Training isn’t just a nice perk – it’s a strategic pillar of employer branding. From onboarding to leadership, development shapes perception, performance, and staff retention. This article from Lucas Marshall and Jason Braun explores how outcome-based learning and smart design can future-proof your brand, boost ROI, and create truly aspirational workplaces.
Employment branding is big business. According to a report from LinkedIn’s Talent Solutions division, 75% of job seekers consider an employer’s brand before even applying for a job, while 72% of recruiting leaders worldwide backed these jobseekers’ views up as having a significant impact on hiring.
LinkedIn’s report also revealed some of the implications on businesses’ bottom lines: empowered with a great employer brand, organisations can see a 28% reduction in turnover, save as much as 50% on cost-per-hire, attract 50% more qualified applicants, and hire 1-2 times faster.
Corporate development and training should be an indispensable, foundational tenet to anchoring authentic, aspirational, and strong brands that have staying power
The inverse would just as reasonably ring true – a lack of an employer brand, or one that engages in, for example, highly unpopular return to office (RTO) policies is one doomed to drive employees away.
Nonetheless, big brands have more recently cast aside hard-earned brand equity in the sudden corporate cascade of attacks on worker flexibility. Return-to-office orders are puzzling from brands whose indescribable “Googleyness’ and productivity-driving free employee meals were highly studied, aspirational, and even made it to Hollywood in the film The Internship. You’d think the brands that brought us the technology we love would themselves be more tech-forward from a corporate development perspective.
Rather than manifesting a negative employer brand, focusing on what you can control, such as reworking that corporate office to work for you, or investing in a positive employee onboarding experience for employees wherever they work, is imperative to manifesting a positive, aspirational brand.
Corporate development and training should be an indispensable, foundational tenet to anchoring authentic, aspirational, and strong brands that have staying power. As a PwC report found, an excellent customer experience, the foundation for great product development, is built first on a superior employee experience.
The critical role that corporate development and training plays in employer brands
Organisations that invest in training see a 24% higher rate of return. Other studies have found a positive “and direct link between the organisation and the training of business leaders in programs of skills and competencies, as well as between this training and corporate entrepreneurship processes carried out in the organisation”.
The most effective training programs don’t begin with content. They begin with outcomes. This is where competency-based education (CBE) and Backward Design transform traditional approaches.
Both frameworks start by asking a deceptively simple question: what should people be able to do when this training is complete? Unlike time-based or compliance-driven training models, CBE focuses on demonstrated mastery. It replaces the old notion of seat-time with performance. Employees progress when they’ve shown they can apply what they’ve learned in relevant, job-specific ways.
This alignment with real-world application supports a more dynamic, equitable model of workplace learning. It meets employees where they are and respects their time by advancing them based on competence, not clock-watching.
Wiggins and McTighe’s Backward Design approach takes this further by encouraging trainers to work in reverse: from goal to evidence to instruction. Rather than beginning with slides or talking points, you start with a clear vision of what success looks like on the job.
From this foundation, you design assessments that measure that success and only then build the learning experiences that support it. The result? A training program that feels less like a requirement and more like a roadmap.
Southern New Hampshire University and Western Governors University have scaled this approach nationally. Students, many of whom are working adults, demonstrate competencies through projects, simulations, and assessments. This model has successfully supported nurses, teachers, and IT professionals for years.
Resources, roles and corporate learning
The takeaway for corporate development teams is clear: when education centres around outcomes rather than inputs, it drives retention, clarity, and internal mobility. Whether onboarding new hires or preparing future leaders, aligning training to observable goals makes development more efficient, more meaningful, and ultimately more brand-aligned.
Onboarding modules help familiarise new hires with company culture, enhance product awareness/mix, educate on wider industry trends, as well as acquainting them with standard processes, work tools, etc. These combined resources and guided training ensure new employees thrive in their role and have a positive impact on the brand.
Many fields have dedicated resources and roles, like training program leaders whose role is to oversee, execute, and monitor the performance of training programs. In the Nuclear Power industry, the role of safety inspector is to monitor safety protocols and employee training to ensure employee/public safety is assured with minimal incidents.
Aspirational brands start with aspirational development
Some of the best brands are empowered by the best employees, and corporate training plays no small part in that. Whether it’s training a new hire, a team, or empowering that team to create great products and customer experiences, it all starts with learning together.
Lucas Marshall is Integrated Content Marketing Developer at Mirion
Jason Braun is Program Development Instructional Designer at Western Governors University
