This interview is with Denise Gredler, Founder & CEO at BestCompaniesAZ.

Denise Gredler, Founder & CEO, BestCompaniesAZ

For readers meeting you for the first time, how do you describe your role and focus in employer branding today?

For more than two decades, I’ve led BestCompaniesAZ as Arizona’s premier employer branding and media platform—designed to showcase only the state’s most credible, award-winning employers. We elevate these companies year-round, bringing their culture, leadership, thought leadership, and community impact to life in the marketplace. BestCompaniesAZ is built on one belief: workplace credibility should be leveraged to strengthen both your employer brand and consumer brand—so you attract the right talent and earn customer trust. My focus today is helping leaders turn that credibility into consistent visibility and real outcomes, not just a one-time award moment.

What pivotal experiences or decisions led you into employer branding and shaped how you work now?

My path into employer branding started in my corporate HR career as a VP of HR, where our culture work earned Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For recognition in 1999 and 2000—ranking #12 our very first year. What shaped me most was seeing how powerful that credibility could be when you use it beyond recruiting: we leveraged the award in Wall Street presentations, customer conversations, shared best practices across subsidiaries, and company-wide brand storytelling—not just hiring. Long before “employer brand” became a buzzword, we were naturally using workplace recognition to strengthen both the employer brand and the consumer brand together.  That experience became the blueprint—and the passion—behind BestCompaniesAZ: helping award-winning employers turn credible recognition into year-round visibility and trust. Today, my focus is elevating that credibility through storytelling, thought leadership, and community impact so it drives outcomes with both talent and customers.

To kick off strategy, when you build or refresh an employer value proposition, what first step has proven most critical in your experience?

In my experience, the most critical first step in refreshing an EVP is listening for the truth of the employee experience. That’s also how leading culture and research partners approach it: UKG starts EVP work by gathering insights through surveys, 1:1s, focus groups, and senior leader sessions. Energage emphasizes giving employees a voice through survey feedback and open-ended comments that surface the themes shaping culture. And Great Place to Work reinforces that a strong EVP isn’t just perks or pay—it’s the culture, values, and experiences people live every day.  At BestCompaniesAZ, we help clients take those validated insights and bring them to life through year-round storytelling that builds trust.

Building on that, how do you test whether your EVP resonates with priority talent segments before a full rollout?

BestCompaniesAZ doesn’t run EVP testing, but the research partners we work with consistently recommend a simple approach: test early with the exact talent segments you care about before you scale. That typically looks like small focus groups and/or short pulse surveys with priority roles or locations, plus open-ended feedback to confirm what feels authentic and what doesn’t. Research companies like Great Place to Work and Energage also encourage segmenting results so you can see whether the EVP is resonating consistently across different employee groups. Once that validation is in place, we help clients translate what’s resonating into real examples and storytelling they can confidently share year-round.

Once the EVP is validated, what content formats and channels have most effectively brought it to life and driven qualified applicants for you?

Once an EVP is validated, we’ve seen it come to life best through a mix of trust-building storytelling and high-intent visibility—and that’s exactly where BestCompaniesAZ plays a strong role. On our platform, the biggest drivers of qualified applicants are a strong employer profile/“Best Employer & Industry” landing pages, employee and leader spotlights, and short culture videos that show proof behind the promise. Those assets work best when they’re amplified consistently across LinkedIn and social, email/newsletters, blog/editorial, and PR/community spotlights—so the EVP shows up more than once. At BestCompaniesAZ, we help award-winning employers turn EVP themes into repeatable promotion and year-round visibility that builds trust and attracts the right talent.

To scale that impact, what have you done to equip employees and hiring managers to share authentic stories without it sounding scripted?

What we see work best is what our clients do internally: they make storytelling easy and consistent without “scripts.” They start by aligning leaders and hiring managers on a few EVP proof points, then use simple prompts—why you joined, why you stay, a moment you felt proud, what makes this team different—so employees can answer in their own words. They keep it lightweight with quick interviews, short videos, and informal spotlights, and then have marketing/HR lightly edit for clarity while protecting the person’s voice. Our role at BestCompaniesAZ is to help package those authentic stories into polished, ready-to-share content and amplify them year-round so it feels real—not rehearsed.

As results emerge, which metric has most convincingly demonstrated employer branding impact to senior leaders in your work?

In my work, the metric that most convincingly demonstrates employer branding impact to senior leaders is action—how many people move from “I saw your story” to “I clicked to learn more, view jobs, or apply.” On the BestCompaniesAZ platform, that shows up most clearly in click-through rates and traffic to an employer’s profile and careers page (we often average around 25% CTR – some reaching 35%), because it reflects real intent—not just impressions. When clients can connect that engagement to their own ATS data—qualified applicants, interview volume, or hires by source—it becomes even more powerful. But even on its own, consistent, measurable action is usually the proof point that wins leadership over.

When resources are tight, what scrappy employer branding tactic has delivered outsized results for you?

When resources are tight, the “scrappiest” tactic that delivers high-impact results in my work is helping clients leverage the credibility they’ve already earned. Simply being featured on the BestCompaniesAZ platform can drive strong organic visibility because people are actively searching for “best companies” and award-winning employers. The key is to repurpose one strong employer profile into a month of content—leader quotes, employee spotlights, culture moments, and a quick “why this award matters” post—so the story shows up consistently without a big budget. Because our platform is exclusive to credible, award-winning brands, that content typically lands with more trust and stronger engagement.

Looking at tough moments, what did you do first to protect or rebuild employer trust during a challenging situation?

In tough moments, what we see work best with our clients is leading with transparency and listening first—before trying to “spin” anything. They communicate early, share what they know (and what they don’t yet), and make it clear what actions are being taken and by when. Just as important, they create real feedback loops—pulse surveys, listening sessions, manager check-ins—so employees feel heard and leaders can adjust quickly. Trust rebuilds fastest when leaders follow words with visible action and consistent updates over time.

Thanks for sharing your knowledge and expertise. Is there anything else you’d like to add?

One last thought: BestCompaniesAZ has been a bit of a “best kept secret” because we’re intentionally not built for the masses—we’re an exclusive platform for credible, award-winning employers. If your company wants to tap into our strong organic rankings and high-intent audience across categories like technology, finance, healthcare, manufacturing, veterans, and nonprofits, I’d love for you to explore what partnership can look like. As we head into our 25th anniversary and prepare to relaunch Texas, we’re opening a limited number of spots for brands that want year-round visibility that attracts the right talent and builds customer trust.