Big Brother and Your Company Brand

During a recent webinar, BLR® asked John Sullivan, PhD, professor, author, corporate speaker, and advisor, a number of questions about employment branding. Today we present his views on measuring and monitoring company brands, as well as whether it’s worth limiting what your employees can and cannot say about your company.

Sullivan has a lot of experience with employment branding. Today he continues his discussion with topics like measuring and monitoring company brands and his thoughts on whether you should try to limit what your employees can and cannot say about your company.

Best Practices for Measuring and Monitoring a Company’s Brand

Sullivan had a lot to say about monitoring a company’s brand as well as measuring it. He prefaced his discussion of the topic by saying that while most employers monitor their brand, “only 33% of the firms … formally measure the brand strength.” By focusing on measuring your company brand, you will also, inevitably, monitor it as well.

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Sullivan suggests that the best way to measure your company brand is by tracking how many applicants you have. The industry makes use of a ratio of applicants per week to the number of employees in order to create a brand strength metric. When these numbers are the same, they represent the benchmark standard. Google, for example, has only 55,000 employees, and they get more than 57,000 applications a week. That’s a pretty good ratio, according to Sullivan. If, however, you have 55,000 employees but get only 10,000 applications a week, that’s when you know that you need to improve your company brand.

Another way to measure your company brand involves public rankings like Fortune’s “Best Companies to Work For” lists. Sullivan reminds us that Fortune’s list is the most prestigious but certainly not the only one out there. Companies like Glassdoor® and LinkedIn also rank and rate companies. Employers should investigate how they do in these rankings as part of how they measure their company brand. Sullivan notes that your potential employees will be looking at those lists, so you should, too. Additionally, these rankings get press coverage. Having a great brand and being at the top of one of these lists can be a real asset to any company.

Part of your brand includes company visibility. Sullivan suggests that every company search for themselves on Google and see what page they come up on.  Anything other than the top of the first page suggests that not only will no one read your website but also that you have a lot of work to do when it comes to your employment brand.

Finally, make the most of your capacity to interview new candidates, as well as those who are leaving the company. Sullivan suggests asking a new recruit why they want to work there and what grabbed their attention, as well as those who are leaving why they are leaving. He notes you can even go to a conference and form a focus group where you can specifically ask, “Why would you want to work for our firm?”

If you measure your company brand with these kinds of metrics, you can learn what works and what doesn’t and hone your strategy accordingly.

Limiting What Employees Can Say: Good Sense, or Huge Mistake?

Unless you are the CIA, limiting what your employees can and cannot say might cause some real problems. Sullivan remarks, “Well excuse my French, but it’s just dumb to try to block employee comments.” And he has a few good reasons:

1. The world is more transparent and free than ever, and employees crave that freedom. Restrict sites like Facebook and people might just rebel.
2. Trying to restrict how employees interact online while they are at work becomes moot the second those same employees go home, where they will have the unlimited access to those same sites your company tried to block.
3. Sites like Glassdoor are anonymous, so tracking what employees say doesn’t really work.
4. If someone does say something negative, and you stop them, word of your company’s interfering with an employee will spread quickly.
5. Ultimately, the message will get out one way or another. It’s better if it gets out because you intended it to, rather than as a scandal.

Sullivan recognizes that companies may feel obligated to take the reins when it comes to how their employees represent the company. And he has a number of suggestions for how to do that without being Big Brother:

1. Educate your employees on what happens to a company when they complain and, conversely, what happens to a company when you say something positive.
2. Being “proactive” when an employee says something negative by posting a positive comment doesn’t really work. If your positive comment is on page 4 of Glassdoor, no one will see it.
3. Create and share a “story inventory” where you collect testimony from your employees about what works at your company, what makes your employees proud to work there, and what kinds of innovations your employees have enacted that improved the company.
4. Try winning awards or getting on ranked lists. Even when there is bad press, a company that has a good rating or has won awards can overcome that press.

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Common Mistakes Company’s Make with Their Branding

The number one most common mistake companies make, according to Sullivan, comes from when organizations don’t actually have anyone in charge of their employer brand. He notes that this is most common among small businesses. Simply having someone in charge of branding can improve the quality of hire by 9%, which adds up in the long run.

Another common mistake Sullivan notes involves narrow-minded goals on the part of companies. A company might have an idea of what they want to be known for, be it their location or their history. But what happens if people don’t care about those things? A company might be wasting time talking about what they are proud of instead of what the customers want.

Job descriptions can be a real source of problems for companies. Sullivan states that “most job descriptions are painfully dull.” He suggests being more dynamic about your job descriptions. Use a video job description, for example. Doing so not only improves hiring but also the brand image.

Sullivan suggests that if you don’t have a specialized college brand, that is a big mistake. He says that college students “are the most well connected people on the planet, but they are also brand conscious” not only in what they wear and buy but also in the companies they are interested in working for. Create a special, targeted effort geared toward college students with unique messaging, and put those efforts in a different place than your regular branding.

Finally, don’t spend too much money on advertising. “Get your positive message out and have others spread it for you,” says Sullivan.

Tomorrow, the last of Sullivan’s thoughts on employment branding, plus an introduction to an interactive webinar, Supervisors and Managers as Recruiting Partners: Practical Strategies for Collaborating to Achieve Hiring Success.