Every company has an Employer Brand. Most don’t start paying attention to it until something goes wrong. Candidates aren’t coming in. People are leaving during their probationary period. The hiring process takes too long. And then someone says: we need to do something about our Employer Brand.

The answer starts with understanding what an Employer Brand is and how Employer Branding actually works. Not as a campaign. As a system.

A Brand Is Formed in the Mind, not Through Marketing

An Employer Brand isn’t what you say about yourself. It’s the image people form on their own—based on what they experience, see, and hear. It takes shape in their minds as a mental construct.

This construct doesn’t emerge all at once. It builds gradually, with every interaction with your company. An ad someone catches a glimpse of. A review on Atmoskop or Glassdoor. A conversation with a recruiter. The first day on the job. Everything people experience. And finally, their departure—their split from the company.

As an employer, you cannot directly control this construct. But you can purposefully design and influence the experiences from which it arises. And that is precisely the essence of Employer Branding as a system.

Experience Is the Foundation of Everything

Every interaction with a company is an experience. And every experience adds a layer to the image of the employer in a person’s mind.

Experiences come in two forms:

Real-life experience—what a person actually goes through. What kind of work they do, what the work environment is like, how managers behave, and what the company actually offers.

Communication experience—what a person hears and sees about the company. What the company says about itself in ads, on its website, on social media, and in its internal magazine.

The gap between these two lines is where the system fails. The company promises one thing, but people experience something else. Or, conversely, the company has a great environment but doesn’t know how to showcase it. In both cases, the system isn’t working for you. It’s working against you.

RACE: The Journey Through Which People Gain Experiences

People don’t come into contact with a company all at once. They go through several stages gradually. Each stage brings a different type of experience, different expectations, different tools, and different metrics.

To understand and manage this experience, we use the RACE model. We didn’t invent it; the model was created by the authors at Smart Insights for digital marketing. We’ve adapted it for the needs of Employer Branding.

• Reach – a person learns about the company. First impression, brand awareness. Examples of metrics: posts reach, number of views, brand awareness.
• Act – a person expresses interest. They visit the career page, follow the company, and look for more information. Examples of metrics: career page traffic, bounce rate, social media engagement.
• Convert – A person makes a decision. They submit an application, go through the selection process, receive an offer, start the job, and complete onboarding. Examples of metrics: number of applications, time to hire, onboarding success rate, turnover during the trial period.
• Engage - The person becomes part of the company. Engagement, development, loyalty. Examples of metrics: eNPS, turnover, engagement.

An Employer Brand is built gradually through all four phases. You can’t skip any of them. A great campaign (a tactic for the Reach phase) won’t make up for poor onboarding, a tactic for the Convert phase.

The authors of the model gradually expanded it by adding one more layer. At the very top, they added the Plan phase—defining goals and strategy before any communication even begins.

This gave rise to the PRACE model (WORK). The authors (British) certainly didn’t realize this. But we, as Czechs, did. And it strikes us as a wonderful coincidence: Employer Branding simply revolves around work. And it is systematic, purposeful, never-ending work.

In the context of Employer Branding, the Plan phase is what we call the EB concept. It is the phase of Insight and Creation—understanding the situation, defining the problem, and setting the strategy. Without it, every Reach, Act, Convert, or Engage is just shooting in the dark.

Want to know what the EB concept looks like in practice? Check out our offer.

PIE: In-Depth at Every Stage

RACE shows us a person’s journey over time. But the experience at each stage also has its own depth. And that is precisely what the PIE model captures—our innovation, our expansion of the RACE model into a new dimension.

PIE is based on our practical experience—on dozens of surveys in which we found that companies’ challenges in Employer Branding recur across three layers:

• P - Performance - what a person actually does, how, with whom, why, and what they receive in return. This is the essence of the EVP.
• I - Internal Communication - how the company communicates internally. How it informs, engages, and explains.
• E – external communication – how the company presents itself to the outside world. What it says, to whom, and through which channels.

The combination of RACE and PIE creates a matrix – a diagnostic map of the entire Employer Branding system. Each cell of the matrix represents a specific area of experience that can be monitored, measured, and specifically influenced.

How to Manage the System

A system without management is not a system. It’s just a list of activities.

Research as the First Step

Before you start changing anything, you need to know where you stand. What are people actually experiencing? Where is the gap between the real experience and what you’re communicating? Situational analysis and empathy aren’t optional—they’re the foundation.

Defining the problem and goals

Research reveals what isn’t working. This leads to specific goals—not general ambitions, but measurable results. For example:

• Reduce turnover during the trial period from 20% to 10%
• Shorten time to hire to 30 days
• Increase eNPS from 15 to 40 points

Changing the Experience - Two Lines of Action

Once you know where the problem lies, you can take action. Always on two fronts:

• The line of actual experience—what a person actually goes through. Changes to working conditions, leadership style, benefits, and onboarding. Here, you change the EVP in practice.
• The communication line—how you talk about yourself. What you promise, how you say it, where you say it. Here, you refine the image you project.

Both lines must be in harmony. If you change only the communication without changing the actual experience, the gap will widen.

Ongoing Monitoring and Response

The system doesn’t work with a one-time launch. The experience across all phases of RACE must be continuously monitored and analyzed. Catch signals early: a drop in engagement, an increase in turnover, a decline in reviews.

And don’t just react to problems. Employer Branding must also be actively refined in line with the company’s new ambitions: during growth, acquisitions, mergers, or entry into a new market. Every major change affects people’s experience. And thus your Employer Brand.

The System Only Works if You Manage it

Employer Brand, as a mental construct, is constantly being shaped, whether you like it or not. The question isn’t whether to build it. The question is whether you’re building it consciously.

The RACE&PIE matrix gives you a map. Research gives you your location. Goals give you direction. And ongoing experience management gives you control.

Pause to consider one question: Do you know where in your system experiences are being created today that you cannot influence?

That is exactly where to start.