Workplace environment
Providing your staff with the development they need and demand, and the opportunities for flexibility and mobility are important considerations in creating an engaged workforce. Millennials in particular, demand more workplace flexibility and more rapid career progression, and when this is provided feel more respected and invested in. As a result, engagement levels are higher and the company gets talked about more favourably via social media.
Your hiring procedures also have an effect on your corporate reputation of course, but how much attention are you really paying to these? Are the staff you employ to carry out the recruitment process engaged to a level that reflects a great corporate brand or do you leave it to chance and rarely consider or revise it? These people are a window to your organisation and play a large part in creating the reputation. I frequently hear about negative interview processes in my work, that show an unbelievable lack of respect to the candidate and this will get talked about!
In summary
Here are some key actions you can take to start to address the potential risk of weakening your corporate reputation by lack of employee engagement:
* Do regular pulse checks (not just annually) on the levels of employee engagement and really act on the results
* Provide personal development programmes for leaders and staff that not just focus on the values, but on how they can personally interpret and internalize them authentically in order to reinforce them consistently.
* Support your leaders external profile and visibility with suitable coaching programmes
* Assess your recruitment processes more closely and consider if you have the right people creating a strong brand during the process
* Consider your workplace environment – is it in alignment with keeping and attracting talent and in particular the millennials coming into your organization today?
When your corporate reputation is so critical today in order to stay relevant to clients and attractive to talent, you simply have to bring employee engagement to the top of your agenda. In so many ways it affects your bottom line. Remember, the most powerful element of your corporate brand reputation today is quite simply your people and how they make your stakeholders feel.
If you want to learn more about developing your Leadership Brand, attend Lesley’s exclusive Leadership Brand Retreat in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California on April 11-1
Lesley Everett – Author of Corporate Brand Personality