Posts Tagged ‘Scorecards’

  Not sure if you were sent this article about "green" rankings....based on another article in MITSloan Management Review by Auden Schendler and Michael Toffel (you have to sign in to get the article). It is definitely worth reading but the central premise is that many of the environmental ratings focus on the wrong criteria, namely failing to incorporate advocacy activities that influence environmental regulation. What the article says is that environmental ratings should also include whether a company's political actions support or undermine climate action. From a reputational point of view, these sentences stood out:

Third party corporate responsibility ratings matter. They help consumers vote with their wallets, aid job seekers with employment decisions, affect employee morale, guide socially responsible investors and pension funds and generate good -- or bad -- PR for businesses. Research has shown that poorly rated firms respond by improving their performance.

We work with companies on rankings of all sorts. And these "green" ratings are very sought after. There is no perfect scorecard that I know about and yes, companies can game the system even when they don't deserve the reputation burnishing. What else is new? But winning them is important to reputation-buidling of credentials in the environmental space. And for those companies that are not truly green today, these environmental scorecards push them to do better and that's what counts in my book. I often tell companies to go ahead and apply for Best Place to Work awards because it gets the CEO involved and gets leadership focused on one day being among the chosen few. Even if you don't win, you usually can get your scores to determine what you need to do better. The same goes for climate change. If you don't win, that's okay. Try again next year. The article rightfully says that these rating systems should factor in other criteria such as political contributions, CEO advocacy and NGO relations. True. And they also rightfully say that these rating systems could benefit us all by spurring corporate activism "to solve one of the world's most pressing problems." True. But we should recognize how far we have come already. I remember when there was no such thing as "green" ratings. As it's been said, we've come a long way baby.

          I think about rankings and scorecards all the time. Afterall, I cut my teeth on Fortune's Most Admired Companies years back.  At the time, there were not many competing scorecards. And, afterall,  today we have an active rankings practice at Weber Shandwick that we call Scoreboxx. We help companies all the time understand what rankings are important to pursue and which are not worth the time. There is barely a day that I don't hear about a new scorecard or as I have mentioned in a post I wrote on reputation trends, a newworst-of  list.  In fact, I have started collecting worst-of lists because they fascinate me as much as best-of  lists. Strange hobby but who knows, they could be worth something in the future. Not really. Today's New York Times had a fascinating article on the rankings and metrics obsession that we seem to live by.  The writer even predicted how the frenzy will only rise as we enter the serious election campaign. Little did she probably know that the op-ed page in today's NYT had a chart on how Donald Trump was measuring up as a front runner in several polls as a presidential candidate.  Here are some the quotes from the rankings article that I highlighted for sakekeeping. They go far in explaining our rankings addiction.

"Numbers make intangibles tangible,” said Jonah Lehrer, a journalist and author. “They give the illusion of control.” "The trouble, though, is when we mindlessly and blindly rely on those numbers to tell us everything," said Sherry Turkle, a professor of social studies of science and technology and director of MIT. “Just because we have the skills and ability to put metrics on everything doesn’t mean we should.” "This reliance and overweening trust in numbers is to some extent generational," said Howard Gardner, a professor of cognition and education at Harvard Graduate School of Education. “For almost anybody in the United States under the age of 25, the only models are quantifiable rankings,” he said.

 A few comments. I don't think we can blame everything on the younger generation although Gardner has a point about everything being quantified for them (SATs), so why shouldn't they apply it everywhere else?  The truth is that all age cohorts use rankings to pick the best restaurant, best travel location, best employer and best college to apply for.  We're all hooked. The article also goes into how authors end up measuring themselves by Amazon rankings of books sold.  As the author of two books, people always ask me how many books did you sell? Personally, I have no idea since I wrote the books out of love for my topic, reputation, and much much less for my status on the number of books sold.  However, I sometimes think I am not a very good author because I don't know the answer to this frequently asked question and I'd be a better person if I at least knew. Despite that, I have to get better at checking Google Analytics to see how many people read my blog. When I have looked at it in the past, I could not figure out whether I should be blogging on Fridays or Mondays or Thursdays and just gave up. I have to get better at this because I don't know how I fare! Another element in the article certainly caught my eye. It referred to a blog posting on Online Status Anxiety by Jonah Lehrer who has a new book out on How We Decide.  He is so right. People are obsessed also with the number of followers and fans and likes.  Our social ranking is now quantified.  Yikes. Here is a selection I took out of Jonah Lehrer's blog posting:

"Now that the social web is maturing - the platforms have been winnowed down to a select few (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.) - some interesting commonalities are emerging. The one shared feature that I'm most interested in is also a little disturbing: the tendency of the social software to quantify our social life. Facebook doesn't just let us connect with our friends: it counts our friends. Twitter doesn't just allow us to aggregate a stream of chatter: it measures our social reach. LinkedIn has too many damn hierarchies to count. Even the staid blog is all about the metrics, from page views to unique visitors."

I think I am going to check out my blog postings metrics today! Enough slacking on the metrics. My online reputation should be the measure of my life!

Good to be home from traveling around Asia Pacific the past couple of weeks talking about Reputation Warfare.  So am now back on the blog posting trail. Two things struck me this week although I will make sure to write more about some of my observations about reputation in Asia in the weeks to come. Just to start out, while I was away, Barron's World's Best CEO list came out.  This highly coveted and selective list usually has a theme in addition to its traditional focus on longterm financial performance.  As they say, they like to  identify corporate leaders who make a difference to their companies and deliver for investors. Barron's require that a CEO has been at the job for at least three years and prefers companies with market values of at least $5 billion. This year their advice to leaders is "Go Thee to Asia."

"Any big company looking for serious growth in the 21st century must have a plan for Asia. The region is home to half the globe's population and, increasingly, it's driving the world's economy. So, as Barron's drew up its annual list of the world's 30 best chief executives, we took a hard look at how each candidate was approaching Asia and other developing markets."

On another note, this morning while waking up super early from jet lag crazies, I read about the Warren Buffet-Berkshire Hathaway reputation bruise.  In a New York Times article, it says: 

 "In a July 2010 letter, Mr. Buffett instructed his managers to “zealously guard Berkshire’s reputation.”

“We can afford to lose money — even a lot of money,” Mr. Buffett said. “But we can’t afford to lose reputation — even a shred of reputation.”

These Buffett quotes don't surprise me and neither does the removal of Mr. Sokol. When I turn to my favorite quote of all time from the sage/oracle from Omaha, it appears he acted swiftly and deliberately. In case you have never heard me say it, it is quite appropriate today. 

"If you lose dollars for the firm by bad decisions, I will be understanding.  If you lose reputation for the firm, I will be ruthless."

As reputation watchers, we are always watching the big barometers of reputation such as Fortune World's Most Admired Companies and its sister, Fortune's Best Companies to Work For (BCTWF).  Below is an analysis and comparison of data points examined on the Fortune Best Companies to Work For list between the years 2006 and 2011. Even further below is some analysis on LGBT offerings, healthcare benefits, job and job sharing growth and other unusual benefits as factors in the 2011 winners of the workplace. All Data 2006-2011

	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011
%Companies with Unusual Perks	7%	5%	15%	8%	16%	13%
%Companies with On-Site Child Care	33%	32%	29%	32%	32%	30%
%Companies with Fully Paid Sabbaticals	25%	22%	18%	19%	19%	21%
%Women Average	N/A	N/A	49%	49%	49%	48%
%Minorities Average	N/A	N/A	28%	30%	29%	29%
%Companies with 100% Paid Health	14%	16%	21%	15%	13%	14%
%Companies with Job Sharing	N/A	71%	63%	61%	68%	56%
%Companies with LGBT-Friendly Policies	N/A	92%	95%	95%	96%	99%
%Companies with On-Site Gym	N/A	N/A	69%	69%	69%	67%
%Companies with Subsidized Gym Membership	N/A	N/A	59%	78%	72%	71%
%Companies with Compressed Work Weeks	N/A	N/A	82%	75%	81%	81%
%Companies with LGBT-Friendly Benefits	N/A	N/A	70%	79%	83%	88%
%Companies with No Layoffs	N/A	N/A	N/A	9%	17%	15%
Average Job Growth	7%	9%	9%	8%	1%	2%
Average Voluntary Turnover	N/A	N/A	N/A	12%	7%	7%

LGBT As a Factor In the past decade, American companies have increasingly provided programs and initiatives to recognize the LGBT community in the workplace.  A large 95% of The Best Companies to Work For had LGBT-friendly policies and seven in 10 (70%) had LGBT-friendly benefits in 2008. In 2011, the number of Best Companies with LGBT-friendly benefits was an astounding 88% coupled with an almost perfect 99% of Best Companies with LGBT-friendly policies. While the Best Companies' LGBT-friendly benefits have always lagged behind LGBT-friendly policies, each year the gap between the two has narrowed; in 2008 there was a difference of 25% which has since shrunk to a mere 11% in 2011. The LGBT community has become a widely-recognized group within the American workplace and the Best Companies have been quick to make headway in this area. Health Benefits as a Factor Major corporations at Davos this year came together for the World Economic Forum Workplace Wellness Alliance. The Alliance consists of 31 companies committed to advancing wellness in the workplace. Goals of the alliance include knowledge sharing and developing and promoting the use of standardized metrics to create a global standard of wellness, hopefully increasing worker productivity. Looking at health initiatives for Best Companies, after rising from 2006 to 2008, 100% paid healthcare was in decline from 2008-2010.  2011 saw the first uptick in two years moving from 13% to 14% of Best Companies but still not near the peak of 21% in 2008. While 100% paid health seems like a luxury not all companies can afford, a healthy work force can be a powerful tool that may make the investment worthwhile. On a similar note, only 59% of Best Companies offered subsidized gym memberships in 2008 compared to a whopping 78% in 2009. The number of Best Companies with subsidized gym memberships has fallen in the past two years, but far from pre-2009 levels (currently 71%). Best Companies are still trying to keep their workforce fit and healthy even in the wake of a recession which demonstrates that employee health is a staple of a great workplace. Unusual Perks as a Factor Recently, more employers have been offering not only physical health perks, but mental health programs as well for their employees. Health isn’t confined to gym and fitness centers. Companies like Zappos.com offer employees an on-site resident “life” and “goals coach” that advises employees on work/life balance and discovery of  higher meaning in their lives (sounds awesome, right?). Defense contractor SRC/SRCTec offers employee-led support groups that focus on alleviating the stress of caring for an aging parent. And starting with a yoga room at Ebay in 2008, the idea of peaceful exercising is re-emerging in 2011 with Intuit’s free Yoga, Pilates and Zumba (Latin-inspired dance fitness--first time I heard of this, oops) classes. Job Growth & Job Sharing as a Factor While perhaps a reflection of the economy, average job growth at the Best Companies ticked up slightly after falling to its all-time low of less than 1% in 2010. Traditionally, average job growth for Best Companies had hovered between 7% and 9% (between 2006-2009) before falling sharply in 2010. For the Best Companies, average voluntary turnover also moved in a similar direction. Voluntary turnover fell from almost 12% in 2009 to 7% in 2010 where it has remained flat through 2011. The past three years have proven to be difficult for the unemployed, perhaps pushing more workers to hold onto their positions. Job sharing reached its zenith in 2007 with 71% of Best Companies offering such a program. The offering steadily declined for the next two years with a small surge in 2010, but ultimately falling to a five-year low of 56% in 2011. Job sharing may be on the decline lately as more Americans are pressed for income, looking for full-time employment as a suitable solution. [Many thanks to Ross W for his help on this.]

  Not sure it means anything but we thought we’d take a look at whether there are more scorecards/rankings now vs. one year ago. We keep this large, complex and detailed database on which awards exist for companies seeking to be recognized as being the most responsible, best at diversity, most ethical, best leadership, best reputation, best training, etc.  The database looks at when applications are due, when they are announced, who fills out the surveys, how to apply, how popular the ranking  is, etc.  You get it.  The database, called Scoreboxx™, helps companies “credentialize” themselves and communicate how they lead the industry.  It is part of our reputation-building services.

 

Since we realized it would be next to impossible to determine if there has been a change in the number of scorecards year over year since many scorecards just disappear or just get added randomly, we took a look at response rates to some of the rankings in 2007 vs. 2008. Not a scientific analysis but interesting nevertheless.  Listed below is our brief analysis of some of them for what’s worth.

 

Some are up and some are down. Some are flat. Here is what Liz, my colleague, and I think. For those awards where recruiting or talent  are important, higher responses have been recorded year over year. More employers returned surveys for BusinessWeek’s Best Places to Launch a Career and Fortune’s Top 100 MBA Employers, more applications were received this year for DiversityInc Top 50 and more nominations came in for the World’s Most Ethical Companies.  It goes without saying that the lower number of respondents for BusinessWeek’s Most Innovative Companies means nothing since this has been a disruptive year for business and some executives were just holding your breath that they were not getting pink slips. And presumably many did.

 

				Chg vs. prior year
List	2007	2008	2009
BusinessWeek Best Places to Launch a Career				flat
Career directors	63	60	(will be out in Sept)
Employers	95	119		á
BusinessWeek Customer Service Champs		>1,000 readers	>1,000 readers	flat
BusinessWeek Most Innovative Companies		2,950 execs	2,700 execs	â
DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity		352 applications	401 applications	á
Ethisphere World's Most Ethical Companies			"…received a record # of company nominations…" (no data)	á
Fortune Best Companies to Work For		100,000 employees (246/company)	~81,000 employees (229/company)	â
Fortune Top 100 MBA Employers		5,769 MBA candidates	6,207 MBA candidates	á
Harris Interactive Reputation Quotient		7,105 consumers	6,587 consumers	â
Reputation Institute Global Pulse		>60,000 consumers	>70,000 consumers	á

  

What does seem interesting is that in a world where companies have stumbled catastrophically and reputational equity has been slipping away, the focus on talent, diversity and ethics might be a good sign of better things to come.