The Danger of Neglecting Employer Brand in High-Growth Companies

Growth is exhilarating for founders and leadership teams. New markets open, customer acquisition accelerates, and investor interest intensifies. Yet amid the energy of expansion, one critical dimension often falls behind: the employer brand.

For high-growth companies, neglecting employer brand can become a silent risk with far-reaching consequences. A weak or inconsistent employer brand affects talent acquisition, employee retention, culture cohesion, and ultimately enterprise value. Investors and stakeholders increasingly evaluate employer reputation alongside financial metrics, and companies that overlook it are signalling fragility at the very point they need to project resilience.

What Is Employer Brand and Why It Matters

Employer brand is the perception of an organisation as a place to work. It extends beyond recruitment campaigns or careers websites to include leadership behaviour, workplace culture, employee experience, and internal alignment.

Backhaus and Tikoo (2004) define employer branding as “the firm’s efforts to promote both within and outside the firm, a clear view of what makes it different and desirable as an employer.” In high-growth contexts, where talent demand outpaces supply, employer brand becomes both a differentiator and a protective asset.

Research demonstrates that strong employer brands reduce recruitment costs, increase retention, and improve employee engagement (Moroko and Uncles, 2008). In a competitive labour market, this is not an optional consideration but a strategic necessity.

Growth and Its Impact on Employer Brand

Rapid growth magnifies both strengths and weaknesses in employer brand. Expansion typically creates new challenges:

• Increased recruitment demand: Talent pipelines struggle to keep pace, leading to rushed hiring decisions.

• Cultural strain: As teams scale quickly, maintaining a coherent culture becomes harder.

• Onboarding pressures: New hires may not fully integrate, leading to disengagement.

• Leadership bandwidth: Executives focus on investors and customers, often at the expense of employee experience.

Without deliberate employer brand investment, these factors combine to erode employee trust, damage reputation in talent markets, and create operational inefficiencies.

The Investor Perspective

Investors are not blind to the risks associated with weak employer brands. High attrition rates, poor Glassdoor reviews, and weak employee engagement scores raise red flags in due diligence. A company that cannot retain its people is at risk of slowed growth, increased costs, and reputational damage.

According to LinkedIn’s Global Talent Trends report (2022), 75% of job seekers consider an employer’s brand before applying. For investors, this statistic represents a structural risk: if employer brand is neglected, scaling talent acquisition becomes harder and more expensive, undermining growth projections.

Employer Brand as Reputation Capital

Reputation is now measured as a form of capital. Fombrun and Van Riel (2004) describe corporate reputation as the accumulated perceptions of stakeholders, which include employees. Employer brand directly feeds into this reputation capital.

When employer brand is neglected, companies expose themselves to reputational risks that extend beyond HR. Stories of toxic culture or high turnover can spill into customer and investor domains, damaging trust and valuation. Conversely, companies with strong employer brands enjoy reputational resilience and are perceived as lower-risk investments.

The Cultural Dimension

Edgar Schein’s (2010) work on organisational culture highlights the importance of shared assumptions, values, and artefacts. In high-growth businesses, culture can fracture as teams scale without reinforcement. Employer brand, when managed effectively, acts as a cultural glue by articulating shared values and aligning them with employee experience.

Neglecting this alignment risks fragmentation, disengagement, and cultural drift. High-growth businesses that fail to reinforce culture often experience the 'scale-up ceiling', where operational complexity outpaces people capability, stalling growth.

Practical Risks of Employer Brand Neglect

1. Higher Attrition Employees in poorly branded organisations are more likely to leave, increasing turnover costs and draining institutional knowledge.

2. Slower Recruitment Weak employer brands struggle to attract top talent. Recruitment pipelines dry up, and costs increase.

3. Cultural Misalignment Without a clear employer brand, employees lack clarity on purpose and values, leading to disengagement.

4. Weakened Customer Experience Disengaged employees affect service quality, undermining customer trust.

5. Reduced Investor Confidence Talent instability raises concerns about execution risk and scalability.

Strategies to Strengthen Employer Brand in High-Growth Companies

1. Define and Communicate an Employer Value Proposition (EVP)

The EVP articulates what makes a company unique as an employer. It should align with organisational purpose and be consistently communicated across touchpoints (Backhaus and Tikoo, 2004).

2. Embed Culture into Growth Processes

Leadership must reinforce cultural values during recruitment, onboarding, and performance management. Schein’s (2010) cultural model emphasises that behaviours must align with stated values for authenticity.

3. Leverage Employee Advocacy

Employees are the most credible advocates. Encouraging authentic storytelling and feedback builds external trust and strengthens recruitment marketing.

4. Monitor Reputation Metrics

Track employee engagement, retention rates, and online reviews. Regular monitoring ensures the employer brand evolves with growth.

5. Integrate Employer Brand into Investor Storytelling

Highlighting low attrition, high engagement, or strong EVP in investor communications demonstrates resilience and strengthens valuation cases.

Case Examples

Spotify invested heavily in employer brand through its “Band Manifesto,” aligning employee experience with external messaging. This allowed it to scale rapidly while maintaining cultural cohesion (Kerrigan and Hart, 2016).

Both BrewDog and Revolut, by contrast, faced criticism over high turnover and toxic culture, which attracted negative press and investor scrutiny. Their struggles highlight how neglecting employer brand can create reputational risks that hinder growth.

Employer Brand as a Strategic Imperative

Employer brand is not a cosmetic exercise; it is a strategic asset in high-growth companies. Neglecting it introduces risks that extend into recruitment, culture, customer experience, and investor perception.

In high-growth contexts, talent is both the biggest enabler and the greatest vulnerability. Strong employer brands protect against fragility, attract and retain critical talent, and build reputational resilience.

High-growth companies that invest in employer brand are not simply improving HR outcomes—they are strengthening enterprise value, reinforcing investor confidence, and creating the cultural foundations for sustainable growth.

References

• Backhaus, K., & Tikoo, S. (2004). Conceptualizing and researching employer branding. Career Development International, 9(5), 501–517.

• Fombrun, C.J., & Van Riel, C.B.M. (2004). Fame and Fortune: How Successful Companies Build Winning Reputations. FT Prentice Hall.

• Kerrigan, F., & Hart, A. (2016). Branding and the arts: Intersection, theory and practice. Routledge.

• LinkedIn. (2022). Global Talent Trends Report. LinkedIn Talent Solutions.

• Moroko, L., & Uncles, M.D. (2008). Characteristics of successful employer brands. Journal of Brand Management, 16(3), 160–175.

Schein, E.H. (2010). Organizational Culture and Leadership (4th ed.). Jossey-Bass.