Last Friday, we held a webinar titled “Employer Brand Is a System.” For those who couldn’t make it, here’s a summary. For those who did attend, here’s a recap of the key points.

The webinar was divided into three sections. First, a bit of psychology and neuroscience; then, a practical look at how to map people’s experiences; and finally, our approach to working with this information systematically. At the end of this article, we’ve shared the full recording of the webinar if you’d like to see the customized workspace in Miro.

Block 1: Psychology and Neuroscience

The Employer Brand Isn’t on the Wall. It’s in People’s Minds

The fundamental idea that should underpin every discussion about Employer Branding: the Employer Brand isn’t what you say about yourself. It’s what people think of you.

It’s shaped by thousands of interactions—from the moment someone first sees your job ad, through their first day on the job, all the way to how you say goodbye. Every experience tips the scales one way or the other. Good experiences on one side, bad ones on the other. And the scales tip slowly but steadily.

So you can’t “own” your Employer Brand. It resides in the minds of the people who know you. But you can steer it by the experiences you provide to people.

Why It’s Not About Images, but About Brain Chemistry

Employer Branding is still largely perceived as a visual concept. Companies want to see results—something on a screen, on a bulletin board, or in an ad. That’s natural: we take in over 60% of information through our eyes. But there’s much more going on beneath the surface.

Paul Zak, author of The Trust Factor, describes the mechanism behind how every work environment functions: the brain likes predictability. When we work with people who share our values, we know what to expect from them. That puts us at ease. And in a safe environment, oxytocin—the hormone of trust and connection—is released.

People who feel safe are more open, more creative, and collaborate better. This translates into engagement and, ultimately, into the company’s performance. Employer Branding, therefore, isn’t just about visuals. It’s about how people experience the environment where they spend most of their time.

System 1 and System 2: How People Evaluate Employers

In his book Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman describes two modes in which the brain operates. System 1 is fast, automatic, and intuitive. System 2 is slow, analytical, and conscious.

System 1 reacts to first impressions—what the company looks like, the vibe it gives off, and whether it appeals to me. This is the image level. System 2 kicks in when I start thinking about whether this company will actually offer me what I’m looking for: security, purpose, growth, good pay, and great colleagues. This is the position level.

Therefore, it’s not enough to build an Employer Brand solely on the level of visuals and communication. It must have a solid foundation in what the company actually offers.

Associative Memory, Priming, and the Halo Effect

Experiences aren’t stored in isolation in the brain. They interconnect, activate one another, and influence how we perceive every subsequent stimulus. A single strong impression—positive or negative—can color our entire perception of an employer.

We call this phenomenon the halo effect. Effective recruitment communication creates expectations. If those expectations aren’t met on the first day of work—perhaps because no one was there to greet the new hire—the entire impression can collapse. A single bad experience can overshadow dozens of good ones.

Why Ambassadors Are More Powerful Than Campaigns

Mirror neurons are the neurological basis of empathy and social learning. We respond to other people’s behavior, mirror their emotions, and form our own judgments based on that.

The most persuasive communication doesn’t come from you or your campaigns. It comes from your people. Their authentic stories, reviews on Atmoskop, and word-of-mouth recommendations to friends—all of this builds or destroys trust in a way that no paid advertising can replace.

Block 2: RACE×PIE as a Map of Experience

Experience Is the Cornerstone. But How Do We Capture It?

Every person who comes into contact with your company goes through a certain journey. First, they learn about you. Then they start researching. They might apply, join, stay, or leave. And at every moment of that journey, they experience something.

Experience is the cornerstone of the Employer Brand. But how can we work with it systematically? How can we map it, define it, and start managing it? Years ago, we came across a model that gave us our first point of reference.

RACE: The Four Stages Every Person Goes Through

The RACE model comes from digital marketing. Reach, Act, Convert, Engage—reach out, capture attention, convert, engage. We didn’t invent it; we borrowed it. And we turned it on its head—from sales to people.

Reach is the moment when someone learns about you. An ad, a social media post, a mention from a friend. You send out a signal and wait to see who responds.

Act is the interaction phase. Someone has visited your career site, is following your profile, or attended a job fair. It’s no longer a one-way broadcast; a dialogue is taking place. Interest and trust begin to build.

Convert is conversion—but not into a customer. Into a colleague. They send a resume, an interview takes place, an offer is made. And because onboarding determines whether a person truly takes root, it also belongs in this phase. Only when a new employee successfully completes their probationary period have they truly "converted".

Engage is the foundation of the entire system. People who are engaged aren’t just satisfied—they’re ambassadors. Through their presence, recommendations, and stories, they contribute to the Reach and Act phases. The funnel closes into a loop. And that’s precisely why Engage is the most important phase, even though it looks like the smallest one in the diagram. If the foundation isn’t solid, the entire system will start to crumble sooner or later.

PIE: Three Layers That RACE Couldn’t Capture

RACE gave us a horizontal coordinate—phases over time. But after years of working with clients, we realized that wasn’t enough. The problems we encounter aren’t just about phases. They’re about layers. We added a second axis. We named it PIE.

External is the communication layer—how the company communicates externally, how it attracts people, and how it presents itself.

Internal is the layer of internal communication—what’s happening inside, how well-informed people are, and whether they know what’s going on and why.

Performance is the core—the actual work performance. Effective tools, clear processes, a good manager, a meaningful role, and fair compensation. It is precisely this layer that tends to be overlooked. Companies start addressing Employer Branding from the communication layer—yet the problem runs deeper. People don’t leave because the company wasn’t portrayed in a positive light. They leave because every day they encounter something that isn’t working.

RACE×PIE: A Map That Shows Where You Really Stand

When we combine both axes, we get a 4×3 matrix—twelve cells that cover the entire range of people’s experiences with your company as an employer. From the first point of contact through recruitment and onboarding to day-to-day work performance. This encompasses communication, internal processes, and the very nature of the work itself.

This matrix serves as a map of experience points. It helps answer the question: Where exactly—and in what areas—are people running into issues? Which cell is critical? Where should you start? And just as important: an empty cell isn’t a mistake. It’s valuable information: there’s no touchpoint here, and that’s okay.

Three Discrepancies That Most Often Undermine Employer Branding

An experience map alone isn’t enough. You need to know what to look for. In practice, we encounter three fundamental discrepancies time and time again.

The first is the gap between aspiration and reality. Company leadership describes what kind of employer the company is, but the people inside see it differently. This gap is the most common reason why Employer Branding doesn’t work.

The second gap is between supply and demand. The company offers something that people no longer want, or, conversely, fails to recognize what the job market now considers standard.

The third and most dangerous difference is the gap between promises and reality. In its communications, the company promises something it then fails to deliver. This discrepancy comes back like a boomerang: disappointed people speak out, and reviews write themselves.

Block 3: HCEB—How to Work with It Systematically

A System That Needs a Methodology

Having a map of experience points is a good start. But the map alone won’t change anything. You need an approach that tells you how to work with it, how to find out what’s really going on, how to propose a change, and how to implement it.

Employer Branding is a socio-technical system. It involves people, processes, tools, and culture—and everything influences everything else. Companies most often come to us saying they aren’t getting enough applicants, or that people are leaving, or that engagement is declining. These are symptoms. The causes run deeper, and you can only find them if you look at it as a system.

Design Thinking + Marketing Planning = HCEB

Design thinking isn’t about design in the visual sense. It’s an approach to solving complex problems that begins with empathy—understanding the people affected—and continues with the search for the root cause, not just the visible symptom. It’s iterative: you try, you learn, you adjust.

Marketing planning provides structure: situational analysis, goals, strategy, implementation, and measurement. The combination of these two approaches forms the foundation of what we call Human-Centered Employer Branding—HCEB. It always starts with people and their needs. It ends with measurable results.

Three Phases: Exploration, Creation, Action

HCEB operates in three main phases. They are not linear; the process loops back, builds upon itself, and iterates. But each phase has its own focus.

Exploration is about understanding the situation. How do people perceive you? What does the company, as an employer, actually offer them, and what does it take away? Where are the biggest gaps between aspiration and reality? In this phase, you talk to employees, analyze the competition, and map out touchpoints. The output is insight—not just data, but an understanding of why things work or don’t work the way they do.

Creation is about strategy and creativity. Based on this understanding, you define what you want to change and how. This gives rise to the EVP: the employer value proposition. The brand identity, tone of voice, and communication approach are defined. Creation isn’t just desk work: it involves workshops with employees, prototyping, and testing the direction before investing in implementation.

Action is implementation. Change projects, communication activities, employee training, and setting up metrics. It also includes quick wins—things that can be improved immediately, without a large budget or complex planning. Action never ends: the system is continuously fine-tuned based on what the data and feedback reveal.

Context Is King

In recent years, AI has had a significant impact on how we work with the system. Transcribing interviews, thematic analysis, brainstorming, and content prototyping—you can do all of this faster and with higher quality than ever before. That leaves more time to actually think.

But what we’re now discussing as the next step is context. It’s not enough to have a good AI tool. What matters is what you feed it. A structured knowledge base, files, and folders that describe who you are, what you offer, how you work, and what you’ve learned—that’s what turns a generic tool into your tool. The results then don’t come from the internet, but from what you yourself know and can do. Context is the foundation. The tool is secondary.

PRACE: No Pain, No Gain

Over time, the creators of the RACE model added one more letter to it: P for Plan. This gave rise to PRACE.

In Czech, it sounds like “práce” (work). And that’s no coincidence—it’s something that can’t be ignored. Employer Branding is all about people at work and the communication surrounding it. And as the old proverb says: No Pain, No Gain.

P means that every communication must be based on a concept—a plan. Answers to the questions: Who are we as an employer? What do we offer? To whom? Why should anyone care? Without this foundation, communication becomes haphazard; you react to situations instead of shaping them. PRACE is a complete system: a concept as the foundation, RACE as a communication roadmap, and PIE as the third dimension of the experience.

Conclusion

It’s an Investment. And It Should Pay Off

Employer Branding comes at a cost: people’s time, money for tools, and media space. Like any investment, it should pay off.

Churchill once said that he didn’t trust any statistics he hadn’t falsified himself. If we consider the statistics, data from LinkedIn Talent Solutions suggests that companies with a strong Employer Brand have 50% lower recruitment costs, 28% lower turnover, and 20% higher performance. Take these as rough estimates, not as guaranteed facts. But they point in the right direction.

Five Things You Can Do Right Now

Over the years of working with various companies, we’ve found that five basic principles work well. They aren’t complicated. But surprisingly few companies actually follow them.

• Start with understanding, not communication. Before you launch a campaign or rewrite your careers website, find out how people really perceive you. You don’t need expensive surveys—just ask the people you already have.
• Look for differences. How do you see things, and how do your people see them? What do you offer, and what do people actually want? It’s precisely in these gaps that opportunities for improvement lie.
• Create a map. RACE×PIE will help you systematically map out the experience and decide where to start. Without a map, you’ll wander aimlessly.
• Plan only after that. Only when you know where you stand and what you want to change does it make sense to plan activities and set priorities.
• Think iteratively. Employer Branding is not a project with an end date. If something isn’t working, go back, figure out why, and try a different approach. Change is part of the process, not a failure.

The following video is from our webinar (only in Czech).