Two trades that the market separates
Most companies organise their HR communications in two blocks. On one side, an employer branding agency facing candidates: promise, careers site, campaigns. On the other, an internal communications agency facing employees: magazine, intranet, events. Two providers, two budgets, two messages.
Some agencies now advertise both skills. What really changes the situation is not the advertising but what the agency measures: can it compare what candidates find about the company with what employees say about it? Without that measurement, two trades brought together on a website are still two trades.
The same reader, at two moments
An engineer reads a job page before applying. A few months later, he receives the welcome booklet, reads the internal letter, listens to his manager. He judges the second experience by the standard of the first.
Our reading, drawn from our work with industrial employers: a departure within the first eighteen months has less to do with salary than with the gap between what was promised and what is experienced. A diagnostic confirms or rules this out in your company, and that is precisely its value. An early departure costs the recruitment, the training, the managers’ time and a second recruitment.
Recruiting is expensive. Recruiting twice for the same post costs double.
Three signs of a broken promise
You can spot them without an agency.
- Employee reviews contradict the careers page. What your teams say on review sites and in interviews does not resemble what you promise.
- The images do not look like the teams. A shop-floor photograph bought from a stock library, a portrait that is not of an actual employee: the candidate remembers nothing, or worse, becomes wary.
- The onboarding does not reuse the words of the recruitment. The arrival booklet, the first month, the manager’s message talk about something other than the job advert.
A single one of these signs is enough to justify a measurement before any new content.
How a single agency works
Bringing employer brand and internal communications together only makes sense if the method changes. Here is what that involves.
- Measure the gap before producing. What candidates find about you, including in generative AI engines, what your employees say about you through a short, anonymous survey, and the distance between the two. At our agency, this is the employer gap diagnostic, at a fixed price.
- Deal with what must be dealt with before communicating. When the gap comes from reality and not from the message, reality must be corrected first. An agency that produces anyway amplifies the problem.
- Work with a duo. One contact on the human resources side, one on the communications side, present at the same meetings. A programme carried by a single department does not survive its second year.
- Produce once, use twice. A jobs reportage feeds both the careers site and the internal magazine. The same real images serve recruitment and internal life, instead of being bought twice.
- Keep a single editorial calendar. What management announces internally, what the careers page asserts externally: one thread.
Our full approach is described on the Method page, and the two areas of expertise in Employer brand and Internal communications.
How to know whether it works
A linked promise is measured on both sides, with the same indicators over time.
- On the candidates’ side: the quality of the applications received, rather than their volume, and what generative AI engines answer when asked whether the company is a good employer.
- On the employees’ side: early departures, and internal readership of materials, that is, what is read, by whom, and what is not.
- Between the two: the gap itself, measured again after a few months, with the same protocol as at the start.
A protocol that your teams can repeat without the agency is the best guarantee of not depending on it.
When it is better to keep two providers
A single agency is not always the right answer. Two providers remain reasonable in three cases.
- Your internal communications are already handled by a solid team or agency, and your need concerns only employer brand.
- Your assignment is one-off and limited to one side, for example a recruitment campaign for a specific site.
- You already have an HR and communications duo in place that coordinates two agencies closely.
In these cases, demand at least one common anchor point: a shared measurement, or a written promise that both agencies reuse word for word.
Frequently asked questions
Can a single agency really do both?
This can be checked. Ask for references on each of the two sides: an internal communications programme that has lasted several years, and a piece of employer brand or recruitment work. An agency that shows only one of them probably has only one trade.
Should employees be interviewed for an employer brand?
Yes, it is non-negotiable. An employer promise written without them is a communicator’s promise, and it falls apart at the first job interview.
And what if our employees speak badly of us?
You hear it from us rather than from a review site, and you have the choice to act. That is the purpose of the diagnostic.
Does it cost more than a specialist agency?
The comparison is about the total: two providers, two messages to synchronise, and the cost of a second recruitment when the promise is not kept. The amount of an entry fixed-price package is deducted from the services that follow, as soon as a contract is entrusted to us.
Have a promise to link up? Describe your situation: we reply within two working days. For an overview of the trade, also read HR communications agency: what it does and how to choose one.