Employee First, Customer Second (Or how to build a winning brand, both internally and externally)

When Vineet Nayar announced to a few hundred top customers at his Global Customer Meet, that to him it was ‘Employee First, Customer Second’ (EFCS), it sounded stunningly counter-intuitive.

But HCL Tech’s former CEO used logic that was as simple and sound, as it was disruptive. It does take a happy employee to create a happy customer.

Making it tangible: To make this philosophy concrete and actionable, Nayar drove a holistic approach with a values-centric culture, 360° feedback posted on the intranet (including on the CEO!), enabling processes, emphasis on knowledge sharing, fostering an entrepreneurial mindset, opportunities for value creation, tools to actively plan one’s career growth, an open communication channel right up to the top, among others. A personification of every HCLite as someone extraordinary was done through the idea of the 'Transformer', and depicted through the 'Thambi' icon.

The communication challenge: While EFCS was a larger transformational exercise, the communication task that emanated from it was to ensure engagement across every stage of the employee life cycle – from recruitment to induction, career planning, R&R, and even once they exit to become alumni. Using both online and on-ground channels, HCL’s framework of innovative initiatives and platforms became the basis for communicating with and engaging employees.

Successful outcomes: HCL Tech was one of our early clients, and we feel pride in the fact that EFCS worked at multiple levels. Attrition levels came down from record highs, and business growth outstripped that of the competition. Also, Harvard Business School teaches a case study on change management at HCL Tech, driven by the EFCS proposition.

Emergence of the employer as a brand

This experience introduced us to the-then unheard concept of ‘employer branding’. It made so much sense – almost all the principles of consumer communication seemed to have parallels in employee communication. Understanding the target person, defining the right value proposition, rooting it in tangible ‘reasons why’, making it experiential, seeking concrete outcomes.

Recognising its importance, we made CFC (or Communication for Culture, to use an umbrella term encompassing employer branding, employee communication and engagement) a differentiated part of our offerings, at a time when biggies in our business would be left cold by the thought.

A tool for cultural transformation, and for bolstering the external brand

Over the years, CFC has found resonance across a wide spectrum of clients. In knowledge industries, of course, the need is felt more strongly, as companies battle it out not just for more business, but an equally fierce war is fought over top talent. It takes more than HR, and it takes more than Comms. In its most powerful avatar, CFC combines the cultural understanding of HR, the tools of Communications, and the strategic business perspective of the organisational leadership.

With different organisational objectives, the employee context varies, and so does the operative insight, and how you must communicate. Here are some examples of different contexts – from the tactical to the strategic to the transformational – in which we have used CFC:

• For Tetra Pak, we created a communication framework and narratives to engage their 7000 strong workforce across APAC, and rally them around their strategic pillars and enabling behaviours, for achieving their 10-year objectives
• For Snapdeal, we identified the key drivers of success during the peak Diwali season, and developed a comms plan and campaign to engage employees using a unique superhero character and a series of entertaining narratives drawn from the Ramayana
• For Comviva (a Tech Mahindra company), we made a comms plan and creatives to dissolve silos and give employees a greater sense of ownership
• For Royal Bank of Scotland, we developed a campaign to share some not-so-happy news, in a manner that brought out the positive in the negative
• For Tata Chemicals, we created drama around the themes of their annual meets, with compelling visual identity and videos 
• For Bal Bharati schools, we created a framework called 'Care & Connect' to help families navigate the study-from-home period. We identified stress triggers, and made an 'ideas toolkit' for parents to engage their kids while ensuring their holistic wellbeing  

When we talk of branding and communication, one of the most important learnings for us has been that the customer-facing brand and the employer brand must both stem from the organisation’s core values and support its strategic intent.

When the external and internal are in sync, it is easy for each employee to become an enthusiastic brand ambassador, and achieving all-round excellence and success becomes that much easier.

#ContextLedCommunication #EmployeeEngagement #EmployerBranding #Transformation

(Rajeev Shukla is Co-founder & Managing Partner of Resonance Consulting, a branding and communication firm offering services that include Insight Mining, Brand Strategy, Identity & Design, Communication, Employer Branding & Employee Engagement, CSR Advisory. )