Archive for the ‘Employer Branding’ Category
What Stop Signs Tell Us About Communication
Tags: Brand Evolutionary, Brand Promise, Communication, Customer Service, Employee Relations
Posted in Employer Branding on February 23rd, 2009
With the exception of a few drivers, most people obey stop signs. Responsible drivers understand that stop signs are a signal to act in a certain way. While waiting my turn at a four way stop, I wondered what signs we should use to get employees to act in a way that supports our brands.
Many companies overlook the importance of internal brand communication. How much more effective would an organization be if the employee and their families fully understood the brand promise, sales strategy and customer service standards?
Today’s employees are the product of an evolutionary change in the sophistication of media and production values. While the old company newsletter still stands as a stalwart of communication in many organizations, intranets and internal blogging are now valuable real-time tools.
Eli Lilly and Company uses digital signage in the form of TV screens (LillyTV) that feature company news in the places their employees linger. While waiting for coffee, the elevator or an ATM, employees turn to LillyTV for the latest headlines, pictures and videos of company news and local or international events.
Not only is LillyTV an instant way to distribute company news, it reaches employees who don’t sit in front of a computer. “In manufacturing, people don’t have their own computer, they don’t sit at a desk often, so they don’t see the company website, e-mails or newsletters,” says Chris Bias, senior internal communications associate at Lilly. “But [now] they can get the information too, because it’s in their break room.”
Eli Lilly is using a cellular TV system from MediaTile, which has been around since 2002. Its website claims to offer “Digital Signs in a Box” that are easy to install and connect to a cellular network.
Internal communication needs to reach beyond just the desk or the break room. Repetition of the message should be delivered at home and to the family. Expanding your brand message to the circle of influence, or as Seth Godin calls it the Tribe. When done successfully, the entire family communicates your brand attributes in their social circle, thus expanding your sphere of influence.
Ideas to create a family of brand ambassadors include:
- Communication sent to the employee’s home that engages the entire family
- Text messaging or posting on an employee’s Facebook page to acknowledge a job well done or an anniversary date
- Posting a YouTube message to the employee and their family, again acknowledging the role they played in the company’s success
- Encouraging employees to bring family members to the office so as to engage further with your brand
- Sponsorship of employee softball teams, charitable events or other social activities sends a clear message that your brand is human
Western civilization craves information. Communicating the company brand promise, new initiative or sales goal, keeps everyone engaged and involved. Keeping the employee’s family engaged creates a supportive home environment. How you communicate is as important as what you communicate. And like the four way stop sign, when understood, it keeps everyone moving forward.
What’s Your Brand Promise?
Tags: american marketing association, Brand Promise, corporate culture, customers, execution, expectation, greatness, Internal Communication, promise, vendor communication
Posted in Branding, Communication, Copy/Content, Creative, Customer Service, Employer Branding, Internal Communication, Marketing, Recruitment on October 20th, 2008
The American Marketing Association describes a brand as a ”name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of them intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of competition.”
I like to simplify that by saying that a brand is a promise. And since it is a promise, then it must also be an expectation.
It is critical that your brand promise is clearly defined and articulated to internal and external stakeholders. Stanford professor and author Jim Collins, speaking on how to develop the brand said, “First figure out your partners, then figure out what ideas to pursue. The most important thing isn’t the market you target, the product you develop or the financing, but the founding team.”
In a down economy, buyers of products and services can’t afford to take a risk. They will stick to the brands that have kept their promise. Although noted here previously, it is worthy of repeating. A well-executed branding campaign delivers a myriad of dividends including:
Giving people permission to buy
Reinforcing preconceived notions
Establishing your promise deep in the subconscious of your audience
Helping you recruit and keep the best and brightest talent
Enabling you to charge premium pricing
Thriving during economic downturns
Easily extending into new markets
Branding is too important to leave solely to the marketing department. Branding is the delivery of your promise. It is why you worked those long hours in a garage before bringing your product to the market place. It is your vision. It is your passion. It is what gets you out of bed every morning. Whether you are the founder, partner or captain of the ship, it is critical that the team understand your vision of the brand promise.
Getting your organization to embrace, proselytize and consistently deliver your brand promise, starts at the top.
Define Your Brand Promise – According to Derrick Daye, managing partner at Brand Strategy, “the brand promise must meet three criteria in order to be effective. The promise must be unique, compelling and believable.”
Identity Must Support the Promise – Your logo, colors, tag lines, sell sheets, press releases, all must reinforce your promise.
Do Your Customers Connect - Assuming that you are targeting the correct customers and prospects, how does your promise affect them? Market research and your employees can help determine the relevance of the promise.
Internal Communication – Can your employees fully articulate the brand promise and the value to your customers? Have your new hires been fully educated on the brand promise?
Partner Communication – Do your channels understand your brand promise? And better yet, have you chosen channel partners that are aligned with your promise?
Corporate Culture - Does your corporate culture support the promise? Critical to success is that all members of an organization live the promise in thought, actions and deeds.
Measure Your Efforts - Peter Drucker said, “You can’t manage what you don’t measure.” Internal surveys, customer benchmarking metrics and peer review, will tell you if you are moving the needle in the right direction
Top Down Execution - It’s your promise. Be sure that you align your communication and activities around your brand promise. Champion your promise with unbridled enthusiasm. You’ll find that it is a highly contagious way to ensure adoption and execution by your team
According to Collins, “focusing solely on what you can potentially do better than any other organization is the only path to greatness.” If you stay true to your brand promise, which is uniquely you, then you are not guaranteed success but you will be on the right path to earning success.
A Smile is the Shortest Distance Between Two People.
Tags: laughter, morale, productivity, revenue, workplace
Posted in Business Development, Communication, Employer Branding, Internal Communication, Leadership on September 10th, 2008
Recession? Economic slowdown? Market correction? It doesn’t matter how you categorize the current economy. The fact remains; it is very difficult to find anyone who is enthusiastic about the current market conditions. The resulting pressure to be more productive and profitable has never been more difficult.
One often-overlooked tool to aid productivity is Humor.
A study by Dr. David Abramis at Cal State Long Beach concludes “people who have fun on the job are more creative, more productive, better decision makers and get along better with co-workers. They also have fewer absentee, late and sick days than people who aren’t having fun.”
Laughter releases endorphins that are more powerful than morphine. How much more energetic and engaged would the workplace be if everyone enjoyed a daily endorphin high?
Integrating humor in the workplace is a strategy that enhances employee morale, enhances the customer service experience and re-energizes us as individuals and as a team.
Launch a Humor-Relations Program
A humor relations program starts at the top, doesn’t require a large budget and engages everyone within the organization.
First and foremost consider the Power and Purpose of Wit.
P-Place- is this right place and setting
P-Person – Is this the right person? Humor must be appropriate to all audiences, those in the room and those not in the room. One never knows the diversity, social or historical issues of the extended family.
W-Workplace-Does this fit with workplace ethics, rules and agreements?
I-Integrity-Does it uplift the integrity of others and myself?
T – Timing-How is my timing? Both comedic and professional?
Implementation Ideas
1. Even school administrators recognize the importance of recess. Breaks/recess is a great stress reliever. It allows employees to gain a new perspective and reduces boredom of tedious task.
2. Encourage customer contact representatives to employ humor. Southwest Airlines is a continual leader in overall customer satisfaction surveys. They employ a program encouraging professional yet playful attitude by its flight attendants. Example “Thank you ladies and gentlemen for flying with SWA today. I know all of you will want to give a big applause to a very special person on board today. He is 90 years old and making his first flight. Please join me in welcoming our pilot on board.”
3. Allow pets in the office occasionally. The documentation on the therapeutic effect of pets is endless.
4. Create a funny moments email from senior level executives – it shows that they are human, vulnerable and approachable both to internal and external customers.
5. Encourage bizarre random acts of customer kindness. Encourage staff to go beyond the normal. Give them perks to give unhappy customers. Give them rewards for providing alternative solutions.
6. Encourage people to laugh. Again, who would not want an office full of endorphin filled people enhancing the customer experience?
Phase in small components of a humor campaign – then observe the changes. Slowly you’ll find ways to integrate humor specific to your organization. Happy, productive people drive revenue. And that’s something you can smile about.
Internal Communication Is Good For Business
Tags: benchmarks, Internal Communication, profitability
Posted in Communication, Employer Branding, Internal Communication on August 1st, 2008
Internal communication is no longer a soft function or a feel good activity. It drives business performance and is a key contributor to organizational success. Typically, organizations identify the communication issue(s) and move straight to tactical executions of newsletters, rollout meetings, etc. This approach provides executives with:
- Little tangible proof of process improvement adoption
- Feedback
- Scoring a decisive victory over employee communication apathy
Without benchmarks, it is impossible to identify the hard cost of ineffective communication. There are intangible, but very real cost that impact process improvement execution and financial performance of an organization. Intangible cost drains include:
- Frustration and dissatisfaction
- Lost productivity resulting from ineffectively run meetings
- Missed business opportunities through poor cross functional understanding
AWARENESS
The better the employee engagement, the better the return on investment. Organizations that communicate effectively dramatically outpace organizations that don’t. Key components of an employee engagement program are:
- Define and communicate the who, what, when and where of the communication process
- Create a clear view or game plan so the employee not only sees the change but how their participation advances the business strategy
- Utilize communication vehicles that are relevant to the employee
- Educate, train and mentor managers to sustain communication strategy and tactics
BENEFITS
Watson Wyatt Worldwide – an international actuarial and human capital consulting firm reported in its 2007-2008 communication survey key findings that shed significant light on the cost and benefits of a fully optimized employee engagement program. More than 267 companies participated in the ROI study.
- Effective employee communication is a leading indicator of financial performance.
- Companies with the most effective employee communication programs provided a 91 percent total return to shareholders (TRS) from 2002 to 2006, compared with 62 percent for firms that communicated least effectively. Moreover, a significant improvement in communication effectiveness is associated with a 15.7 percent increase in market value.
- Firms that communicate effectively are four times as likely to report high levels of employee engagement as firms that communicate less effectively.
- The percentage of companies that are measuring employee behavioral change has increased almost 25 percentage points since the 2003/2004 study.
Communicating with employees should be an essential component of any business plan. Frequency is not as critical as consistency. It helps employees make the right decisions. It ensures that the company vision is coherent and shared throughout the organization. And in tough economic times, it is a cost effective way to grow our brand and bottom line.
