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Turning Employees Into Brand Champions
Rakesh Seth throws some light on how employee engagement and internal branding can set your Brand image amongst employees as well as externally, so that it may instil a drive of longevity and resourcefulness amongst your employees. Based on the study of the culture of some corporate giants, he had figured out some strategies as well as some trends, that could be inculcated in your culture.
Service sector is on a growth path globally. In the service businesses human resources play a very important role in creating and sustaining the positive image of the company in the eyes of stakeholders. The success and failure of the company to a very large extent depends upon the quality of human resources and how integrated they are with company’s products and services brand, and thereby with the business objectives
The way I see it start ups and established Indian businesses need a better understanding of the role internal audiences play within the branding infrastructure, the manner in which their perception lead them to do their jobs and way they embody the brand on their own accord. A brand is a living, breathing organism. It experiences success, failures, and everyday trials. The brand is within each of the employee.
A brand can be defined as a cluster of clearly defined values it represents what an organisation wants to stand for and what it provides to its customers. The process of aligning an organisation around a brand is known as the internal branding process and can be aimed at both existing and prospective staff.
The concept of internal branding is well accepted in the service industry. This note examines how internal branding helps service/manufacturing organisations achieve desirable outcomes such as job satisfaction, enhanced productivity, employee loyalty and customer centricity, through internal branding and employee engagement.
COMMAND & CONTROL CULTURE – OBSOLETE
Most companies still operate using the command and control model that came about during the industrial revolution. That model no longer works well in a knowledge based environment, which requires collaboration to drive innovation and success. We noticed that some of the well known global brands and names could not sustain their businesses and one of the reasons was the mismatch and mis-alignment in values and management practices between the internal (between employees and management) and external communication (with customers, suppliers, investors etc) of the organisation.
SIGNIFICANCE OF INTERNAL BRANDING
The ultimate aim of internal branding is top class employee performance that fulfils customer expectations. You need to plan and execute a professional branding campaign to introduce and explain the messages and then reinforce them by weaving the brand into the fabric of the company. The messages should be directed at employees “touch points” the day to day interactions that influence the way people experience the workplace.
It is the best way to help employees make a powerful emotional connection to the products and services you sell. Without that connection, employees are likely to undermine the expectations set by the advertising campaigns. In some cases, employees simply don’t understand what you have promised the public, so they end up working at cross purposes. In other cases, it may be they don’t actually believe in the brand and feel disengaged, or worse become hostile towards the company.