On corporate branding and corporate reputation

During the 80s and 90s, the labour paradigm suffered deep changes. 

The need to improve work conditions and provide security to workers paved the path for the birth of the concept of Decent Work, which can be defined as work that respects the fundamental rights of the human person, as well as the workers' rights in terms of salary and work security, that provides an income that allows workers to support themselves and also to provide for their families, work that respects the physical and mental integrity of the workers while performing their duties (International Labour Organization [ILO], 1999). 

The labour laws also suffered changes, providing more protection to workers, but also becoming more flexible. These changes, along with the political and economic confluence, caused the markets to become more competitive as well.

If, on the one hand, due to the increasing competitiveness, the constant changes in the business world and the flexibilisation of the labour laws, the idea of a "job for life" no longer exists, it is also true that these changes took the onus of the workers' career development from the companies and turned the workers into agents of their own career development. The workers began to set their own career goals and started choosing more carefully what companies they applied for, what salaries and benefits were being offered, which led to a more fluid moving from one company to the next (Kroeger, 1995, cited by Amos & Weathington, 2008).

To put it simple, this situation created the necessity for organisations to humanise themselves, and to come up with ways to adapt faster to the market changes as a way to stand out and to become more attractive not only to new talent but also to potential clients (Standing, 2013, cited by Ferraro et al., 2016).

This was the birth of the corporate culture, where companies define what makes them what they are, that makes them different from other companies, and what mission, vision and values they stand for as a corporate - and, thus, the corporate branding was born.

And why is this important to you?

Because corporate branding is even more important now than it was then.

The business world is even more (aggressively) competitive, with new companies being created on a daily basis. 

And so you must ask: How does your company stand out from its competitors? And how do you show that to potential employees and clients?

Corporate branding is key. Defining what kind of company you have is paramount. 

What are your company's vision and mission? What makes yours different from other companies? 

What makes your product or services better than those or your competitors? 

What values guide your company? Communication? Sustainability? Community? Transparency? Honesty?

However, while the new technologies and the internet opened new doors allowing companies to gain more visibility, there is also a downside to this: the visibility your company gets is for good and for bad.

Incongruences between the corporate values on your company's website and those that are actually practiced on a daily basis tend to kill the team's motivation, to increase the turnover intention, and tend to end up on platforms such as Glassdoor in the form of negative reviews. 

You might not consider it something all that negative. Until you do. 

Until you notice that, along with the bad reviews on Glassdoor, the company's LinkedIn also shows the turnover levels. 

Until you notice that the negative reviews deter new talent from joining your company. 

Until the negative reviews scare away your business, because clients are not keen on making business with companies with bad reviews on Glassdoor or on any other platforms.

You see, corporate branding and corporate visibility have a sister, corporate reputation. And if you don't take care of them you will not only get your company high turnover levels, but also start losing money really fast.

You lose employees, which means

1. You lose people that already know how to do their jobs
2. It will kill the motivation of the rest of the team and damage the corporate climate
3. You will need to hire more people that will take time to recruit, hire, train, and get to the level of those that left. As you know, time for an organisation is precious, it costs you money.

When you have a high turnover percentage, this means you have a serious issue you need to address soon, because of

1. Potential bad reviews
2. Potential decrease of candidates willing to work in your company
3. Potential decrease of clients willing to hire your services or acquiring your products.

So, what can you do to salvage your company from such a grim future?

• Take a good look at the reviews (preferably before they start piling up and turn into a massive issue) concerning your company and analyse them without assuming a defensive posture
• Separate the issues in terms of categories (communication/transparency, lack of knowledge/training, lack of career development, strategy, etc)
• Start working on a plan to address these issues. Do you need to improve your company's communication (both internal and external) style? Do you need to provide your team with training? Do you need to re-design your strategy? Do you need to re-design the career development in your company?

Change can be a daunting process. It is more than okay to ask for help and this is a service you can hire these days.

Keep in mind that having everyone on board with the changes needed is important and people are more willing to accept and go along with changes if they feel they are heard and involved in the process. It's definitely worth it, since things will go smoother that way.

Corporate branding is an unfinished product. It's s dynamic, ongoing process, so you should keep working on it continuously.

Originally posted to Psychology of the Workplace.

References

Amos, E. A., & Weathington, B. L. (2008). An analysis of the relation between employee-organization value congruence and employee attitudes. The Journal of Psychology, 142(6), 615–631. Retrieved on December, 2019, from https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Bart_Weathington/publication/23562366_An_Analysis_of_the_Relation_Between_Employee-Organization_Value_Congruence_and_Employee_Attitudes/links/02e7e539702928a560000000.pdf

Ferraro, T., Santos, N. R., Pais, L., Mónico, L. (2016). Historical landmarks of decent work. European Journal of Applied Business Management, 2(1), 77–96. Retrieved on December 23, 2019, from https://nidisag.isag.pt/index.php/IJAM/article/view/129/111

International Labour Organization (1999). Decent work: Report of the Director-General [PDF]. Comunica??o apresentada na 87a sess?o da International Labour Conference, Geneva. Retrieved from https://www.ilo.org/public/libdoc/ilo/P/09605/09605(1999-87).pdf