Benefits and Recruitment: Protect Your Online Reputation

Recently, we had a fun time relating employee satisfaction with benefits options through the songs of Taylor Swift. As we said in our article …Are you Ready for it?^[1] “[i]t’s not an epiphany that employee benefits are a significant tool in recruiting and retaining employees. But only if you offer what employees want… The goal for any corporate benefits plan is to get a reputation, well, at least a good one, for serving employees the benefits they want.”
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While that article addressed how your benefits are viewed internally, there is yet another, external, group who may be interested in how those benefits measure up: your recruits. Benefits can be an important part of the view prospective employees have of your company and whether they want to apply. How can you make sure your benefits measure up? We have a few thoughts.
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Way back when, we wrote an article for financial advisors about how they can protect their online reputation.^[2] Many of those ideas apply here too. For example, we said: “Just like never watching your accounts to know when to rebalance is a terrible investment strategy, never watching your online reputation is a terrible marketing strategy: you have to know your data. Ignorance will not bring you bliss in this matter.”
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Your HR department may already be watching employee review sites like Glassdoor for the anonymous reviews that employees can submit on their employers. If they aren’t, they may want to start. You can ask HR to pass along any information you find via those review sites. You might also try your own search via Google and Bing. Make sure to google all versions of your company’s name, including abbreviations and misspellings. Also remember to run searches through all of Google’s options, including images, and videos.
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Another important aspect to your online reputation for benefits offerings comes through your executives. You may want to check out-of-date articles and interviews to see if any of their positions have changed. If something does need to be updated, you might try asking your PR or communications department if they can find an earned media outlet for updating those positions. For example, the next time your executive is interviewed or gives a speech, they can work the change in position into their response. Then, you can link to that updated information on the benefits portion of your website, helping to boost the SEO of that more recent position.
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As always, it’s best to find out if your employees are unhappy before they go posting on the internet. Employee surveys, focus groups, and other feedback options are helpful assessment tools but only if the feedback loop gets closed. Someone in a position to make changes should respond to common comments explaining timelines, options, and why certain offers aren’t on the menu for your company currently.
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In the event that your online reputation for benefits is really troubled, such as being the subject of a newspaper article, lawsuit, or other publicly accessible source, you might need to outsource your reputation repair. As we mentioned a few years ago “[b]e choosy and shop around for the right provider. A good reputation management company will want to review your site and online profile before providing you with a detailed proposal and cost structure. From there, you can choose a one-time clean up or an overhaul with a monthly maintenance option.”^[3]

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^[1] https://www.bcgbenefits.com/blog/leadership-communication-skills

^[2] https://www.bcgbenefits.com/blog/reputation-management

^[3] https://www.bcgbenefits.com/blog/reputation-management

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‍These articles are prepared for general purposes and are not intended to provide advice or encourage specific behavior. Before taking any action, Advisors and Plan Sponsors should consult with their compliance, finance and legal teams.