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We’ve all heard the news – employees hate their jobs, their companies, their work.  In fact, according to a recent survey by The Conference Board (which was highlighted in this CNN piece), 55% of workers are unsatisfied with their jobs.  And, 25% said they don’t plan to be at their current jobs a year from now. 

If you’re an employer, this should obviously cause you some concern – and if you’re smart, you’ll adopt some strategies designed to re-engage your workforce.  Because we all know (or at least, hope) that someday soon, this recession will end and new job opportunities will start to emerge.  And then, employees will have choices again about where they want to work. 

That said, this doesn’t mean you should totally discount your employees’ enthusiasm for your business or their desire to help make things better.

Case in point: I recently had a chance to work with a client that has not just survived, but actually thrived in the economic downturn.  But, the road hasn’t been easy – there’s been a fair amount of change and uncertainty.  As a result, the company’s leadership decided to create a new internal brand in an effort to excite and inspire employees and also to give them a shared sense of purpose – a clearly outlined destination for the company. 

As part of the rollout, we held a meeting with what I’ll call “everyday employees” – the ones who see customers and sell products.  These folks are relatively removed from the proverbial “table” and don’t have a ton of authority in terms of the company’s destination. Here’s what happened when presented with the concept: everyone got excited.  They told us how motivating it was and said they couldn’t wait to learn more.   What we heard was that they had been looking for this sort of rally cry to get behind and were ready to hit the ground running. 

This was a bit of an unexpected outcome. Collectively, we had worried that employees wouldn’t willingly adopt this new internal brand or believe in its ability to help unite the company.  Some of the more senior executives were worried they couldn’t credibly talk about this destination because it was aspirational – it didn’t reflect the current reality. 

If I had to guess, I’d wager that this sort of debate is happening all across corporate America.  Executives are worried that employees are frustrated, upset or burned out.  And that very well might be true.  But, what I learned is that while the inclination might be to just go radio silent for a while (out of a feeling that you’ve lost the “permission to speak”), often what employees are craving is something that reignites their spark and reinvigorates their work. 

Our client was willing to keep charging forward and engaging with their employees, and they’ve now they’ve given their workforce the morale boost they were craving. 

So, give your team a little credit. At the end of the day, many employees WANT to be engaged, they WANT to be a part of something and they WANT to make a difference.  Sometimes they just need you to help them see how.

I know this traditionally applies to the age-old adage of “apple a day” and personal health and wellbeing, but it also holds true for companies and their reputation.

An engaged, excited-to-come-to-work, recognised-for-their-great contribution-in-meaningful-ways  workforce which is performing in a culture where listening and openness are believed and lived-by will, as many studies show,  inevitably translate into better growth, better reputation, best talent attraction and best talent retention, and creativity and innovation.  Not to mention the glowing advocacy for the products and services that the company provides – recommendations which domino outward to friends and family and online from the employees themselves.

Employee branding/advertising (sharing employees stories in creative ways that speaks about the important role I/we have in making the company a success) has always been a magic ingredient in employee engagement programmes.

Now, more and more we are seeing this type of communication and its themes emerge, explode even, onto the external stage.

This week I saw a new Microsoft TV ad (so new I can’t even give you a YouTube link… but watch this space).

Entitled “Keeping it weird”, the ad has beautifully crafted creative, not unlike the Guthrie sound tracked Audi Q5 ad  – all whitespace and card and simple, scratchy pen illustration.

“Keeping it weird” follows the same strategic vein as the counter Mac ads – I may be a PC but I will have you know that  am still very creative and very cool. 

The “star” is Microsoft’s business software,  used in this case by an innovative company whose mission statement is “be weird”. What a cool, fun place to work that must be!

The script is played as a telephone conversation with “be weird’s” co-founder. He  talks all about his company’s workplace culture, its openness, the creativity of the people, its mission and values – all the concepts inside the engagement magic box.

Also this week I received a marketing e-newsletter from  Jurlique, a small Australian beauty company (their rosewater products are amazing, by the way!!).

There’s no fancy, beauty editor or overexposed celebrity endorsements but instead homely recommendations by Jurlique employees. As well as their favourite product picks they also reveal some identifying info about themselves too. You truly get a sense of the human side of the company, and its sense of community, which in turn reflects all that is core to its vision, mission and values.

“Employee Culture as Brand” is a trend that I am sure will continue to grow, particularly with all the depressing news in the world – people want to focus on some good work life news. Employee value may finally become the “new shareholder value”.

As communicators we often counsel  leaders in articulating and refining their company’s vision. It is no easy thing – hinging on the critical aspect that defines the desired state, aspiration, the future.

And, when that is done, there remains ahead the challenging journey in helping that leader promote that vision to ensure that it becomes the common belief that unites employees and propels the company forward.

An article that I read this week in the UK’s The Sunday Times’ Culture  supplement provided a wonderful real-life example of a vision and the wonderful narration of that vision.

It was an interview with the director of the British Museum, Neil Macgregor, that captured my imagination. His vision is to turn the British Museum into the “private collection of every citizen in the world”.  This dream, which he describes as a “quotation” rather than vision was, he explained, at the heart of the aspirations of the museum’s founder, exactly 250 years ago.

It is fascinating to know that this vision has endured for two and a half centuries and that it will continue to endure as the world’s cultures and fortunes evolve. The museum’s strategy to achieve this vision is its plan to digitise images of its artefacts in 2D and 3D and to create a “lending library” for curators from around the world.

In an impassioned lecture to celebrate BM’s anniversary, Macgregor displayed a phenomenal storytelling talent that surely would have elated all that heard it and created a huge swell of pride in every British Museum employee. I wanted to share a brief extract…

“Sloane, who was the friend of Newton and Handel and Voltaire, who looked after Queen Anne a s a doctor, who inoculated people against smallpox, was the man whose collection is the basis for the British Museum. He was a very clever doctor, an intellectual, and a rich one, because he is the man who realised that cocoa, which is clearly good for you, but is very bitter, could be more drinkable if you mixed it with milk and sugar. Drinking chocolate is the fortune on which the British Museum is founded. And this enormous fortune, and this intellectual curiosity, enabled him, using the maritime contacts of London, to put together a collection of a sort that was unparalleled outside princely collections, and in many senses unparalleled anywhere. But it was a collection with a purpose. Sloane, like so many of his generation, had been seared by the folk memory of the religious wars that shook Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries. His idea of looking at humanity was to see in it what united people, and his collection is geared to showing what are the common elements of human experience. And so, for instance, he collects shoes from all over the world – wooden pattens from Malacca, Pyrenean espadrilles, leather shoes from Morocco, silk ones from China. What he was interested in was that everybody uses shoes, but every society addresses that need in a different way. And it’s a good metaphor for how Sloane saw the whole nature of different human cultures…”

The British Museum has released an audio recording of the lecture celebrating its 250th anniversary.

I recently read an article by Brendan May, MD of Planet 2050 about the ten do’s and don’ts of eco-marketing. Interestingly enough. point No 3 was about engaging your workforce in your corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability activity.

He wrote:

“DO involve your employees. They are your greatest advocates. Countless companies spend resources telling the outside world how responsible they are, without the people on the shop floor having a clue about the good work going on. If you have thousands of employees, think about the net effect of all those people chatting in the pub about their job and what their company does. You can reach millions through good employee engagement, as well as motivating a work force that expects its bosses to be engaging on issues they read about every day.”

It should be common sense to utilise and motivate your employees into “living the values” of your brand and the one initiative which has both a commercial, social and economic impact on an individual and an organisation.

But, I wonder, how many of us are engaged with our organisations strategic sustainability platform, versus how many of us have a view – and probably a vocal one – on other companies and the impact they have on the environment?

Yes, we recycle, ensure we send the photocopier cartridges back, split out our used paper, turn the lights of at night . . . but do we really get involved in our whole reputation piece?

The answer ? Probably not as much as we should, and if so very few of us. So why is that?

So often, these decisions are made by individuals where it is not necessarily their area of expertise. They are asked to review or look into sustainability and then become immersed by the organisation to work up the opportunity and develop a position.  Often, employees are not asked about what they feel, what is important to them, what are their thoughts – but we all have an opinion.

That takes me back to Brendan’s point about engaging with your employees, listening and allowing them to be advocates of the brand within their own environment, both at work and at home.

CSR and sustainability initiatives sometimes seem to spend too much time in the boardroom, on the corporate agenda and not enough time with your people.  In reality, they are both important parts of the overall corporate reputation piece, which should be linked to employees. Let them promote the message with a real passion and a real face – involve them NOW.

In recent months, I have had the pleasure of working with a multinational client through their major rebranding across 14 countries in Africa, part of their ambitious global growth strategy. The existing company was a much loved brand, often described as ‘an African success story’ and had a rich heritage. This posed a real challenge – how do you replace an already successful brand with an unknown one? For this work, we adopted an inside-out approach whereby employees were engaged to re-enforce the brand and were at the heart of the rebranding process.

Leading up to the launch, we held a series of workshops with communication and brand managers, who had a vital role in ensuring the rebrand was a success.  From this group, a team of internal communications champions was identified for each market, with the job of generating buzz about the brand ahead of launch.

We developed messaging that celebrated the company’s African heritage and underlined the importance of Africa to the wider company in the Middle East.  Africa’s key role in creating a global brand was emphasised and celebrated. Employees were then involved to bring the messaging to life and ensured it fitted the culture of their local market.

To launch the brand in Africa, we worked closely with our IPG sister agencies, to devise a “water-cooler moment”: a simultaneous 14-country celebratory launch event, all about the celebration of the old as well as the new. All this was connected by Africa’s biggest live satellite link-up ever.  Employees were the first group to experience the new branding, with an event held for external audiences the next day.

And was it successful?

Our client continues to enjoy record growth across Africa and is already market leader in 11 of its rebranded markets.

. . . and, since the launch, four African employees have named their baby after the name of the company!

I’ve had the opportunity in each of the last two weeks to discuss ideas about internal branding with a pair of potential East Coast clients. Each company can see the possibility for driving employee commitment and performance by developing and sustaining a strong internal brand. But both are unsure where to start. Here’s what I suggested to them:

1. Start by listening to employees. In the case of building an internal brand, employees are your customers. Their opinions should be reflected in any internal brand program, much the same way external brands are tested through consumer and customer research. Do a few focus groups with a cross section of employees. Ask them how they would define the internal brand of the company. Fly some initial ideas by them and gauge their reaction. And include their input in the final “product.”
2. Humanize the company through its internal brand. Find ways to include real stories about the people in your company who are “living the brand.” Let them drive the brand through their example. Build an “internal advertising” campaign that prominently showcases shining examples of employee commitment and performance so that everyone can see clear examples of what defines a standout employee or team.
3. Be consistent. It’s alarming when I see companies spend substantial time and money ensuring the face they present is a consistent face to the outside world through advertising and marketing, yet fail to have any consistency in the way they present themselves to employees. Think about it: do all of your employee touch points – from orientation to benefits packaging to newsletters and intranet pages – look, feel and sound the same? If not, why not? There are few better ways to begin building employee understanding of your company than by making sure all the pieces presented to employees “match.”
4. Reflect your external face internally. The ad campaigns you produce to influence customers and consumers have presumably been established to positively affect their attitudes. If it’s working outside, then, why wouldn’t it work inside? Try to find ways to complement your external brand through internal communications. Think about how your external brand position also ties to employees. Then capitalize. If, for example, you’re positioning your company as one that creates opportunities for its customers, ensure that your internal communications reflect the opportunities that employees have if they perform: personal and professional growth; financial security for themselves and their families; the opportunity to create something meaningful through their work.

These are basic principles, but they have proven to be effective at several Insidedge clients. So if you’re considering an internal branding effort, be sure to keep these tenets in mind.

When I began my internship with Insidedge this summer, I thought I had a pretty good idea of what I would be doing.

Research and writing? Sure.
Building media lists? Of course.
Media monitoring? Absolutely.

Taking on the role of office video historian? Not exactly…

On my first day as an intern, Edward introduced me to a new company wide initiative called “Real People. Real Stories.” It’s basically a YouTube-style intranet site intended to bring over 500 GolinHarris employees from around the world together by sharing their stories of people, trust, ideas, pride, winning and collaboration experienced in the office.

So for the past several weeks, I have been filming different people in the New York office as they share their stories. Some videos are funny, while others are more serious. Most of the videos are less than a couple of minutes long. In fact, a few people have managed to produce blooper reels longer than the final videos themselves!

For so many reasons, this experience is an illustration of employee engagement at its best. GolinHarris employees are connecting with colleagues all over the world in a way that has never been possible before (thanks to subtitles, they actually understand each other). They are prompted to reflect on their experiences, either to reminisce about a successful project or thank a cubicle buddy for daily encouragement. It’s also an excellent opportunity for management to listen to their employees – and ultimately respond.

As a shameless member of Generation Y, I am excited to see this kind of activity taking place in the office. User-generated content is an increasingly important factor in the world of communication and bringing the phenomenon right to your employees’ desks provides the empowerment, accountability and conversation that the modern professional craves in the workplace.

We constantly hear about the importance of protecting the integrity of brands externally, but what about internally? I’d argue that your brand is as important if not more important within an organization. However, not everybody sees eye-to-eye on this matter. Over the past couple of months, I have been working with a vendor to create branded collateral for a client to hand out at their anniversary day celebrations. However, when the shipment arrived, it was not a pretty scene. The goods were branded incorrectly and an integral part of the client’s logo was missing (integral to us and the client but trivial and “is it really that important?” to the vendor).

While frustrated with the vendor at first, I quickly realized he did not understand how important the seemingly minor mistake on the logo was to the client’s overall branding efforts. To him, it was a small missing piece that employees wouldn’t fuss over. He failed to realize that what happens behind closed doors does not always stay behind closed doors. A company’s brand is only as good as the people who deliver it every day: employees.

I explained to him that the mistake was not O.K. even if the branded items were “just for employees” – “Would it be O.K. to hand out branded items to McDonald’s employees and substitute the iconic golden ‘M’ with a Times New Roman ‘M’?” I asked. I think this drove home the point and he has been working with us to rectify the branded giveaways since. My key takeaway from this experience is acknowledging that sometimes, internal audiences are taken for granted or in some cases over-looked. However, we need to constantly remind ourselves and others (like my vendor-friend) to treat employees on par with external publics.

No matter how much time and money you devote to cultivating and controlling your brand, it really comes down to what people think of it.

Exhibit A: the Brand Tags project, an online social experiment that puts brand perception in the hands of the masses. The site asks you to type the first thing that pops into your head when you see a company logo. The cumulative results are displayed as tag clouds, with the most common responses in giant type and the lesser responses in diminishing font sizes.

Here’s a sample from American Airline’s response page:

Wouldn’t it be revealing to do this type of tagging experiment internally, letting employees define their organization’s brand?

On June 26^th together with our client NI Water, who are undertaking a massive and far-reaching programme of organisational change, we were honoured by the PRCA and Public Relations Institute of Ireland with a much coveted Award for Excellence in Internal Communications. In making the award, the judging panel commented: “The winning entry showed a strong commitment to the strategic management of the internal communications process. It demonstrated: clear and absolute identification of the objectives and the stakeholders; the involvement of a range of ‘top down’ and ‘bottom up’ actions; as well as on-going monitoring and adaptation of the process to ensure its success.”

One of the cornerstones of the winning programme was an internal poster campaign entitled “Pride in What We Do” which used highly visual storybuilding to recognise and highlight the dramatic and vital impact which employees have on all aspects of life in the community through the 24/7 services they provide on behalf of our client. (Campaign images are available in our case study section.)

Reviewing these programme materials again recently served as a clear reminder that in times of major cultural change, it’s important for leaders to focus with staff on the importance of the job they do and emphasise the value their people bring to the company. By actively promoting the behaviours of people who take pride in what they do – often the company’s “unsung heroes” – leaders can help create greater empathy, understanding and support of the need for change. And that can be an important first step on the transformation journey for companies and employees alike.