The Sense Makers

I was struck by the definition of Employee Branding, below. This created a thought process on whether we are getting just too cute for our own good.

Start with the question – “why would anyone want to work here and why would they stay?”.

Think of yourself and answer those two questions by thinking along the lines of: how am I engaged; can I use my creativity; can I make mistakes; will people guide me on behaviour; do they listen, really listen; can I think laterally and provocatively; do people respect me for what results I can bring or is the focus on form and compliance?

Take these questions and apply a cognitive lens – a lens that recognises organisations to be created by people to concentrate skills and quantities to ‘do things the customer realises he or she need and in sufficient volume’.

If customers are your dominant business driver and their tastes change, surely you want processes to morph into procurement and delivery mechanisms that meet that need?

You want hearts to be in the business, creativity celebrated, strengths celebrated, aspirations developed across the cross-section of the organisation, innovative approaches brought to operations, communication and inter-personal behaviour.  In short, you want people to listen, really listen; up, down and across the organisation and you want people to ask questions as a result of listening so that a common understanding emerges and spreads throughout the organisation.

Make your culture one of five I’s

• Inquire into your strengths and celebrate these
• Imagine the opportunities open to you
• Innovate to open the way to use the opportunities practically
• Inspire the teams to deliver against the opportunities
• Implement a continuous improvement cycle

We all want to be seen, heard and understood – align your behaviour to this belief and you will have an excellent place to work.  Call it what you will – employee brand is a bit of mouthful in comparision to common sense dealing with people as people – perhaps Team Charter fits.

Quote:

“While a lot of attention is paid to ‘employment branding,’ it is rarely understood as the heart of the Talent Management process. An employment brand is a clear and repeatable set of attributes for the company culture. The employment brand includes mission, work environment, values, and expectations. All of on boarding, succession management, performance management and even competency management and development must center on the employment brand.

When the company is clear about what it expects, what it intends, where it is going and why it is here, all of the other aspects of motivation fall into place. Mission, the centerpiece of the Employment Brand, turbo charges all of the other systems.

The study specifies ‘clear mission.’ That’s one part operations, one part vision and one part communications. A clear mission, expressed as the employment brand is a productivity boost and a competitive differentiator.

John Sumser is a member of the Salary.com Board of Directors as well as the founder and president of Two Color Hat, Inc. Contributions to Salary.com HR Voice and this Website reflect the opinions of the authors and are not an official opinion of Salary.com, Inc., or any of its subsidiary or affiliated entities.”