Create and Foster an Employee Brand for Greater Value

There have been numerous studies that have found that employee and customer satisfaction are linked and that together they drive financial value. However, Professors Mjken Schltz and Mary Jo Hatch found that 90% of the employees they surveyed at various companies did not understand the company's brand and 70% weren't committed to supporting it even if they did understand it.

The findings by Schultz and Hatch are troubling on a number of fronts. First, it suggests that companies are not informing their employees about their desired brand, and second that even if they are telling employees something about their plans, they are not providing employees with the ability to help the company achieve its brand objectives. What a waste!!! With all the lip-service given by organizations to employees being "their most important asset", it is evident that most organizations still think of the employee asset in the same way they think of physical and financial assets--a tangible asset or cost to the company.

Employees are the most important asset a company has because of the intangible asset they represent. Employees who are informed, committed and energized can not only deliver on the brand promise, but they can help transform the customer experience from one that is good to one that is exceptional, thereby making the company "disproportionately valued" by customers.

At a recent talk meeting I attended, Harold Burson, founding chairman of Burson-Marsteller, referenced a conversation he had with a CEO who asked him who his most important stakeholder was. Burson noted that it was the employees, because every day they were the represenative of the company's reputation for those outside the company.

I once had the opportunity to review the brand advertising plans of a major company. I told the head of marketing that I thought that the ads were excellent. They changed my view of the company. I then made a statement and asked a simple question. "These ads make a promise that you are a new company, with a new commitment to serving your customer. Are your employees properly informed and trained to be able to deliver this promise so that the customer experience will be as you claim it will be? The answer is what I had expected. The company had not spent one minute training employees. They had not even informed employees of these new ads and the new brand strategy. I was asked what I suggested should be done. I recommended that the ads be put on the shelf and held until the company was certain that emplooyees both understood the brand, were committed to it, and were able to deliver it consistently.

I know that I repeat myself in many of these blogs, but I find it incredible how many companies do not understand that brand starts with employees. We have to have an employee brand to attract and keep our top talent, but the employee brand also must be connected with the product and service brands of the company to create the corporate brand. It is only when product, service and employee brands are integrated that we can hope to achieve the consistent behaviors to go along with our communications activities. The vast majority of what reputation is built on is the behavior of the company, not its words. When will more companies come to understand this?