Articles on Employee Branding

ARTICLES ON EMPLOYEE BRANDING

1. Employee Branding - An Overlooked Marketing ResourceBy Rich McLafferty ( dec 3 2009)There is an underutilized, and often overlooked marketing resource in your organization rightnow: your employees.Each time a customer interacts with your organization there's an opportunity to build your brandthrough your employees. The experience your employees deliver to your customers willdetermine the ongoing perception, and reputation of the brand.

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Internal brand engagement is a simple, cost-effective strategy that will help take yourorganization to new levels of success. Employees who are truly engaged with a brand can createsignificant financial returns for their organization.

Your Employees Are Your Brand

Most organizations fail to recognize the role employees' play in building a brand's reputation.Employees interact at personal and professional levels each day with current, as well as potentialcustomers. Each interaction is either a positive, or a negative representation of your organization,and your brand.Every employee (not just customer-facing) plays an important role in supporting, and building abrand. For example, an administrative assistant might provide support to an entire productdevelopment team working on the release of a new product. The support provided by theadministrative assistant allows the product development team to focus on creating a cutting-edgeproduct that will deliver on the brand's promiseBuild A Brand-Centric OrganizationSo how do you go about building a brand-centric organization? Create a "brand academy" or asimilar type of group that has the responsibility to ensure that every employee receives initial, aswell as ongoing education as your brand evolves and grows over time. The brand should belinked to job descriptions, training programs, meetings and events. Anyone who represents yourorganization should be required to participate in some type of brand education program.Employees should read, see, feel, or hear something each day that represents your brand's values,goals, and promise that will help to keep their connection, and their shared responsibility to be anowner, and ambassador. Immersion is key to creating a brand-centric culture.Brand education helps employees understand and connect with your organization's vision andgoals. When employees understand and connect to a brand's goals, personality, and promise, theybecome brand ambassadors.Ambassadors help build your brand each day through their work and interactions. Youremployees become a major part of your marketing resources by delivering relevant brand-centricexperiences (internal and external) that help to build brand equity, and customer loyalty.

How To Develop Brand AmbassadorsThere are several steps you can take to begin building a team of ambassadors:1. Develop an awareness / education programBrand engagement does not magically happen, and it's more than handing out "logo swag." Aneffective education program goes into detail about the brand's positioning statement, values,goals and personality with emphasis on the benefit/promise. Employees can't deliver on thebrand's promise if they don't know what it is, and how to deliver it through their work each day.The training program should include tangible examples of how each employee group helps todeliver on the brand's promise, and how their work contributes to the brand's success. Again,each employee plays an important role in either providing direct support to a customer-facingteam, or they are in contact with customers each day.For customer-facing teams it's critical to define the desired customer experience, and design thecustomer experience around the brand. The brand makes the promise, and the customerexperience delivers the promise. A well-designed customer experience always supports, anddelivers the brand's promise in each customer interaction.2. Create a Brand-Centric Employee ExperienceYou should deliver your brand promise to your employees as well. The employee experience willhave a direct affect on your customers' experience, and should be directly connected to youremployee experience strategy for continuity, and consistency. Designing and delivering anon-brand employee experience is an effective strategy to help build morale and motivation, aswell as improve employee retention.The ResultRich McLafferty is an organizational visionary, and challenger of the status quo with 15+ yearsexperience developing customer experience, employee experience, and organization developmentstrategies that re-focus and align organizations around their people, their brand, and theircustomers.Rich has created a unique and simple framework that not only builds a brand-centric customerexperience organization, but helps an organization deliver on its brand promise, that in turnbuilds brand equity. Rich has background in the telecommunications, airline, outsourcing, andthe not-for-profit industries, as well as a Master's degree in Leadership and OrganizationDevelopment, a BA in Humanities, and a Consultant Certification in Branded Customer Service.

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2. Your Employee BrandBy Andrea Herran You can easily talk about your company brand and the image portrayed to clients and vendors.Could you say the same about your employee brand image? Do you know how current andformer employees describe your business and what it is like to work with you

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/5133622the short answer is "yes" and why is detailed below.

RetentionAs you know, keeping your good employees is key. These are the people who will keep yourbusiness going and make it grow. Having your good employees jump ship at the first sign of

another offer is not something you want. If you have a bad or even toxic employee brand, youremployees will even change jobs for less salary for a company with a good employee brand.Customer ServiceWhile your provide customer service to your clients, on the front line it is your employees. Youwould prefer (and probably demand) they provide excellent customer service to keep yourclients. Anyone will tell you, it is better to retain your current customers. You don't want to bethe company that is vying for new customers just to replace the one's who have left.MarketingYour employees, either current or former, will speak about your business. You don't know whothey are talking to or who is listening. Could it be a potential customer? A potential vendor? Apotential new employee? You don't know. What you do know is that what they are saying couldinfluence who becomes your customer, vendor or employee. This works both ways - positive andnegative.Create Raving FansWhat? I'm not a sports team. That's true (well maybe you are). The fact is, it doesn't matter. Youwant Raving Fans, these are the people who speak positively about you and your company. Theyactually go beyond positive to "Wow, this place is great". This is great publicity, advertising,marketing, and word of mouth. Who wouldn't want this?Word of CautionHaving a good or great employee brand is important, no doubt. Where the caution comes is inhow you get there. Don't presume that to have a great brand means letting your employees havetheir way, let them do whatever they want and make them happy at any cost. What you need todo is to be a Great Leader, provide limits while allowing appropriate discussions.Bottom line - it is about your company culture. Company Culture = Employee Brand.Andrea Herran is the principal of Focus HR Consulting ( http://www.FocusHR.biz ), whichprovides full human resources support to small business, provides a membership service throughMy HR Helpline for those who want expertise just a phone call away, and provides webinars andpublic speaking on HR topics.


3. Market Your Brand to Your Employees - Internal Branding InsightsBy Ila Badoni (june 14 2013)Employees as Brand AmbassadorsSo the question is that can a new company not bring about the same pride and joy in theiremployees? The answer is a resounding yes! The easiest way for any new company to branditself, is to begin by realizing that their employees can be their brand ambassadors. Whenemployees refer they will bring in business leads, recruitment of experienced contacts and ofcourse word of mouth marketing of their organization.It's all About CommunicationWhen the vision, mission, values and culture of a company is born, it is absolutely necessary towrite them down. Making a document would mean that these messages are repeated and drilleddown into the employees so that they can identify themselves with the values and the culture ofthe company. This will help the employees feel rooted and retention will be easy. Corporatecultures are reflected in the working of the employees in the business world. More clearly, for

example, an empowering corporate culture will produce a bold marketing team, willing to try outnew ideas. Big risks do lead to big successes, hence creating a brand name for the company.What comes first -Internal or External Branding?What came first- the chicken or the egg? There is definitely an impact of internal branding on theexternal branding and vice-versa. It is also true that companies that begin internal branding aremore aware of internal communication gaps and are accepting of such gaps as problem areas.Internal branding is much more effective when run as one major focused campaign followed upwith smaller campaigns refocusing on the same message. Organizations should attempt themebased campaigns so that messages that need to be reiterated can be discussed thoroughly. In casethe company wants to opt for regular communications, then mandatory online trainings andcompliance modules should be a part of the company's internal branding strategy.Reinvigorate The Employee Towards The BrandWhen communication and ideas are not tossing about, know that the employees are quiet and aquiet employee is prone to over thinking about the company, how its people are and what islacking in the company. Employees when left alone for too long tend to complain- "we areworking harder than the other department" etc! So when communication happens, employees getto know pressures and challenges that others are facing. This encourages empathy and problemsolving. Ideas come flying thick and fast to solve for these. Once solutions resulting from thesediscussions are implemented and results discussed the employee has a clearer understanding ofthe stuff his company is made of. He feels that he is an important part of the organization andfeels passionate about his ideas at work and the work itself. If the employee feels that not only ishe being heard, but his ideas are accepted and mooted or booted he will begin to feel engaged.With employee engagement comes ideas of what the employees in the organization stand for andultimately what the brand stands for. Small steps for employees- giant leap for organization!How do you do it?For beginning any initiative we must plan. Plan with objectives and follow up steps must bewritten down clearly. The marketing team should be involved with creation of taglines, creativeso that the communication is clear to the employees. To engage employees in this activity is alsoa big effort, just like it is to engage a customer. The following are ways to achieve ends· Eye-catching Digital Communication is a must. It will help you get responses faster· Printed material like flyers, standees etc must be placed at strategic nooks and corners· Have a writing Board for all the employees to write what they feel at locations where theycongregate. For example, the canteen, near the coffee machines or basement parkingInternal branding initiative is a huge undertaking. The company needs to feel the pulse of theorganization and work towards having employees voice their opinions. What you feel inside ishow you will look on the outside- this is not just true for human beings. It is also true fororganizations as well!


4. Company Uniforms - Important Elements to Boost Employee MoraleBy Nilesh D Patel (feb 18 2014)Company uniforms in many ways reflect the image of the firm, and thereby one has to takeutmost care to ensure that the uniforms are not only apt with the line of business, but also portray

a sense of pride for the company as well as for the employees. The colour, design, and pattern ofthe uniforms are all linked with the business the company is involved into to ensure that theuniforms do not misrepresent the company. Besides, these days keeping in line with the taste ofthe employees, various style quotients and accessories are also added to the uniform to make theemployee feel special and pleased wearing it on an everyday basis.Aspect considered while selectionNevertheless, since company uniforms are for regular usage, one cannot experiment much withthe colours and the fabric of the outfit. Colours with dark shades such as black, blue, purple,violet are most often recommended and universally approved as these shades do not catch dusteasily, or do not need a lot to maintenance compared to the bright or lighter shades. The line ofbusiness, job responsibilities of employees in a particular department also contributes to thecolour, pattern and design of the uniforms. In most organization, the patterns differ as per thedepartment you are working in because the higher authorities are most often obliged to meetexternal clients and interact with them on a regular basis. Some officials might have to travelregularly; some would be more into desk job while others might be involved in manual jobs andits supervision. Thus, the fabric used should be such that it is an all weather wear and is quitedurable as these clothing go in the laundry quite often. Besides the weather condition you areworking in, i.e., your job profile and the kind of job you are most often assigned, also comes intopicture. Another reason why the pattern, design, and shades of uniform changes is according tothe department or the team you are working with.Gender based selectionThe pattern and design of uniforms might also change as per the gender. The cut and make forfemales need to be definitely distinct and different. Besides they need to be uniquely crafted andshould also be available in all sizes, for both males as well as females. Employees most often feeldignified with a well fitted uniform, made from the best fabric and something that goes well withtheir personality. These factors thus should not be ignored when crafting company uniforms foryour most treasured employees.AccessoriesApart from this, the accessories that can go with the uniforms need to be also considered. Theconvenience of the accessories or its hindrances while performing the said tasks is vital when itcomes to picking the right accessories. Accessories include shoes, tie, belts, bands and otheressential items based on your job profile such as caps. An important point to be noted here is thataccessories should be a cut from the same make and not too jazzy or look out of place.Company uniforms depict a sense of pride and recognition for every person wearing it. It isthereby important that even the minute details are taken into consideration as it can make a bigdifference in creating the morale of the employees. You would be surprised to know how a smallchange for the better in the uniform pattern can bring to the work culture or the productivity ofthe work. Taking a random feedback of what most employees feel about the uniform and whatchanges they would like to see in them could also go a long way in bringing out the best uniformsfor the firm.For Further Information on Company Uniforms. Click On the link Company UniformsArticle Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Nilesh_D_Patel


5. How Branding Agencies Can Help Improve Business VenturesBy Raymart Banks jan 9 2014)Successes and failures have been experienced in the past year. That is why every business thesedays has come up with new and more efficient strategies to help them have better opportunitiesin the future. Business owners have also gained knowledge and insights about effective strategiesin the past that may help them improve and strengthen their plans, hoping that their hard workwill pay off in such a way that their businesses can improve. Yet, there are some owners that lookfor new ways to ensure that their businesses can yield better results.With this in mind, some entrepreneurs now opt for the services of branding agencies. Theseagencies specialize in business strategies, which can help owners improve their businessreputation and services. Moreover, branding is also vital since it represents your business,making it easier for clients to determine whether your services or products can help themenhance their lifestyle. Other than that, listed below are some benefits branding agencies canprovide for your business.Help improve your reputation - With the help of branding agencies, business owners will havethe chance to improve their reputation, may it be online or offline. These agencies can alsoprovide you with the ideal services to cater to your specific needs, making your services moreefficient in order for clients to obtain better benefits.Help businesses create solid identity - Business owners will have the opportunities to createbetter and solid identities. This is vital to ensure that clients can easily find your company in casethat they need such services or products to help improve their lifestyle. Not to mention, by havingunique and good identity, businesses can take advantage of their brand to attract more clients.Help increase sales - Once businesses have improved their reputation and have a solid identity inthe business industry, business owners can increase their sales and profits. With flourishing salesand profits, owners can also create new services and products to gain more audience and to helpthem improve their business ventures.Help businesses expand - By having well-planned branding strategies, business owners can alsoexpand their businesses easily. Branding agencies can also help you with this venture since theycan market your new products or services, helping you gain more audience and potential clients.


6. The Value of Employee Involvement in Achieving SuccessBy Nick Bettes ( oct 25 2012)In his "Key Speech" in 1955, Ove Arup spelt out the importance to business success ofmotivating your employees. To quote: "There are two ways of looking at the work you do to earna living: One is... Work is a necessary evil... The other is: To make your work interesting andrewarding. You enjoy both your work and your leisure. We opt uncompromisingly for the secondway."Ove Arup established a world-wide company and this fact just emphasises the strength of hisargument; his principles apply equally to smaller enterprises. Indeed, it is probably easier toimplement these principles when you have a relatively small workforce. His point is that you

need to inspire your employees to feel important and valuable, but you cannot just assume youknow what makes them feel that way. You need to make the effort to find out and thencollaborate with them to achieve those results. Done properly, it will be time well spent and youwill find the enterprise of which you are head has the motivation to surge forward and ahead ofcompetitors.Surveys referred to in "Good Work in our Times" published by The Work Foundation illustratethat, for employees, a list of priorities is not always topped by wages and bonuses. High on thelist are trust and integrity, pride in the job, career growth opportunities and employeedevelopment.Young people have grown up with technology and are unphased by that particular aspect ofmodern business; they like team working; flexible working; place high value on learningopportunities and are very environmentally conscious. Through Facebook and Twitter, they canmake comparisons of work experience across a wide area so your success or failure could beadvertised - it would therefore be wise to have your employees singing your praises!So if you build trust and mutual respect; keep your staff involved in developing policies;establish early discussion of any potential problems; allow them to enjoy the satisfactionexpressed by clients when their efforts are successful - they will be a potent force for helping youto achieve success.


7. Employee Benefits to Maintain Competitive EdgeBy J. Davies (oct 3 2012)Employee benefits should be on the mind of every company owner for very good reason.Today's economic climate makes the business world a difficult place to survive in for allbusinesses. There is a pressure on profit margins that has probably never been as tough as it istoday. Every managing director or small business owner should be looking at whatever they cando to make their business competitive and to be just that bit better than their competitors.When focussing on how to move a business forward it is easy, in tough times to overlook thesingle most important asset that a business has - its people. Whether you are running a largemulti-national business or an SME operation your people are key to your success. Look afteryour people and your people will look after your business.Whilst they are a critical part of any success there is no doubt that they can be an extremelyexpensive resource so ensuring you get the best from that resource is very important.Motivating a team of people is extremely important, especially when operating in a downturnsuch as the current one as any individual who watches the news can't fail to be concerned aboutthe picture presented in the media. You need to find a way of ensuring that staff feels valued atall times. If your business has been part of a merger it is likely that people will be feelinginsecure at all times and if you have been in the unfortunate position of having to makeredundancies then your team will be feeling very vulnerable.Best practice documents show that the best way of motivating staff is to find small and frequentlygiven 'thank yous'. Publicly recognising performance with small rewards and suitable employee

benefits that are attainable by everyone will have a positive effect on moral and will begin tocounteract the negative messages that affect the way staff think and feel.Incentives are very useful way of encouraging staff to go the extra mile at work. There is notmore powerful management tool than saying thank you verbally and with some form of publiclyrecognised gesture.A well motivated workforce that regularly achieves above and beyond expectations could well bethe one thing that separates your business from your competitors and in today's competitivebusiness world you should expect your competitors to be using employee benefits to achieve thebest return from what is probably their most expensive and valuable asset.


8. Employee Morale: The Five Ingredients to Creating Happy MotivatedEmployees

By Harriet Meyerson (jun 24 2012)High employee morale at your workplace is essential for employee retention and employeesatisfaction.But, if your workplace is plagued by negativity that stifles employee motivation, if you go homefrom work every day with a splitting headache, don't despair. Here's an easy way to transformyour workplace into a positive one where your employees will be happy and motivated every day.It's Easy to Raise MoraleUnderstanding Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Basic Human Needs makes raising employeemorale easy, so you can have happy, motivated employees who love coming to work every day...even if you don't have a budget for it.Whatever activity you do to increase morale should fit into one of the five categories of basicneeds. Then it will produce results without spending a lot of money.The Five Basic Human NeedsAccording to Maslow:

1. Survival: A person's primary need is for survival, the first level of Maslow's pyramid.2. Security: Once people have met their survival needs of food, clothing, and shelter they

seeks security, the second level.3. Social Acceptance: After feeling secure the very next thing people seek is social

acceptance, the third level on Maslow's pyramid.4. Esteem: This need can be met by showing respect, appreciation, and recognition from

coworkers and managers.5. Self-Actualization: The drive to continue growing and learning.

In a work situation, employers have the opportunity to address all five needs by:1. Providing a living wage2. Assuring job stability3. Encouraging social acceptance4. Treating employees with respect5. Providing for personal and professional growth

Job Security Is More Than a Paycheck

While most companies provide for survival needs with a paycheck, job security is becoming anissue with more and more people. When a company provides training for employees, they arealso providing job security because a well-trained person will find another job if his job isdownsized. Therefore, anything a company can do to increase employee skills will increase thefeeling of security to its employees.Providing for survival needs and security needs are what cost a company money in salary andbenefits.The Top Three Levels of Maslow's Pyramid Boost Morale Without Costing MoneyThe activities in this manual address the upper three levels of the pyramid that don't have to costmoney.

Social acceptance (activities that provide for social interaction) Respect (expressing appreciation and recognition) Personal development (ongoing training)

Activities that fill these needs will bond your employees to your company and provide anenvironment where employees love to come to work. The best part is that these employee moraleactivities don't have to cost a lot of money. They do, however take some time and effort.How Often Should You Have Activities?It is more important that morale boosters be frequent rather than time-consuming or extravagant.

Doing something once a month is not enough. Doing something every week is good. Doing something every day is optimum.

Your company's rewards of increased harmony, creativity, and productivity will depend on howfrequently you have morale boosting activities.With using a mix of social activities, appreciation and recognition, and personaldevelopment activities, your employee morale program will create happier, more motivatedemployees who keep your customers happy and make more money for your company.Visit http://www.ConfidenceCenter.com for immediate access to 3 Free Employee MoraleBoosters that will help you energize your staff, create a positive workplace atmosphere, withhappy employees who get along with each other.1. Employee Morale Survey: Discover how happy your employees are right now, and which ofthe 7 key areas need improvement.2. A list of the Top 10 Morale Boosters that will immediately jump start employee enthusiasm.3. Weekly Creative Employee Morale Boosters that keep employees energized, enthusiastic, andloyal without busting your budget


9. How to Boost Employee Satisfaction and MoraleBy Malcolm Carlaw (June 7 2010)Unhappy employees are very often unproductive employees. Keeping employee morale high is amust for that reason at least. Not to mention that it's just good ethics and social responsibility tokeep employees happy. And, remember, when your employees are unhappy, the quality of theircustomer service will decline. Are your employees meeting their customer service potential? If

not, it's time to turn this trend around. Carry out the following recommendations regularly tocreate a motivational environment to support the energy and enthusiasm of your employees.Morale and MotivationWhenever you put a crowd in a room and request that they perform a job, a group attitude oftenemerges known as "morale". Morale encompasses employees' mental outlook toward their job,their colleagues, their customers, and even themselves.Managers tend to describe employee morale as high or low, as if it was a temperature, and insome ways it is. Employees in workplaces where morale is high, approach their work withenergy, enthusiasm, and zeal. Employees look forward to come to work, and are enthusiasticabout doing their jobs once they arrive. On the other hand, when morale is low, employees canbecome spiritless, discouraged, and slow-moving.Motivation, on the other hand, refers to employees' drive to get the job done. Highly motivatedemployees tend to be high producers, but that does not necessarily mean their morale is high.People are often motivated by "negative incentives" such as a fear of losing their job, anexcessive need for rewards, or an overly competitive need to outperform a colleague.How morale and motivation are essential to create a high-performance work environmentWe've found that the best results come when a workplace has both high morale and highmotivation. Following are some tips to help you accomplish this in your own workplace. Makean effort to follow through with these tips on a consistent basis, and we're sure you'll seeencouraging results.How to Boost Employee Morale and Motivation

Emphasize the positive: what went right, what can be done instead of what cannot, what'sgoing well, etc.

Reward employees for exceeding expectations. Provide regular feedback on performance Offer a work schedule with as much flexibility as possible. Give employees all the information they need to exceed expectations. Talk to employees about the overall mission of the company and about how their efforts

contribute to achieving it. Use proven, effective techniques for giving praise and correcting employee performance. Involve employees in decisions that affect their jobs to gain their buy-in. Establish user-friendly channels of communication. Ask for employees' input when creating incentives. Hold employees accountable for their performance. Ask employees for their feedback on your performance and management style. Ask employees for their opinions and feelings on issues and decisions that impact the

work environment. Tell the truth, but gently. Use "we" language. Always celebrate success.

Industry-certified and recommended, Impact Learning Systems is a leader in Customer ServiceTraining and Sales Training. The training programs offered by Impact Learning Systems areloaded with additional tips to boost morale and motivation in your workplace. What's more, theywill give you the skills and knowledge to implement these measures for lasting results


http://www.impactlearning.com




10.Employee Branding - GuidelinesBy Ayesha Khalid Khan 1. Organizational messages are supposed to be cautiously planned and designed in much thesimilar method mission and vision statements are planned and designed.2. The organizational messages are supposed to be a sign of the organization's mission as well asstandards.3. Messages aimed at outer public are required to be in line with the messages directed towardsthe workforce.4. Messages intended for outer public must be sent within the organization too.5. The plan of staffing and selection systems is supposed to include messages that constantly andcyclically reveal the brand name and organizational image.6. The reimbursement system is supposed to include messages that constantly and cyclicallyreveal the brand and organizational image. Such as, executives in organizations that giveimportance to training ought to be held responsible when they do not succeed to train anddevelop their workforce.7. Training and development systems must facilitate executives and workforce to internalize theirorganization's mission and values as well as assist them in knowing how the mission and valuesare relevant to their responsibilities in the organization. This should allow them to moresuccessfully draft messages that regularly reflect the brand name and organizational image.8. Marketing and public relations systems are supposed to write messages that repeatedly andwithout fail reflect the brand name and organizational image.9. Executives must be taught the significance of sending messages that are steady with theirorganization's mission, vision, guiding principles, and practices.10. Performance supervision systems must concentrate on variations between practices andstrategies to reduce infringements of employees' psychological agreements.11. Precise as well as unambiguous job samples must be provided to new workers so that rationalhopes are included into their psychological agreements.12. Corporate traditions - such as objects, different activities and behaviors, administrationstandards, standards and viewpoint - should strengthen the messages workforce get.13. Individual productivity must be considered and evaluated to find out if there are 'messageassociated' issues on the departmental, divisional, or organizational levels.14. Individual messages must be repeatedly scrutinized for uniformity with other messages.15. Message channels are supposed to be checked to guarantee reliability of message delivery.16. During the occasion that messages have to be altered or psychological agreements changed,organizations are required to take cautious steps in redrafting the messages.17. Measures should be applied to evaluate results such as clientele maintenance, service value,revenue, as well as employee satisfaction and performance.


11.Successful Branding - Five Key Elements and One MantraBy Shannon Kavanaugh (5 aug 2007)



Successful branding begins with a well-defined brand that is RELEVANT to your market. Youmight think that since you have a logo, tagline, and business card, you've completed yourbranding. But, unless you've carefully considered and defined ALL five of the key brandelements-position, promise, personality traits, story, and associations-you still have work to do.And, until you've infiltrated your brand into every level of your organization and built thediscipline of CONSISTENCY into every behavior, action, or communication-both internallyand externally-you are not yet on the path to a successful brand strategy.Five Key Brand Elements:

Brand Position The Brand Position is the part of the brand that describes what your organization does and

for whom, what your unique value is and how a customer benefits from working with youor your product/service, and what key differentiation you have from your competition.Once you've defined your brand position, make it available in 25, 50, and 100 wordversions.

Brand Promise The Brand Promise is the single most important thing that theorganization promises to deliver to its customers-EVERY time. To come up with yourbrand promise, consider what customers, employees, and partners should expect fromevery interaction with you. Every business decision should be weighed against thispromise to be sure that a) it fully reflects the promise, or b) at the very least it does notcontradict the promise.

Brand Personality Brand Traits illustrate what the organization wants its brand to beknown for. Think about specific personality traits you want prospects, clients, employees,and partners to use to describe your organization. You should have 4-6 traits (5 is ideal),each being a single term (usually an adjective).

Brand Story The Brand Story illustrates the organization's history, along with how thehistory adds value and credibility to the brand. It also usually includes a summary of yourproducts or services.

Brand Associations Brand Associations are the specific physical artifacts that make upthe brand. This is your name, logo, colors, taglines, fonts, imagery, etc. Your brandassociations must reflect your brand promise, ALL of your brand traits, and support yourbrand positioning statement.

One Mantra: Once you've developed and defined a relevant brand, you must beginbuilding the brand with employees, customers, prospects, partners, etc. throughCONSISTENT execution. Repetition is key to the success of the branding process.

It's easy to falter "just this one time," because you're busy, or because you think your effort willonly be used or viewed internally. Faltering, however, will make the fact that you have a goodbrand completely irrelevant. No one, including your employees, will ever really know orremember what your brand is, unless it is the same every time they are exposed to it. Withoutconsistency, brand awareness becomes impossible to achieve, no matter how much money youspend on marketing. And your good brand identity-that you spent so much time defining-beginsto look more schizophrenic with every falter.To help ensure you build the habit of consistent brand execution company-wide, we recommendyou document your Brand Elements in a Brand Book and provide this guideline to everyemployee for their own use in their daily activity. Then become your company's brandambassador and begin the diplomatic process of self-enforcing its use!Go-To-Market Strategies is a resource center for sales and marketing professionals and businessleaders. Our tools, templates, and services help companies achieve big aspirations with limitedbudgets.


12.Importance of Employee Branding in the Modern Corporate World andIts Implementation in UAE

By Rohit Agrawal IntroductionIn the competitive world of today, every company seeks to have the best talent around. This is thereason that it has become extremely difficult for the employees to get into any company. But asfar as the best talents from the high-profile universities are concerned, companies have to comeup with exciting packages so as to ensure that the highly-talented lot can become a part of theirfunctioning. So, as far as the current research is concerned, an employee brand is what attractsthe employees towards a company. It is actually an image that the company makes of itself in theminds of many that it is the best place to get employed at. An employee brands ensures a sense ofbelongingness in the people and this makes the employees play an integral role in theachievement of success. Hence, one can say that an employee brand is the value of a companythat exists in the corporate. Hence, one can say that in the present scenario, one of the goals of acompany is related to employee branding. This goal is to achieve customer satisfaction where thecustomers are nobody but the employees themselves. One can also introduce employee brandingas one of the core values of an organization. Those companies that this research has seen to havea good image in the market place are the ones which also have a good extent of employee brandattached to its name. The most important question that needs to be answered with respect tobrand employer building is that the company has to know as to what they are and what theirvision is. Along with this, they also have to meet the expectations of the stakeholders in themeanwhile. (Mangold, 2004) Internal View of Employee brandingOne must be able to define the meaning of employee branding to the company. It must beremembered that employee branding is actually the image of an organization for the peopleworking in the organization. It is this reputation that the companies make of themselves insidetheir premises that are also carried outside to the passive candidates, the customers, the clientsand also the others who are affected by the proceedings of the company. Hence, one can say thatwithin the company, employee branding is done to attract the employees, and also for theirsubsequent retention in times to come so as to improve the company's image of employeebranding. The management of every country has to understand a very simple fact that it can't laya narrow focus on the employee branding. If this is done, it would only be a departmental projectand would not have been entitled to be a part of the overall business strategy of the company.One must keep another fact clear that if employee branding is only considered to be a part of therecruitment process and then given the back seat, there will be too many cases of absenteeismresulting in subsequent resignations at frequent intervals. (Turning staff into brand ambassadors,2009) Importance of defining Employee Brand ObjectivesEvery activity that is regular in a company requires a definition for its subsequent planning. Thereason for the same is that once the objectives are defined, the company would certainly save a

lot of money and time in the process that are carried in the latter stages. We are all aware of thefact that every company has a different lifecycle stages and objectives at different times. So,defining the employee brand objectives would be of help at all these life stages that the companyhas For example, one of them can be to establish an employee referral program. These objectiveswith respect to employee branding can be to integrate the culture of two companies in process ofdoing a merger, or to decrease the turnover rates of the employees, to increase the hire volumefor a particular period of time, training to improve the quality of the employees, and also toupdate the career section in the websites to ensure that the company can convey the idea ofemployee branding and the importance that it holds in the organization. These are all the casesthat need to be defined with respect to employee branding for better implementation andsubsequent success of the company. (Pickard, 2009)Relationship between Employee branding and Marketing and CommunicationsA company must define the ownership of a brand strategy so as to make a reach to the consensusand also so that the employees of the country remain united in their ways. The management of acompany must always take the forefront in driving employee branding with the help of educationin the organizational premises and also by awareness building. There are certain employees whostand as unconditional and do not require a general need for motivation. But for most of theorganizations it is a long-term and also strategic attempt of talent management. These strategiesare designed in order to attract, keep busy, prevent absenteeism etc and these strategies can onlybe fulfilled by a collaboration of the employee branding department with the marketing andcommunications department. As for example, the marketing and communications department scan be of extreme help in the case of analysis through websites, or also in the segmentation of thetarget market. Research says that wherever this collaboration stays weak, there is certainly a largestruggle, or delay in the projects or even the creativity can be minimized to a large extent.Modes of Discovering Employee brandOne can develop an employee branding strategy by making a comprehension of the culturefollowed in the organization, the work experiences of candidates, the drivers of talent, externalperspectives of the organization, vision of the organization, the leadership issues and also themanagement practices. If a company focuses on these areas for discovering its employeebranding, it would be able to make a construction of its message platform which would have thecharacteristics of being the most authenticated, of a compelling nature and also distinguished.This systematic procedure would also be embraced perfectly in the internal organization. Otherthan this, the external reach of the organization would also better as a result.There are also various ways of carrying the development program of employee branding. Theseare both quantitative and qualitative research. This can be in the form of focussing on groups,conducting interviews of leaders and also meetings and seminars. One can also gathercompetitive intelligence in the process. If the company wants to develop itself externally as well,it can check the online reputation of the firm so as to find out the views of the organization aboutwhat is said about them on the web through the blogs, or some social networking sites likeFacebook and Orkut.Role of the CEO and the Higher Authorities in Employee brandingIt is extremely important for a company to have its top management converse about the employeebrands in the earlier stages of the development of the same. There is an institute called theEmployee brand Institute which suggests that it is highly positive for a company's futureprospects to get involved with the key stakeholders on this issue. These issues can include thefollowing:* The support of employee branding in development of the business strategy * The culture of the organization and its consistency across the globe * The perception of the organization both internally and externally

* The channels of communication for bottom-up and vice versa * The most critical positions of success and the extent to which the company has gone inachieving the same * All the above defined can be with respect to the attraction of the employees towards theorganization, the engagement in achieving the organization's goals and finally the removal ofpolicies of absenteeism from the organization and achieve maximum retention of employees (HRfaces the challenges of 2002, 2002)Significance of Employee brandMany researchers have argued that in spite of following all the characteristics of employeebranding, companies have generally considered it as a shortcut for getting the best talentavailable in the surroundings. Many companies also tie up with ad agencies so as to market theiremployee branding even if they do not practice them in reality. These are some of the activitieswhich fall totally against the much valued significance that employee branding has. It is oftensaid that if one takes good care of his guests, there is all the probability that the guest willbecome your own and will continue to be loyal with you. This is followed by organizations likeGoogle and Marriott. Every organization must understand this fact very clearly that theorganization's core values are defined by the extent of being productive and responsive towardsthe customers. In others words it is a common belief that if a company takes care of the people itaffects, these people would certainly take care of the company. The competitive world of todayteaches a very simple concept which is that every gain is mutual. Along with the services, it is theemployee brand of a company that it would have to deliver to make the best possible returns.Implementation in UAEEmployee branding has seen its heights touched in UAE. One can see that every now and thenthere are some new entrants into every big organization. For example, if one has a look at thestatistics of the country, more than 80% of the population is that of the expatriates. The level iseven increasing every now and then. For a person to make a living in country, the workatmosphere has to be very good and along with that it is also required that the companies offermany opportunities for the candidates. Both these characteristics on which the employee branddepends are highly followed in UAE.Employee branding and Tourism in UAEThe incessant development of tourism in the country is based on a number of reasons. There is anentire integrated system that is responsible for the same. The country would never have had thesame number of tourists just with the advancement in the infrastructure itself. There are alsomany other reasons for the same. These reasons include the application of employee branding insome of the famous companies in UAE. Alshamel Holidays is a very well-known name when itcomes to tourism planning in the country. The company has reached its success because of thefact that the employees are highly satisfied with the processes that are followed by the company.The company has attracted the employees not just by giving exciting packages in terms of moneyand the other extra incentives along with it, but also with the level of motivation that is practicedin Alshameel Holidays. The organization connects more than 45,000 hotels all over and mostimportantly; this strong network is maintained by individuals employed all over.The difference that the company has with respect to other holiday designing organizations likeAl-Futtaim is that, the company has made an image of itself that can't be imitated in the market.The company has used its employee brand strategy as a part of the organizational goals that havebeen discussed in the first section. There are many companies that are looking forward to hire thetype of employee collection that Alshamel Holidays can offer but the only difference is that theyhave used the false significance of employee branding as mentioned above. Many tourismcompanies only guarantee a democratic mode of leadership with a flat organizational structurewhere the employees would also have their say in making strategies. This is actually followed in

Alshamel Holidays organization. Every seminar which is held so as to make the strategies toattract new tourists is also attended by the other employees as well whom the company feels tomake a suitable contribution in the making. This also develops a healthy competition amongstthe employees and the employee branding is advanced further. Once again, we see that a mutualbenefit has a major role to play. The company's prospects increase this way as well as theemployees' morale.

13.A Simplified Approach to Brand TerminologyBy Debra Semans (11 feb 2010)When talking about the various aspects of branding, apparently, quite a lot. Finding, learning andusing the "correct" brand terminology is causing a great deal of confusion for marketers. Why arethe specific terms so important? Isn't it more important that we just get on with it?Let's just simplify the terminology being used by advertising agencies, brand consultants, branddesigners and market researchers around the topic of brand. In efforts to differentiate themselves,these experts have exacerbated the problem by coining their own terminology for what areessentially the same brand elements, techniques and processes that everyone else is offering. Addto the mix that most marketers today did not learn about brands in their business schoolmarketing courses, and you have the potential for - and the reality of - a lot of confusion.One of the areas that seems to be attracting a lot of attention and misunderstanding amongpracticing marketers right now are the terms brand, internal brand, internal branding andemployee/employer brand. The question comes up in almost every brand conversation I have,"What is the difference between an internal and an external brand? What is an employee brandand do I have to have one? And what do you mean by internal branding?" Here are the simplified- but hopefully not simplistic - answers.A brand is a long-term relationship you have with your customers, based on consistent deliveryof an expected benefit. Brand is often described as a promise that is made and kept with yourcustomers, but I prefer to avoid putting brand on a transaction basis. I prefer to think of brand asa relationship - something that is built up, developed between two people or organizations andthat lasts a long time.There really isn't anything new in this definition. This is pretty much the same definition thatbrand experts have been using for the past few years. It does always surprise me when a businesstells me they don't have a brand and they don't need one. If you are in business, you have a brand.If you have not been actively managing your brand (a situation I describe as "benign neglect") itmay not be a strong brand and it may not be what you would like it to be. But, rest assured, youhave a brand. All you have to do is ask your customers and they will tell you all about yourbrand. You may discover that your brand is a corporate asset you should be aggressivelymanaging for business results, just like any other asset your corporation owns.An employee brand, on the other hand, is the brand you use to attract and retain employees. Anemployee brand may be different from the external brand it is related to - but not too different orit will not be credible. For example, it would be impossible for Virgin Airlines or SouthwestAirlines to have an employee brand that is staid, conservative and rigid. Likewise, it would notbe credible for a very conservative brand to attract employees using an employee brand that isovertly young and hip. While your employee brand must be related to your customer- ormarket-facing brand, it will definitely deliver different emotional and functional benefits. Thebenefits associated with an employee brand might be stability, fair compensation, good benefits,

and training, where your market-facing brand benefits would relate to functional and emotionalpromises inherent in the brand relationship.As to whether you have to have an employee brand or not, again, don't worry - you have one. Ifyou have employees in your business and hire employees, you have an employee brand. You maynot be managing it - and it may not be exactly what you want, but if you ask your employees andyour prospective hires, they will tell you about your employee brand. They may also tell youabout the employee brands of those companies against whom you compete for labor - so itprobably a good idea to explore.Now, let me stress that there is no such thing as an "internal brand" - the internal brand is exactlythe same as your external brand. In fact, to reduce the confusion, we can drop the internal andexternal designations and just refer to your brand. Internal branding, on the other hand, is theprocess of aligning people, functions and operations to consistently deliver the brand promise -building that brand relationship with the customer over time.Brand and internal branding are the responsibility of the entire organization - everyonecontributes in some way to creating and enhancing the organization's ability to deliver on itspromises. The employee brand, on the other hand, tends to be the purview of the humanresources, organizational development and internal communications folks.When I teach business people about branding there are always questions about the meaning ofthis or that term and is it the same as another term that they have read in a brand book or heardfrom another brand expert. I always tell my students not to worry about the terminology from thepoint of view of what's 'right' or 'wrong.' What's important is that they be sure to know what theymean by any given term within their organization so they can work with others on branding.From there, focus on the actions they need to take to build great brands. The terminology thatworks for your business or organization is the right terminology to use for you and your situation.The important thing is - "Just do it!"Debra S. Semans, a veteran marketing researcher and nationally recognized expert on brandresearch, brand positioning and strategy, is senior vice president for Atlanta marketing researchcompany, Polaris Marketing Research, Inc. She has overall responsibility for Polaris' clientrelationships and project satisfaction. Semans also has responsibility for Polaris' marketingefforts, as well as building strategic alliances for project support services.

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14.Brand Management: Customer vs. EmployeeBy Terry McKenna When it's all said and done, all you're truly left with at the end of the day is your company's brandand what your brand stands for in the minds of both your customers and employees. But do youmanage your company brand for the benefit of both constituencies: customers and employees?Most companies that I consult with focus their brand management efforts solely on the customer.But if you're really serious about differentiating your brand from your competitors, then I suggestthat you begin to manage and think about your brand from a dual, yet fully aligned point of view:customers and employees.

http://www.polarismr.com/brand-research-overview.htm




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Your brand, be it appliances, electronics, automobiles, clothing, etc. serves as a powerful magnetthat attracts both customers and employees to your front door, while also serving as an anchor tohold them. The best companies manage their brands from both the customer and employeeperspective. And why not, after all isn't it your front-line store employees who are the face andpersonality of your brand to your customers?Your current brand management focus and responsibilities should encompass the two mostimportant components of your business: your customers and store employees.Customer Perspective: Great brands connect with their customers on an emotional level vs. logical. It terms of emotion,what does it feel like viscerally to do business with you?Brand positioning starts with a frame of reference that communicates to your customers anexpectation they can achieve when doing business with you. However, you have to know whoyou are before you can convince others.Many companies often promote attributes of their products and services that consumers don'tcare about. It's important to assess not only product benefits and features but in addition thecustomers buying experience: every point of contact, commonly referred to as "moments oftruth" or "touch points."From the moment your customers approach your stores to the moment they leave, what was theexperience like? From exterior, to store design, to product offering, to service - is your customerbuying experience fast, friendly, and helpful?It's the overall experience that your customers will recall when it's time for them to purchaseagain, therefore make it positive and memorable. While careful consideration of your brandspoint of differentiation is important, just as important are your points of parity with your otherproducts and services. Be sure to assess on a continual basis your points of parity otherwisebrand attributes that were once differentiators may become minimum requirements, also know as"price of entry."Employee Perspective: If providing your customers with a fast, friendly, helpful and memorable buying experience iskey to success, then I think we'd all agree that the folks serving your customers are the criticallink. Not technology, products, or store design; but people! Don't get me wrong, technology,products, and hard assets are indeed important to your business, however, successful branding isall about connecting with your customers on an emotional level, and that can only be achieved onthe human level.Technology is a great enabler, however your brands real moment of truth is when your customersare standing at the transaction counter looking into the face of your sales associate. It is at thismoment that all your branding efforts (promises) are either fulfilled or broken (*). Managing theemployee dimension of your brand involves: recruiting, interviewing and selection, training,career development and business culture, which includes: motivation, teamwork, reward andrecognition, and leadership. It is the people side of the business that represents your brand to yourcustomers that create the emotional link for brand loyalty

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/546887When it's all said and done, all you're truly left with at the end of the day is your company's brandand what your brand stands for in the minds of both your customers and employees. But do youmanage your company brand for the benefit of both constituencies: customers and employees?Most companies that I consult with focus their brand management efforts solely on the customer.But if you're really serious about differentiating your brand from your competitors, then I suggestthat you begin to manage and think about your brand from a dual, yet fully aligned point of view:customers and employees.

Your brand, be it appliances, electronics, automobiles, clothing, etc. serves as a powerful magnetthat attracts both customers and employees to your front door, while also serving as an anchor tohold them. The best companies manage their brands from both the customer and employeeperspective. And why not, after all isn't it your front-line store employees who are the face andpersonality of your brand to your customers?Your current brand management focus and responsibilities should encompass the two mostimportant components of your business: your customers and store employees.Customer Perspective: Great brands connect with their customers on an emotional level vs. logical. It terms of emotion,what does it feel like viscerally to do business with you?Brand positioning starts with a frame of reference that communicates to your customers anexpectation they can achieve when doing business with you. However, you have to know whoyou are before you can convince others.Many companies often promote attributes of their products and services that consumers don'tcare about. It's important to assess not only product benefits and features but in addition thecustomers buying experience: every point of contact, commonly referred to as "moments oftruth" or "touch points."From the moment your customers approach your stores to the moment they leave, what was theexperience like? From exterior, to store design, to product offering, to service - is your customerbuying experience fast, friendly, and helpful?It's the overall experience that your customers will recall when it's time for them to purchaseagain, therefore make it positive and memorable. While careful consideration of your brandspoint of differentiation is important, just as important are your points of parity with your otherproducts and services. Be sure to assess on a continual basis your points of parity otherwisebrand attributes that were once differentiators may become minimum requirements, also know as"price of entry."Employee Perspective: If providing your customers with a fast, friendly, helpful and memorable buying experience iskey to success, then I think we'd all agree that the folks serving your customers are the criticallink. Not technology, products, or store design; but people! Don't get me wrong, technology,products, and hard assets are indeed important to your business, however, successful branding isall about connecting with your customers on an emotional level, and that can only be achieved onthe human level.Technology is a great enabler, however your brands real moment of truth is when your customersare standing at the transaction counter looking into the face of your sales associate. It is at thismoment that all your branding efforts (promises) are either fulfilled or broken (*). Managing theemployee dimension of your brand involves: recruiting, interviewing and selection, training,career development and business culture, which includes: motivation, teamwork, reward andrecognition, and leadership. It is the people side of the business that represents your brand to yourcustomers that create the emotional link for brand loyalty


REVIEW OF LITERATURE ON EMPLOYEE BRANDING

Employee Branding in Telecommunication Sector of Pakistan:Employee’s Perspective

Hijab Ashraf, Madiha Khalid, Sehar Maqsood, Muhammad Kashif, Zeeshan Ahmadand Irfan AkberCorresponding Author: Muhammad Kashif

This research reconnoiters the employees’ perceptions concerning role and impact ofhuman resource initiatives towards successful internal branding efforts in telecomsector of Pakistan. Primary data was collected from 200 functional-level managersserving various telecom organizations, through an already developed and testedinstrument. The respondents were stratified to create subsets among differentdepartments and then random sampling technique was used to choose the number ofsubjects from each subset to collect data. The data was presented through descriptivestatistics, regression, and correlation techniques. The findings of the study suggestthat employees appear to have positive insolences considering the importance of theirpersonal involvement while incorporating the brand values to work activities. Aneffective implementation of internal branding process within the organizations isheavily dependent upon human resource initiatives taken within the telecomorganizations. The results of study will help firms to understand the missing linkbetween human resource management and internal branding while creating excellentcustomer service experiences.

The Importance of Predictive and Face Validity in Employee Selection andWays of Maximizing Them: An Assessment of Three Selection MethodsKelechi John Ekuma

AbstractThe current exigencies and fluidity of the business environment engendered largely bydemographic changes,technological advances and globalisation have made it imperative for organisations to posses thebrightest talentsas a source of competitive advantage, if they hope to survive. The continuing ‘talent war’ andfierce competition. in the global market place; and issues concerning employee branding and candidate attraction,means thatorganisations and their managers have to carefully review their recruitment and selectionprocesses, ensuring thatemployee selection methods not only contributes towards enhancing organisational image, butalso predictsfuture job performance to a reasonable extent. There is therefore, the need for chosen methods tobe high in bothPredictive and Face validities.This article critically examines the importance of the concepts of Predictive and Face validities toemployeeselection in a wider context as an HR strategy and as an integral part of organisations’ generalstrategy,suggesting ways of improving both concepts. The central argument of this article, is that forselection methods tobe effective, reliable, valid and minimise costs associated with loosing top talents, poor employeeperformanceand turnover, it must possess high predictive and face value. The article assesses three majorselection methods(interviews, work sampling and assessment centers) with a view of maximizing their predictiveand facevalidities, arguing that the design, contents and the manner of administrating these methods aremajor issues. Thepaper concludes that there is no one best way of selecting new employees, but a combination ofcarefully chosenmethods and well-trained HR professionals will undoubtedly improve face and predictivevalidities and byextension, the selection method.

(Prepared by Mr. Sem Shaikh)(This study material only for academic purpose only)

THE M.S. UNIVERSITY OF BARODAFACULTY OF COMMERCE

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE & BUSINESS MANAGEMENTMASTER OF COMMERCE

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