Leah Lenihan has spent the last seven years leading employer brand from the inside, shaping strategy and storytelling at global businesses including Marriott and IHG.
She entered the space through recruitment marketing, long before employer brand was widely understood, and quickly saw its potential to influence not just who joins a company, but who stays. Now, she’s focused on what happens after day one.
Because while employer brand is often treated as a tool for attraction, Leah believes its real value shows up once someone’s inside, when they’re asking: Does this place live up to what I was sold?
In this Wiser Expert interview, she shares why onboarding is make-or-break, how small moments build trust, and why employer brand teams should care just as much about retention as recruitment.
The employer brand promise doesn’t end at the offer stage
A strong employer brand gets attention. It wins clicks, raises awareness, and builds credibility. But Leah’s experience has taught her something important:
“We spend so much time on attraction that we forget to think about what happens after someone joins. That’s where the promise is tested.
Attraction is only half the story. The real test of your brand begins on day one.
If your employer brand is working, it means people are saying yes for the right reasons. But what they meet on the inside matters more. If the culture, behaviours, leadership, or onboarding experience doesn’t match what was promised externally, trust is lost quickly and often silently.
Leah sees employer branding as a two-way contract.
Candidates accept your offer based on a clear promise, but what happens when they join determines whether they stay and advocate or question their decision from day one.
A careers page can promise flexibility. A manager who denies a request proves whether it’s real.
This gap between perception and experience is where brands either build loyalty or lose it.
The first 90 days matter more than you think
One of Leah’s biggest takeaways is how undervalued onboarding can be. For many companies, the goal is to get someone in as quickly as possible, especially after a long vacancy or during a hiring surge. As a result of this, new joiners are often left without a clear plan, limited context, or even basic introductions to the people they need to speak to.
“You see it all the time. Job ads say ‘we want someone who can hit the ground running’. But if they’re running in the wrong direction, that’s not a win.”
At IHG, Leah saw what it looked like when onboarding is done properly:
Clear check-ins at 30, 60, 90 days
Structured access to the right people, in the right order
An actual plan for what success looks like in that role
It doesn’t have to be complicated, but it does require planning.
She explains that onboarding is where the brand promise becomes tangible. It’s where new hires ask themselves:
Does this feel like the company I was told about?, Do the values show up in how people work?, Do I feel like I belong here, or am I already on the back foot?
For employer brand teams, this phase can’t be ignored.
Retention is where employer brand earns its value
Leah’s worked in roles where the employer brand function was deeply connected to hiring and in recent years, she’s seen the challenge shift.
As recruitment pipelines improve, better tech, smarter targeting, and more efficient job boards, the pressure on employer brand to drive top-of-funnel traffic has softened slightly. In its place, a more strategic question is emerging:
Now that we’ve brought great people in—how do we keep them?
That’s where the employer brand has a bigger role to play in shaping:
Internal comms strategy
Onboarding structure
Leadership alignment
Cultural consistency
Recognition programmes
Pulse checks and employee feedback loops
To make this practical, Leah frames the challenge through the “3 Rs of Employer Brand After Day One”: Retention, Recognition, Reality. Retention is about ensuring people want to stay, not just join. Recognition is about proving the values you promote by consistently seeing and celebrating contributions. Reality is about closing the brand gap - making sure the lived experience matches the promise. Together, these three Rs give leaders a simple lens to test whether their employer brand is truly holding up once someone’s inside.
Recognition builds trust and loyalty
Leah sees recognition as a direct reflection of whether a culture is doing what it says it does.
“We talk about belonging, value, and appreciation in our EVP. But if people’s work isn’t seen, it’s just empty words.”
Recognition can be formal, like culture awards or informal, like a Slack shoutout, or a call-out in a team meeting. It can be about results or about effort. But in every case, it reinforces that people matter and that the business sees them.
When people see others being recognised, it builds a sense of belief in the system that effort is noticed and that contribution leads to visibility.
Recognition doesn’t need to be big, it just needs to be consistent.
Stop waiting for the perfect engagement survey
Most companies make feedback way too complicated: six-month engagement surveys, twenty-question diagnostics, cross-department analysis. By the time you get the data, the moment's already passed.
Her approach...
“One question every bi-weekly or monthly is often more powerful than a massive survey every six months.”
Some examples: Do you feel recognised for the work you’ve done recently?, Do you know how your role contributes to the wider business goals? Is your day-to-day experience matching what was promised when you joined?
A quick Microsoft Form, Google Survey or anonymous check-in can work, especially if you actually listen and act on the results. One question for leaders to review and act on quickly, instead of the cumbersome annual review with multiple data points.
When brand and experience don’t match
Leah calls it the "brand gap", the space between what a company says it’s like to work there and what it actually feels like day to day.
This gap can exist in:
Leadership behaviours
Flexibility policies that look good but don’t work in practice
Development promises that don’t materialise
Inclusion statements that aren’t backed by real culture
The danger is, people notice, especially those who’ve been promised one thing and delivered another.
“Your employer brand isn’t just your careers page. It’s what people say to each other in their first week. It’s whether they feel included. Whether their work gets seen. Whether they’re set up to succeed.”
If there’s a disconnect, you won’t always hear about it right away. But it will show up in Glassdoor reviews, exit interviews, internal disengagement—and your ability to retain the very people you worked so hard to attract.
Attraction is important, but it’s not enough
Leah’s core message is simple: Attraction fills seats. Experience keeps them filled. The real measure of employer brand isn’t how many people say yes - it’s how many stay and thrive because the promise matched the reality.
Because in a world where employees are more vocal, more connected, and more values-driven than ever, employer branding isn’t just about awareness. It’s about trust.
If you’re serious about employer brand, stop measuring clicks and start measuring trust.
