Today’s job market can feel like a battlefield where companies fight it out for skilled employees. But here’s the game changer: while organizations scramble to attract new hires, many overlook a crucial element – retaining the talent they already have. That’s when employer branding comes into focus, where generative AI is transforming the way businesses interact with their workforce, creating personalized experiences that keep employees engaged, committed and able to thrive.
Employees: Do they stay or do they go?
Talent, talent, talent. With every one of our clients, no matter the industry – from tech to life sciences and everything in between – we hear that there has never been a more difficult time to find qualified employees. In fact, according to the workforce solutions company ManpowerGroup, 75% of employers globally report difficulties finding qualified candidates, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce states there are only 71 workers for every 100 jobs available. There is an all-out war for talent.
Much of the focus has been on attracting new employees, but that’s only half the battle. Retaining employees is just as important, if not more so, as current employees can be a company’s greatest advocates and ambassadors. So, how exactly does a company attract and keep the right talent? That’s where employer branding comes in. Surprisingly, it’s not pay and benefits that spur employees to leave their company for a new one. It’s a combination of culture and engagement, as well as wellbeing and work-life balance.
We’ve learned enough over the last several years to realize that foosball tables, Taco Tuesdays, and a weekly happy hour does not an employer brand make. It goes far deeper. Employer branding must align closely with the corporate brand, mirroring the values and mission communicated to customers. The core drivers of your business are just that: the core drivers of your entire business. Your products, services, and employees.
Customer perception. Employee engagement. Organizational culture. Employer branding shapes all of them, and you have to move quickly to ensure you’re truly connecting with your employees. Enter GenAI stage right.
GenAI: A still unexplored game-changer
Generative AI tools – like ChatGPT, Claude, and Microsoft Copilot – can revolutionize employer branding and employee engagement. Yet despite their widespread use personally, these tools remain underutilized in HR and marketing teams. While 51% of marketers experiment with AI, only 3% of organizations apply GenAI in HR functions. Three percent! This is a massive, missed opportunity. GenAI can streamline workflows, enhance collaboration, and create personalized experiences that boost employee satisfaction and retention. By integrating GenAI into employer branding, companies can more effectively bridge the gap between a strong brand and an engaged workforce.
3 ways to kickstart your employer branding with GenAI
There are some organizations that have already used GenAI in their marketing and HR practices, and we can look to them as we incorporate GenAI into employer branding.
1. Time-saving survey and feedback analysis
While monthly pulse or annual engagement surveys may already be in place for many enterprises, they often take a considerable amount of time and expertise to first create and then quickly evaluate and interpret the responses, especially when it comes to open-ended questions and text data. With its natural language processing capabilities, GenAI can start by generating tailored surveys and then analyzing the responses and feedback to summarize results in real time. This is especially helpful for organizations with thousands of employees, each with their own individual experience at work.
The massive healthcare company Johnson & Johnson recently did just this. With over 140,000 employee open-ended comments to an engagement survey, the company’s HR team fed those comments into ChatGPT and wrote a detailed prompt for ChatGPT, consisting of over 100 lines of text and 30 different commands, including, “Start with positive themes, transition smoothly to mixed themes, and end with more negative themes,” and “Be sure to include a section that highlights employee recommendations.” The end result was 15 summaries that were validated and sent to J&J’s leadership.
GenAI has the power to easily uncover key trends and pain points, and with its useful and actionable insights, companies can address workplace issues proactively, make the changes necessary to boost retention, and ensure the employer brand is resonating with employees.
2. Personalized development for every employee
Using GenAI to analyze employee performance data, companies can quickly create individual career pathways for their employees.
Take the platform Sana Labs, for example. Its own GenAI uses “detailed learner data to assess competencies and learning styles.” With 75% fewer questions than benchmarks, Sana can pinpoint a learner’s current knowledge, create “personalized learning paths which continuously assess proficiency,” and improve long-term retention by 3-4x. These bespoke learning approaches allow employees to receive development modules that are tailored to their individual work history, skill proficiency, and learning pace and style.
3. Enhanced onboarding
We all know how overwhelming onboarding can be. With so many documents and training materials to read through and new processes to learn, it’s a lot. And, because of that, turnover rates can be as high as 20% within the first 45 days, and a whopping 80% of workers who receive poor onboarding plan to quit. So let’s make onboarding better!
One way to do that is with your very own GPT. OpenAI now allows users to create custom GPT agents. By feeding it knowledge during configuration – like onboarding and training documents – you can give your own GPT additional context to reference. New employees can then ask questions to the GPT to their heart’s content, and the GPT can provide answers based on those very documents! Or, you can implement other AI-based learning tools, like Sana Labs, mentioned above. French B2B business Ankorstore used to struggle with getting its 350 employees to complete their onboarding program. After working with Sana, completion rates are 100%.
Whether you use ChatGPT or another AI learning tool, these platforms streamline the entire onboarding process, delivering organized and digestible resources that accelerate integration.
Always the right balance
It’s important to remember that GenAI is a tool, not a replacement for human interaction. Think of it as your companion, helping you along the way. Regular quality checks are absolutely essential to ensure accuracy and compliance with a brand’s existing voice and values. Automating onboarding and administrative tasks with AI can reduce employee time spent on repetitive tasks by 60-70%. Use that newfound extra free time on meaningful human interactions and engagement.
In a competitive job market where retaining top talent is as critical as attracting, companies cannot afford to overlook their employer branding efforts and – in turn – the transformative power of GenAI. By incorporating these powerful tools, businesses can create meaningful, personalized experiences that foster employee satisfaction and engagement. Whether through survey analysis, tailored career development, or streamlined onboarding, GenAI offers unparalleled potential to ensure employees feel valued, aligned with the mission, and inspired to stay.
In the end, AI isn’t just about boosting productivity or automating processes – it’s about helping businesses create a workplace that people are proud to be a part of. And that is employer branding at its best.
Want to learn more about AI?
Stay tuned to the P&B blog in the new year as we share lessons learned from our own journey to become a truly AI-enabled agency. We’ve been busy and we’ve got even more in store in 2025…
