Gathering all employees in one place during an event is an excellent opportunity to harness their potential and weave elements of employer branding into the organized occasion. Events have a broad significance and are used as one of many tools to achieve business goals. The starting point for both building a solid EB strategy and preparing events is an awareness of the business importance of events. Implementing both business and entertainment events in your company results first in establishing an emotional bond between the employee and the brand, and second, it perfectly serves to promote the employer.

There are infinitely many possibilities and ideas for organizing events. One must be aware of how much can be accomplished by organizing an event and what measurable business and organizational benefits can be achieved.

A wise move is to entrust event organization to specialists—event agencies with extensive experience and endless creativity in this field. Preparing a truly good event requires creative and innovative efforts, which agencies excel at. Close collaboration with the agency is essential, especially in conveying all expectations and goals to be achieved by the event organization. This allows specialists to prepare an unconventional event plan and use the right tools for its execution, ensuring the goals and expectations are met one hundred percent.

Importantly—there is no one-size-fits-all event. Generalizations should be avoided because events target specific groups—candidates for company positions, students or graduates, or current employees. Moreover, it is necessary to tailor the event type to generations X, Y, or Millennials—each requiring a different approach. Target groups are chosen based on the expected effect related to the EB strategy. It is crucial always to be prepared for changes to keep up with or ideally outpace the competition. Creativity in actions taken for each event and target group can elevate us above others.

There are various types of events. The diversity stems from developed marketing strategies, employer branding strategies, and business needs. Identifying and selecting the event needed in a given situation involves proper diagnosis of needs, where event agencies prove very helpful. What kinds of events should organizations implement in their employer branding strategy?

Why do companies fail to find suitable candidates for positions? Why do valued employees leave the organization? The answers in both cases are the same—primarily because the company’s reputation and image are not attractive enough, and also because the organizational culture is not appealing.

Employer Promotion
Events in this area aim to encourage potential candidates to apply for vacancies and include events organized at universities. Given the current labor market situation, a nice job advertisement is no longer enough, as there are already plenty of them. Event activities must be constantly updated and adapted to current needs. This refers generally to the labor market, but especially to encouraging passive candidates—not actively seeking jobs—to change and apply for offered positions.

The first important step is to define the EVP—Employee Value Proposition. When building an employer brand, it is worth dedicating much thought to the company’s values and characteristics that distinguish it from other employers. Unique values offered by the employer should be promoted and conveyed to target groups. A key element is defining how the company wants to be perceived by others.

Knowing the labor market and the needs of specific target groups—such as students, professionals, young talents, or experienced specialists—you can determine the priorities and values important to them. These can then be transformed into an event that integrates these values.

One event proposal promoting the employer is organizing an event at universities targeted at students and tailored to their fields of study. If the student profile is strictly defined and reserved for specific study programs, it is important that event activities match those fields. In some cases, it is worth organizing an event that offers a break and puts students in a completely different setting. Everything depends on what the employer wants to communicate and what image to build.

A great complement to university events is the use of company-branded gadgets. Ideally, these should be surprising items like portable Bluetooth speakers or everyday objects such as eco-friendly notebooks with pens. Branded gadgets should remind participants of the company and be so cool that no one wants to part with them.

Besides organizing events at universities, it is also valuable to cooperate with student organizations. Keep in mind that this is collaboration with young, creative individuals who have support among students and unite a large student community. Supporting or sponsoring their activities in exchange for a presence at the event draws the entire group’s attention to the brand.

Invest in Events!
Employees are the best ambassadors of the employer brand. In this context, special attention should be paid to employees’ emotions. Therefore, every organization should frequently organize events aimed at current employees. Internal events can achieve many objectives: team integration and building, strengthening synergy effects, informing employees about the company’s current situation, expressing thanks, rewarding the best, motivating, and establishing strong cooperation with all employees. Such actions strengthen engagement and efficiency. Internal events also provide opportunities to implement CSR policies. For example, a company focused on environmental protection might organize workshops teaching how to reuse materials, such as making poufs from plastic bottles in just 10 minutes. Such activities highlight commitment to CSR goals.

The most popular company event (and sometimes unfortunately the only one) is an annual conference, gala, or anniversary. Sometimes this is the only chance for the management to meet employees, making such events necessary and valuable. Events like these should demonstrate that management is close to employees and knows how to communicate with them. These events are also the right time to inform employees about the company’s mission and vision, goals, and organizational or business changes. It is essential that the entire event program, branding, attractions, and evening schedule are consistent and share a common purpose.

Complementing conferences is the evening program focused on employee integration and entertainment. This part offers chances to deepen personal relationships, casually chat with management, and exchange experiences. Often, the best ideas for process optimization or improvements emerge during these evening sessions!

The power of an effective and well-functioning team is known to everyone. How to revive this power? How to make it even stronger? Events also combine training and integration techniques with entertainment. Gamification, often used in team-building programs, integrates activities into a scenario covering all or part of the trip. Challenging participants, assigning roles, and pushing them outside their comfort zones demonstrate the importance of teamwork, producing synergy effects and showing what can be gained by working together.

Event agencies compete in offering team-building activities. However, the most important thing is that besides great fun, game scenarios should be developed in collaboration with experienced trainers, ensuring they provide substantive value and deliver expected results. Team-building activities primarily boost work efficiency but also optimize company processes, raise employee awareness of the company’s mission and vision, and can form a basis for implementing new solutions.

The power of events can be leveraged to build activation programs for employees. Motivational programs are based on the company’s mission, values, and CSR activities. Mostly created for sales networks, these programs aim to achieve business goals more effectively. They use gamification combined with dedicated online platforms or mobile apps. However, employees can be activated not only for sales goals. Modifying program design and setting non-sales objectives enables creating programs focused on health, occupational safety and hygiene, road safety, and environmental protection. These programs differ because, besides online platforms or apps that monitor and motivate employees through positive competition, they include a cycle of events directly linked to set goals. Through fun and unconventional communication, employees naturally gain new knowledge and skills—a far easier way to reach employees than long, purely theoretical training sessions.

Creatively designed activation programs can effectively combine theoretical knowledge and practical workshops. Importantly, they must have their own branding, which can be used and promoted at all company events.

Motivational programs hold special significance for HR—they activate employees to take actions for their well-being, which in turn benefits the entire company. Designing such programs is complex and is best entrusted to event agency specialists.

Considering employees’ emotions, organizing events for employees and their families is a perfect choice. Family picnics, Children’s Day, health days, Christmas parties, and many other occasions are excellent for strengthening bonds between employees. During these gatherings, coworkers and their families get to know each other, complete tasks together (especially children), reveal different sides of themselves, and enjoy a relaxed, family atmosphere.

These events provide a balance between work duties and private time. Allowing employees to bring their families fosters employee integration and offers creative ideas for spending time after work. Activities like flying kites or pottery making—things rarely done due to work overload or lack of time—fulfill children’s dreams. Moreover, showcasing the company where their parents work can create little brand ambassadors. Such events also help build an employer image that supports families, respects work-life balance, and honors these principles.

Frequent internal events are a good investment in employer brand internal communication. These events may cover various areas: opening a new department, holiday parties, internal quizzes and contests, employee integration initiatives, health and safety events, and more.

To illustrate events in employer branding strategy and how an organized event looks in practice, let’s use an example from a Polish outsourcing center—Heineken.

“Throughout the year, we organize about 10 events for employees. As an outsourcing company, we focus on employee retention and strengthening their attachment to the Heineken brand. We organize events by studying employees’ needs, matching their tastes, and engaging them. We make them enjoy these events and look forward to the next ones. Year after year, we strive to surprise them and create new event projects. It’s worth noting that when designing and organizing events, we work with the event agency FSWO, which understands our needs and knows our employees, making events ‘tailor-made’ and increasingly satisfying each time. Thanks to events and other internal activities such as development programs, certification opportunities, and working in an international environment, we reduce employee turnover and improve their efficiency.

One such event is the HandS-On Program, aligned with Life Safety Rules policy, aimed at office workers. This is an activation program focusing on safety and health, based on a series of events. We chose health and safety topics intentionally because our office is located in crowded Krakow, where accidents happen daily on the way to or from work, affecting some of our employees. Ensuring employee safety is our top priority; while we can manage office safety, travel was previously out of our control. We wanted to contribute to prevention—especially among younger employees. We decided to use a positive message and modern communication methods. The program includes a dedicated app to encourage employees to complete challenges connected with safe behavior and safety culture at work and outside. They can win prizes and participate in events promoting safety. Thanks to this, employees began to pay more attention to their own and coworkers’ safety.”