Chapter 7: Communicating to Ensure Brand Resonance

Overview

How management communicates to employees really does matter. It is a critical key to any organizational culture and provides the foundation for the understanding and feeling that employees hold toward their brand. Brand-integrated employee communications programs not only keep the key brand messages alive internally through repetition but—when done well—also shape the language of the branded service culture. To accomplish this, internal communication about the brand needs to be both strategic and creative in the way it is developed and implemented.

Recognition of the key role that employee communication plays as a strategic management tool can be traced back at least twenty-five years, when Thomas F. Gilbert wrote his classic book on managing and motivating people, Human Competence. Gilbert did not mince words: "Improper guidance and feedback are the largest contributors to incompetence in the world of work." ^[1]

Gilbert stated unequivocally that employees need to know where the business is going. They also need confirmation of the contribution they make to business growth. Applying his ideas to real work situations, Gilbert concluded that by simply improving the communication of information to employees, performance could be improved by between 20 and 50 percent. ^[2]

From the mid-1980s, Gilbert's work helped spawn a range of new managerial behavioral approaches, including the concept of open-book management ^[3] and balanced scorecard. ^[4] The practical application of these new approaches, particularly open-book management (sharing financial information with all staff), has had varied success within organizations. For example, one feature of successful open-book management is the use of team-oriented decision-making meetings to increase understanding and drive business strategy. These meetings build the individual and collective commitment of employees by allowing them to be involved.

Too often, though, organizations are riveted on communicating information, believing that simply passing on facts and figures engages employees. Marketing specialist Kevin Thomson advocates applying the concepts of relationship marketing (see chapter 12) in these situations: "Treating employees as internal customers is the way forward. By using marketing-based communication strategies that match the needs of employees and create a two-way flow between the organization and its people, businesses can get far greater degrees of buy-in to corporate messages." ^[5]

In Thomson's assessment, even though technical tools have dramatically improved, the effectiveness of employee communications is actually worsening—and with significant consequences. A University of Salford (UK) study states that a majority of surveyed organizations score just 5.6 out of 10 for their effectiveness of communication. A U.S. Council of Communication Management study concludes that 64 percent of staff often do not believe their senior managers. Market and Opinion Research International further states that fewer than 50 percent of employees know their company's objectives. ^[6] Thomson concludes by saying, "If organizations buy in to the need for improving their businesses through their people, then improving the methods and means to capturing hearts and minds must be a priority." ^[7]

Internal brand marketing is one of the most powerful levers that can be used to support culture change, build internal alignment with the brand, and create enthusiasm for its delivery. Employees are no different from customers in that their needs are both emotional and logical. It seems glaringly obvious that similar principles and strategies can be applied to both sets of stakeholders. To engage employees, organizations must capture their imagination and commitment to the brand. Then and only then will they become internal brand loyalists and powerful external advocates of the brand promise. ^[8]

^[1]Thomas F. Gilbert, Human Competence: Engineering Worthy Performance (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1987), 90.

^[2]Thomas F. Gilbert, Human Competence: Engineering Worthy Performance (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1987), 90 177–180.

^[3]John Case, Open-Book Management: The Coming Business Revolution (New York: HarperBusiness, 1995).

^[4]Robert Kaplan and David Norton, The Balanced Scorecard (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1996).

^[5]Kevin Thomson, Emotional Capital (Tulsa, Okla.: Capstone Publishing Ltd., 1998), 54.

^[6]Kevin Thomson, Emotional Capital (Tulsa, Okla.: Capstone Publishing Ltd., 1998), 54.

^[7]Kevin Thomson, Emotional Capital (Tulsa, Okla.: Capstone Publishing Ltd., 1998), 85.

^[8]This sentence is based upon remarks by Felicity Stevens, an internal marketing specialist with whom TMI works.