Employer branding merchandise: products that make people want to join you

In marketing, a promotional item must be seen by as many people as possible. In employer branding, it must first be appreciated by the person who receives it. The audience is no longer an anonymous prospect, but a student met at a fair, a new recruit or a long-standing colleague.

Three requirements follow from this. The product must be useful every day, accompanying the person at the office, on the move or at home. It must have perceived quality, because a product that breaks quickly associates your name with something fragile. Finally, it must be pleasant to show off: an employee proud to wear a sweatshirt in the company’s colours becomes an ambassador, provided they really like the garment.

Employer branding is built over a person’s entire journey with the company. Each stage calls for a different product:

• Recruitment: school fairs, job fairs, discovery days. A light, practical product, easy to take away, leaves a memory after the meeting. For a stand, our promotional products for trade shows page details the organisation.
• Onboarding: the first day sets the tone. A set designed for an employee’s arrival is presented on the employee welcome kit page.
• Team life: seminar, project launch, collective success. A shared product strengthens the sense of belonging.
• Departures: thanking someone who leaves the company also matters, because they will keep talking about you.

The best indicator of a good employer branding product is its lifespan. Favour what is used every day: a water bottle refilled at the office, a mug, a quality notebook, a bag taken everywhere.

Textiles occupy a special place. A well-cut sweatshirt or jacket, worn outside work, makes your brand visible in real life. For these pieces, embroidery is the benchmark marking: the thread is sewn into the textile and withstands repeated washing. Tone on tone, a thread the colour of the garment, gives an understated result that many employees prefer to a large contrasting logo. Browse our custom sweatshirts and jackets to get an idea.

An employer branding product does not need to shout your name. A moderately sized logo, carefully placed, or a simple signature is often enough. The more discreet the product, the more likely it is to be used outside the office, and therefore seen.

Consistency with your brand guidelines remains essential. Specify your Pantone references so that the colour is the same on all your materials, and provide a clean vector file. If your values include environmental commitment, choose products in line with that message: our selection of eco-friendly promotional products avoids a gap between the message and the product.

The people most concerned are best placed to say what they like. Before ordering, submit a short selection to a few employees with different profiles. Their reactions will spare you the product everyone finds nice and nobody uses.

For textiles, plan ahead for sizes: collect them in advance rather than distributing at random. A garment that does not fit is never worn. Also think about practical uses by job: a team that travels a lot does not have the same needs as an office-based team.

Involving the teams also means involving them in the artwork. Some companies add an internal phrase to the logo, an in-joke everyone understands or the name of a unifying project. This detail turns a brand product into a team product. Keep this text short, however, and check that it remains understandable, without embarrassment, for an outsider who might see it.

HR needs are often recurring: every new starter, every fair, every seminar. Rather than multiplying small orders as you go, take stock once for the year. You will reach the minimum quantities, shown on every product page, and more attractive price tiers more easily.

A simple calendar helps a lot: list the recruitment fairs and shows you take part in, the approximate pace of new starters and the internal highlights. You will see the shared needs and the periods for ordering emerge. Our selection of products for welcoming employees can serve as a starting point. Keep timeless, undated artwork to build up a reasonable stock of welcome items. To put several different items together, the Create my pack tool lets you build a set in a single step. And do not forget that the production lead time runs from the approval of the proof: identify from the outset who approves on the HR side and on the communications side.