and most credible ambassadors you have. Ensure that they are to the fore of your employer brand and its delivery.

5.    Finally, building your employer brand is a continuous task. Your internal and external objectives – attracting, retaining and engaging talented people - requires constant attention, regardless of the state of the economy. Building, measuring and rebuilding your employer brand is an activity that should figure high on the HR agenda at all times.

Obviously, it is important to build an employer brand that is consistent with the corporate brand or of the products and services that the organisation delivers.