Why Your Company’s Reputation Matters More Than Ever to Jobseekers

There are, of course, plenty of different reasons why a worker choses to seek employment at a particular company — everything from life goals, pay, perks, location, future prospects and a host of other subtle factors. But a new report from corporate culture and worker engagement outfit United Culture suggests that your company’s reputation and culture may actually matter more than you may have previously thought it did.

In fact, a full 87 percent (nearly nine in 10) U.S. employees surveyed said that their employer’s reputation influenced their choice to apply for work there. This is the highest proportion of all the different countries surveyed, industry news site HRDive notes. More interestingly, half of the U.S. workers in the survey said their company didn’t just talk the talk, it also walked the walk, and demonstrated its reputation and cultural values in a visible way every day. In the U.K., contrastingly, just 31 percent of workers said the same, and across Western Europe an average of 39 percent said their company demonstrated its values on a daily basis. 

Another interesting section of the survey concerns attitudes about what happens when a worker doesn’t properly uphold company values: nearly half of the American workers United Culture surveyed said that people only faced consequences “sometimes,” and about 10 percent said there were never any consequences. 

Trusting and openly communicative workplace culture, the survey data suggest, is created and supported by leadership choices — 44 percent of survey respondents said that open communication was a great way for leaders to build trust. Meanwhile 40 percent said if leaders showed genuine concern for their workers’ well-being and their career development it supported a good reputation for the company. That statistic was much lower for French and German workers—at just 30 percent — which HRDive notes implies a strong preference for this leadership quality in the American workforce. U.S. workers also noted that they feel they do their best work when their managers and leaders have an open, honest communication style and also share information frequently.

This tallies with a recent report that highlighted the pivotal role that middle-level managers play in intra-company communications. San Francisco-based workplace communications outfit Firstup found that 86 percent of people surveyed said managers were critical for “translating” higher-level leadership updates into meaningful instructions and advice for frontline workers. This, combined with the new data, may imply that the current trend for pursuing “flatter” management structures may have a knock-on effect of impacting company culture and reputation in a bad way.

What’s the take-away from this for your own company?

Firstly, accurately conveying a realistic picture of your company culture and reputation to job candidates during the recruitment process may be more important than you may think. The job market is strained, and changing fast as technology like AI sweeps in and as Gen-Z workers enter the workforce, and under these conditions workers seem to be particularly choosy as to the companies they want to work for. 

Secondly, building a good workplace reputation starts at the top, with company leadership. Job seekers are looking for strong, clear and open communication—this builds a culture of trust, as opposed to an office culture built on gossip or distrust (as many “toxic” workplaces may demonstrate). They’re also looking for a company that has a promising future: 28 percent of the workers surveyed said that brand financial stability was the most important factor when they were applying for work.