Posts Tagged ‘employer reputation’

  If you have not read “Four Lessons in Adaptive Leadership” in the November Harvard Business Review, I highly recommend it. It was written by Michael Useem, professor of management and director of the Center for Leadership and Change Management at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business. There are many lessons to be learned from the article that are reminders on how leadership drives meaning and in turn, purposeful reputation.

One of his lessons is about creating a link with the people you oversee or work with. Building a positive company reputation is often as simple as thoughtful communications from the top. It may be just a glance, a handshake or asking someone what they are doing over the holidays. Useem wrote about an incident when the U.S. Joint Chief of Staff visited his business classroom that is a good reminder of how the most ordinary gesture can communicate the extraordinary moment:

It is 10 minutes before class time, and many of the 65 first-year students are taking their assigned seats in a tiered classroom. The general strides into the room—four stars on his epaulets and a half-dozen staffers and security agents close behind. He walks straight to the first row and introduces himself to the nearest student. He shakes hands, exchanges a few personal words, and then moves on to the next student.

Making a personal connection from the top can have a tremendous impact on company or employer reputation. It forges a connection that transcends the everyday rapid fire activity and isolation of working behind a computer that many experience. 

Useem’s example has special resonance.  When I wrote my first book, CEO Capital, I used many examples of how CEOs build reputation. I used an example of symbolic CEO leadership that I had heard about upon joining my former agency.  I had been told that on our CEO’s first day at work at the agency, he (Chris Komisarjevsky) shook hands with every single employee starting in the mailroom and working his way up to the 13th floor where senior management sat. When people wanted to explain to me what kind of company I was joining, they always used this example as a demonstration of the kind of personal leadership that I would witness from the top.  It certainly reminds me of Useem’s classroom example.

As the year ends, I wonder how CEOs can more effectively build workplace reputations through communications, both tangible and intangible. It is important to figure out what really counts and will make the difference in keeping your best employees and getting them to go that extra mile.

Employee satisfaction is a prime driver of corporate reputation. Nearly all reputation studies conclude that talent makes a tremendous difference. A global survey from Forrester recently looked at employee advocacy – how much employees would recommend their employers’ products or services and recommend their employer as a good place to work to friends or relatives. They borrowed this questioning from the Net Promoter Score (NPS) work done by Bain and which is widely accepted as a strong proxy for excellence. What particularly attracted my interest was how employee advocacy differed by country. Advocacy is a key tenet at Weber Shandwick and for that reason, I find advocacy and its impact on reputation something to keep up on.

North American employees (US and Canada) are three times more likely to be advocates for their employers than those in Europe.  French employees had the most “badvocates” or detractors and the least advocates. The authors postulate that labor laws and cultural differences are factors in why France had the most detractors when it comes to answering questions about products/services made by their employer or as a place to work.  Germany fared better than the UK on the advocacy dimension but France performed the least well.

Yet, there were plenty of detractors in all regions which underscores how important it is for management to build better understanding of employees’ satisfaction if they wish to have admirable reputations and attract the best talent. This will only grow in importance as the baby boomers retire and the next layer of management thins.

 As the economy ebbs and flows, employee engagement is rising in importance. More CEOs are talking about it and thinking about new and creative ways to communicate with their workforces.  Some interesting stats surfaced from a survey of global HR professionals from Boston Consulting Group and World Federation of People Management Associations. [By the way, that sounds like a new term for the upcoming new year in 2011 -- Federation of (FILL IN).  I have not heard it used much except in connection with wrestling (WWF).  I might try to use it somehow myself -- Federation of People Interested in Reputation or Federation of PR Professionals or Federation of Reputation Recoverers.]

But back to the point of my blog post. HR executives were asked to rank priorities for the upcoming year and the findings were compared to 2008.  Take a look.  Enhancing employee engagement has risen over the past two years and for good reason (see below). Leaders need to build morale among the workforce which has been hit hard by the Great Recession and they need to hold on tight to their best talent. It makes sense to keep the dialogue flowing by engaging employees and listening to them.  A recent article in Strategy + Business about Zappos reflected on this idea of building the right culture. The head of business development and brand marketing is quoted as saying, “I read about how Zappos is focused on customer service. It isn’t. It’s focused on company culture, which leads to customer service. We don’t talk about customer service; we allow it to happen on its own by having the right people.” And I would add by taking the time to talk to employees and building an open culture.

2010 Ranking 
#1 Improving leadership development (#2 in 2008)

#2 Managing talent (#1 in 2008)

#3 Enhancing employee engagement (#7 in 2008)

Source: BloombergBusinessWeek (9.19.10 issue)

Interestingly and I should add depressingly, work-life balance suffered the most as an action item for HR professionals. In 2008,  it was #9 on the agenda and this year it was #16.  To build a reputation as a good place to work, employee engagement and work-life balance need to be linked. The Great Recession has knocked out work-life balance issues but I have no doubt that it will come roaring back in time. This next generation demands it. And we owe it to them.

  Hard to believe but the reputation of the workplace has gotten tougher. The Corporate Leadership Council found that employees’ jobs have expanded by a third since the recession. And The Hay Group reports in their survey that two-thirds of workers say they have been putting in unpaid overtime. That is to be expected since everyone doubled and tripled up as the economy spun out of control and job freezes set in. The Hay Group goes on to report that 63% of workers think their employers do not appreciate their extra work and 57% feel like they are disposable as far as their employers are concerned. And alarmingly,  one-half of workers don’t think they can keep up their onerous workloads like they have anymore. Last night I was speaking to someone who told me exactly that after working seven days a week,11 hours per day. He said he just told his boss that he could not keep it up anymore. What did his boss say? Go get yourself some help which he did. Impressive. Wonder if all it takes is asking?

What can employers do to boost their reputations as kind and caring? A few suggestions appeared in an article in The Economist. Cap Gemini has a golden awards program where people are publicly thanked every six months for their work. They also give people blackberry type devices to use while traveling to help them get their jobs done while on the road. Thoughtful. Flexible hours is another favorite employer reputation enhancement that some companies use. I never had flexible hours early in my career but sure wish I had the option since I would have used it well. And the other strategy for building a strong workplace reputation is paying attention to the high-potentials like HP does. HP invites rising stars to important strategy meetings and asks them for suggestions.

All of these ways of recognizing employees cost employers next to nothing but make their employees more loyal and more likely to put in the extra time to come up with new ideas to grow the company.

When employees start leaving their jobs for better ones as soon as the economy picks up, employers will have to get creative about retaining employees and letting up on the workload once again. But there are plenty of inexpensive ways to improve workplace reputation and there is no better time than now when employees are on the fence about leaving or staying at their jobs. It is a good reminder to us all that recognition goes far and costs next to nothing. This is probably the real ROI everyone is always asking about.