Recession and Employees
Four (Cheap) Steps to Protect Your Good Name and Satisfy Employees
It’s always been good internal PR to create and maintain a workplace where people will want to work – and will work hard. But, internal incentive and branding programs that work cost money, so corporate marketers and employee brand specialists are left to implement big ideals with little budget and an audience likely to respond quite differently to internal PR than they did a year ago.
Recent Gallup polls show that 87% of Americans are concerned about unemployment. 23% of American workers say their companies are hiring; 26% say that their companies are letting people go. That’s a net negative. It’s also a great opportunity for employers to build their employment brand organically, encourage some goodwill and make life at work a little less stressful.
Here are four ideas to help create a simple, common-sense, corporate-wide program that will enhance an employment brand by maintaining a positive work environment, build a satisfied workforce and keep costs to a minimum.
Get Employees Involved With Corporate Marketing
Town Hall meetings, team briefings and corporate newsletters have the power to inform but rarely engage. They also do very little to build your brand as an employer. Strengthen engagement initiatives by giving employees a chance to weigh in on key issues.
A rolling steering committee, editorial board, or monthly “mystery” marketer (a la mystery shopper) can offer fresh ideas and insights that will help facilitate remedies, find answers and address concerns (and accomplishments) quickly, consistently and head on – with little to no affect on budget line items. The feedback may not shape or recast corporate decisions, but it will help to foster a positive environment and open communication. And, as a bonus, these mini listening tours are a great source of anecdotal research to help measure the effectiveness of an workplace branding effort.
The only relative cost here is making sure that participating employees get credit for their contributions. By encouraging leaders to embrace and respond to the good, the bad and the ugly with equal vigor and transparency, companies will encourage real loyalty and inspire workers not only because they want to hold on to their jobs but also because they will feel emotionally contracted to support and produce.
Talk Honestly (and Quickly) About Job Cuts
Layoffs and organizational restructuring will be a reality for months to come. Employees – especially those who have been around for awhile – have strong internal pipelines and reliable inside resources for finding out whether job cuts are in the offing. So holding back or spinning news are never good ideas. Indeed, public companies have outside considerations as they balance the obligation to alert shareholders to any material change in operations and manage the strength of their stock price.
Whenever possible, create a plan that delivers negative news to workers with immediacy and simplicity, making certain to be clear that information remains fluid and that as the company knows more, so, too will they. Most important, follow through on promises to deliver timely information, and be certain that workers know what’s going to happen before the public does. Build in and manage a feedback loop for added impact in order to protect – and likely enhance – corporate positioning as a workplace that manages with care and compassion even in a tough economy.
Change Management Builds Employee Engagement
Workers who see long-time colleagues separated from the company can carry guilt and resentments following layoffs that compromise work performance and create bad feelings. That often translates into corporate bashing, leaving to go work for competitors or other outcomes which will be expensive to address, and which threaten the sustainability of employment brands. Avoid the need for a remedial plan or rebranding by engaging long-time workers in conversations that share a vision for moving forward, gather thoughts about change and what’s needed to manage it, and take periodic pulses of how well the company is doing what it said it would do.
Social Networking and Employer Branding
Like it or love it, it’s here to stay. Some companies use Twitter to enhance employee engagement and collaboration. And with blogging accessible to anyone with a computer and an opinion, companies cannot afford to ignore the impact that seemingly obscure online rants can have on a company's image and employment brand. Communicators and marketers need to be ready to leverage, contain or quash the impact of Tweets, Facebook posts, and a surprise appearance in a LinkedIn forum. By building communication policy around who should/gets to Tweet, blog or write on Facebook Walls, companies can create a framework that helps anticipate and manage the viral effects of social networking. Don’t give employees a reason to want to publicize bad acts, and chances are, they won’t.
Make tweaks, even adopt a change in tone, but don’t give up the effort. Employment branding may be more important now than ever, and employees play a starring role in shaping and tarnishing the way the world views a company and what it does or sells.
Despite Recession, Keep Employees Engaged
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