Articles on Employee Branding

ARTICLES ON EMPLOYEE BRANDING
1. Employee Branding - An Overlooked Marketing Resource
By Rich McLafferty ( dec 3 2009)
There is an underutilized, and often overlooked marketing resource in your organization right
now: your employees.
Each time a customer interacts with your organization there's an opportunity to build your brand
through your employees. The experience your employees deliver to your customers will
determine the ongoing perception, and reputation of the brand.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/3350064
Internal brand engagement is a simple, cost-effective strategy that will help take your
organization to new levels of success. Employees who are truly engaged with a brand can create
significant financial returns for their organization.
Your Employees Are Your Brand
Most organizations fail to recognize the role employees' play in building a brand's reputation.
Employees interact at personal and professional levels each day with current, as well as potential
customers. Each interaction is either a positive, or a negative representation of your organization,
and your brand.
Every employee (not just customer-facing) plays an important role in supporting, and building a
brand. For example, an administrative assistant might provide support to an entire product
development team working on the release of a new product. The support provided by the
administrative assistant allows the product development team to focus on creating a cutting-edge
product that will deliver on the brand's promise
Build A Brand-Centric Organization
So how do you go about building a brand-centric organization? Create a "brand academy" or a
similar type of group that has the responsibility to ensure that every employee receives initial, as
well as ongoing education as your brand evolves and grows over time. The brand should be
linked to job descriptions, training programs, meetings and events. Anyone who represents your
organization should be required to participate in some type of brand education program.
Employees should read, see, feel, or hear something each day that represents your brand's values,
goals, and promise that will help to keep their connection, and their shared responsibility to be an
owner, and ambassador. Immersion is key to creating a brand-centric culture.
Brand education helps employees understand and connect with your organization's vision and
goals. When employees understand and connect to a brand's goals, personality, and promise, they
become brand ambassadors.
Ambassadors help build your brand each day through their work and interactions. Your
employees become a major part of your marketing resources by delivering relevant brand-centric
experiences (internal and external) that help to build brand equity, and customer loyalty.

How To Develop Brand Ambassadors
There are several steps you can take to begin building a team of ambassadors:
1. Develop an awareness / education program
Brand engagement does not magically happen, and it's more than handing out "logo swag." An
effective education program goes into detail about the brand's positioning statement, values,
goals and personality with emphasis on the benefit/promise. Employees can't deliver on the
brand's promise if they don't know what it is, and how to deliver it through their work each day.
The training program should include tangible examples of how each employee group helps to
deliver on the brand's promise, and how their work contributes to the brand's success. Again,
each employee plays an important role in either providing direct support to a customer-facing
team, or they are in contact with customers each day.
For customer-facing teams it's critical to define the desired customer experience, and design the
customer experience around the brand. The brand makes the promise, and the customer
experience delivers the promise. A well-designed customer experience always supports, and
delivers the brand's promise in each customer interaction.
2. Create a Brand-Centric Employee Experience
You should deliver your brand promise to your employees as well. The employee experience will
have a direct affect on your customers' experience, and should be directly connected to your
employee experience strategy for continuity, and consistency. Designing and delivering an
on-brand employee experience is an effective strategy to help build morale and motivation, as
well as improve employee retention.
The Result
Rich McLafferty is an organizational visionary, and challenger of the status quo with 15+ years
experience developing customer experience, employee experience, and organization development
strategies that re-focus and align organizations around their people, their brand, and their
customers.
Rich has created a unique and simple framework that not only builds a brand-centric customer
experience organization, but helps an organization deliver on its brand promise, that in turn
builds brand equity. Rich has background in the telecommunications, airline, outsourcing, and
the not-for-profit industries, as well as a Master's degree in Leadership and Organization
Development, a BA in Humanities, and a Consultant Certification in Branded Customer Service.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/3350064.
2. Your Employee Brand
By Andrea Herran
You can easily talk about your company brand and the image portrayed to clients and vendors.
Could you say the same about your employee brand image? Do you know how current and
former employees describe your business and what it is like to work with you
the short answer is "yes" and why is detailed below.
Retention
As you know, keeping your good employees is key. These are the people who will keep your
business going and make it grow. Having your good employees jump ship at the first sign of

another offer is not something you want. If you have a bad or even toxic employee brand, your
employees will even change jobs for less salary for a company with a good employee brand.
Customer Service
While your provide customer service to your clients, on the front line it is your employees. You
would prefer (and probably demand) they provide excellent customer service to keep your
clients. Anyone will tell you, it is better to retain your current customers. You don't want to be
the company that is vying for new customers just to replace the one's who have left.
Marketing
Your employees, either current or former, will speak about your business. You don't know who
they are talking to or who is listening. Could it be a potential customer? A potential vendor? A
potential new employee? You don't know. What you do know is that what they are saying could
influence who becomes your customer, vendor or employee. This works both ways - positive and
negative.
Create Raving Fans
What? I'm not a sports team. That's true (well maybe you are). The fact is, it doesn't matter. You
want Raving Fans, these are the people who speak positively about you and your company. They
actually go beyond positive to "Wow, this place is great". This is great publicity, advertising,
marketing, and word of mouth. Who wouldn't want this?
Word of Caution
Having a good or great employee brand is important, no doubt. Where the caution comes is in
how you get there. Don't presume that to have a great brand means letting your employees have
their way, let them do whatever they want and make them happy at any cost. What you need to
do is to be a Great Leader, provide limits while allowing appropriate discussions.
Bottom line - it is about your company culture. Company Culture = Employee Brand.
Andrea Herran is the principal of Focus HR Consulting ( http://www.FocusHR.biz ), which
provides full human resources support to small business, provides a membership service through
My HR Helpline for those who want expertise just a phone call away, and provides webinars and
public speaking on HR topics.
3. Market Your Brand to Your Employees - Internal Branding Insights
By Ila Badoni (june 14 2013)
Employees as Brand Ambassadors
So the question is that can a new company not bring about the same pride and joy in their
employees? The answer is a resounding yes! The easiest way for any new company to brand
itself, is to begin by realizing that their employees can be their brand ambassadors. When
employees refer they will bring in business leads, recruitment of experienced contacts and of
course word of mouth marketing of their organization.
It's all About Communication
When the vision, mission, values and culture of a company is born, it is absolutely necessary to
write them down. Making a document would mean that these messages are repeated and drilled
down into the employees so that they can identify themselves with the values and the culture of
the company. This will help the employees feel rooted and retention will be easy. Corporate
cultures are reflected in the working of the employees in the business world. More clearly, for

example, an empowering corporate culture will produce a bold marketing team, willing to try out
new ideas. Big risks do lead to big successes, hence creating a brand name for the company.
What comes first -Internal or External Branding?
What came first- the chicken or the egg? There is definitely an impact of internal branding on the
external branding and vice-versa. It is also true that companies that begin internal branding are
more aware of internal communication gaps and are accepting of such gaps as problem areas.
Internal branding is much more effective when run as one major focused campaign followed up
with smaller campaigns refocusing on the same message. Organizations should attempt theme
based campaigns so that messages that need to be reiterated can be discussed thoroughly. In case
the company wants to opt for regular communications, then mandatory online trainings and
compliance modules should be a part of the company's internal branding strategy.
Reinvigorate The Employee Towards The Brand
When communication and ideas are not tossing about, know that the employees are quiet and a
quiet employee is prone to over thinking about the company, how its people are and what is
lacking in the company. Employees when left alone for too long tend to complain- "we are
working harder than the other department" etc! So when communication happens, employees get
to know pressures and challenges that others are facing. This encourages empathy and problem
solving. Ideas come flying thick and fast to solve for these. Once solutions resulting from these
discussions are implemented and results discussed the employee has a clearer understanding of
the stuff his company is made of. He feels that he is an important part of the organization and
feels passionate about his ideas at work and the work itself. If the employee feels that not only is
he being heard, but his ideas are accepted and mooted or booted he will begin to feel engaged.
With employee engagement comes ideas of what the employees in the organization stand for and
ultimately what the brand stands for. Small steps for employees- giant leap for organization!
How do you do it?
For beginning any initiative we must plan. Plan with objectives and follow up steps must be
written down clearly. The marketing team should be involved with creation of taglines, creative
so that the communication is clear to the employees. To engage employees in this activity is also
a big effort, just like it is to engage a customer. The following are ways to achieve ends
· Eye-catching Digital Communication is a must. It will help you get responses faster
· Printed material like flyers, standees etc must be placed at strategic nooks and corners
· Have a writing Board for all the employees to write what they feel at locations where they
congregate. For example, the canteen, near the coffee machines or basement parking
Internal branding initiative is a huge undertaking. The company needs to feel the pulse of the
organization and work towards having employees voice their opinions. What you feel inside is
how you will look on the outside- this is not just true for human beings. It is also true for
organizations as well!
4. Company Uniforms - Important Elements to Boost Employee Morale
By Nilesh D Patel (feb 18 2014)
Company uniforms in many ways reflect the image of the firm, and thereby one has to take
utmost care to ensure that the uniforms are not only apt with the line of business, but also portray

a sense of pride for the company as well as for the employees. The colour, design, and pattern of
the uniforms are all linked with the business the company is involved into to ensure that the
uniforms do not misrepresent the company. Besides, these days keeping in line with the taste of
the employees, various style quotients and accessories are also added to the uniform to make the
employee feel special and pleased wearing it on an everyday basis.
Aspect considered while selection
Nevertheless, since company uniforms are for regular usage, one cannot experiment much with
the colours and the fabric of the outfit. Colours with dark shades such as black, blue, purple,
violet are most often recommended and universally approved as these shades do not catch dust
easily, or do not need a lot to maintenance compared to the bright or lighter shades. The line of
business, job responsibilities of employees in a particular department also contributes to the
colour, pattern and design of the uniforms. In most organization, the patterns differ as per the
department you are working in because the higher authorities are most often obliged to meet
external clients and interact with them on a regular basis. Some officials might have to travel
regularly; some would be more into desk job while others might be involved in manual jobs and
its supervision. Thus, the fabric used should be such that it is an all weather wear and is quite
durable as these clothing go in the laundry quite often. Besides the weather condition you are
working in, i.e., your job profile and the kind of job you are most often assigned, also comes into
picture. Another reason why the pattern, design, and shades of uniform changes is according to
the department or the team you are working with.
Gender based selection
The pattern and design of uniforms might also change as per the gender. The cut and make for
females need to be definitely distinct and different. Besides they need to be uniquely crafted and
should also be available in all sizes, for both males as well as females. Employees most often feel
dignified with a well fitted uniform, made from the best fabric and something that goes well with
their personality. These factors thus should not be ignored when crafting company uniforms for
your most treasured employees.
Accessories
Apart from this, the accessories that can go with the uniforms need to be also considered. The
convenience of the accessories or its hindrances while performing the said tasks is vital when it
comes to picking the right accessories. Accessories include shoes, tie, belts, bands and other
essential items based on your job profile such as caps. An important point to be noted here is that
accessories should be a cut from the same make and not too jazzy or look out of place.
Company uniforms depict a sense of pride and recognition for every person wearing it. It is
thereby important that even the minute details are taken into consideration as it can make a big
difference in creating the morale of the employees. You would be surprised to know how a small
change for the better in the uniform pattern can bring to the work culture or the productivity of
the work. Taking a random feedback of what most employees feel about the uniform and what
changes they would like to see in them could also go a long way in bringing out the best uniforms
for the firm.
For Further Information on Company Uniforms. Click On the link Company Uniforms
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Nilesh_D_Patel

5. How Branding Agencies Can Help Improve Business Ventures
By Raymart Banks jan 9 2014)
Successes and failures have been experienced in the past year. That is why every business these
days has come up with new and more efficient strategies to help them have better opportunities
in the future. Business owners have also gained knowledge and insights about effective strategies
in the past that may help them improve and strengthen their plans, hoping that their hard work
will pay off in such a way that their businesses can improve. Yet, there are some owners that look
for new ways to ensure that their businesses can yield better results.
With this in mind, some entrepreneurs now opt for the services of branding agencies. These
agencies specialize in business strategies, which can help owners improve their business
reputation and services. Moreover, branding is also vital since it represents your business,
making it easier for clients to determine whether your services or products can help them
enhance their lifestyle. Other than that, listed below are some benefits branding agencies can
provide for your business.
Help improve your reputation - With the help of branding agencies, business owners will have
the chance to improve their reputation, may it be online or offline. These agencies can also
provide you with the ideal services to cater to your specific needs, making your services more
efficient in order for clients to obtain better benefits.
Help businesses create solid identity - Business owners will have the opportunities to create
better and solid identities. This is vital to ensure that clients can easily find your company in case
that they need such services or products to help improve their lifestyle. Not to mention, by having
unique and good identity, businesses can take advantage of their brand to attract more clients.
Help increase sales - Once businesses have improved their reputation and have a solid identity in
the business industry, business owners can increase their sales and profits. With flourishing sales
and profits, owners can also create new services and products to gain more audience and to help
them improve their business ventures.
Help businesses expand - By having well-planned branding strategies, business owners can also
expand their businesses easily. Branding agencies can also help you with this venture since they
can market your new products or services, helping you gain more audience and potential clients.
6. The Value of Employee Involvement in Achieving Success
By Nick Bettes ( oct 25 2012)
In his "Key Speech" in 1955, Ove Arup spelt out the importance to business success of
motivating your employees. To quote: "There are two ways of looking at the work you do to earn
a living: One is... Work is a necessary evil... The other is: To make your work interesting and
rewarding. You enjoy both your work and your leisure. We opt uncompromisingly for the second
way."
Ove Arup established a world-wide company and this fact just emphasises the strength of his
argument; his principles apply equally to smaller enterprises. Indeed, it is probably easier to
implement these principles when you have a relatively small workforce. His point is that you

need to inspire your employees to feel important and valuable, but you cannot just assume you
know what makes them feel that way. You need to make the effort to find out and then
collaborate with them to achieve those results. Done properly, it will be time well spent and you
will find the enterprise of which you are head has the motivation to surge forward and ahead of
competitors.
Surveys referred to in "Good Work in our Times" published by The Work Foundation illustrate
that, for employees, a list of priorities is not always topped by wages and bonuses. High on the
list are trust and integrity, pride in the job, career growth opportunities and employee
development.
Young people have grown up with technology and are unphased by that particular aspect of
modern business; they like team working; flexible working; place high value on learning
opportunities and are very environmentally conscious. Through Facebook and Twitter, they can
make comparisons of work experience across a wide area so your success or failure could be
advertised - it would therefore be wise to have your employees singing your praises!
So if you build trust and mutual respect; keep your staff involved in developing policies;
establish early discussion of any potential problems; allow them to enjoy the satisfaction
expressed by clients when their efforts are successful - they will be a potent force for helping you
to achieve success.
7. Employee Benefits to Maintain Competitive Edge
By J. Davies (oct 3 2012)
Employee benefits should be on the mind of every company owner for very good reason.
Today's economic climate makes the business world a difficult place to survive in for all
businesses. There is a pressure on profit margins that has probably never been as tough as it is
today. Every managing director or small business owner should be looking at whatever they can
do to make their business competitive and to be just that bit better than their competitors.
When focussing on how to move a business forward it is easy, in tough times to overlook the
single most important asset that a business has - its people. Whether you are running a large
multi-national business or an SME operation your people are key to your success. Look after
your people and your people will look after your business.
Whilst they are a critical part of any success there is no doubt that they can be an extremely
expensive resource so ensuring you get the best from that resource is very important.
Motivating a team of people is extremely important, especially when operating in a downturn
such as the current one as any individual who watches the news can't fail to be concerned about
the picture presented in the media. You need to find a way of ensuring that staff feels valued at
all times. If your business has been part of a merger it is likely that people will be feeling
insecure at all times and if you have been in the unfortunate position of having to make
redundancies then your team will be feeling very vulnerable.
Best practice documents show that the best way of motivating staff is to find small and frequently
given 'thank yous'. Publicly recognising performance with small rewards and suitable employee

benefits that are attainable by everyone will have a positive effect on moral and will begin to
counteract the negative messages that affect the way staff think and feel.
Incentives are very useful way of encouraging staff to go the extra mile at work. There is not
more powerful management tool than saying thank you verbally and with some form of publicly
recognised gesture.
A well motivated workforce that regularly achieves above and beyond expectations could well be
the one thing that separates your business from your competitors and in today's competitive
business world you should expect your competitors to be using employee benefits to achieve the
best return from what is probably their most expensive and valuable asset.
8. Employee Morale: The Five Ingredients to Creating Happy Motivated
Employees
By Harriet Meyerson (jun 24 2012)
High employee morale at your workplace is essential for employee retention and employee
satisfaction.
But, if your workplace is plagued by negativity that stifles employee motivation, if you go home
from work every day with a splitting headache, don't despair. Here's an easy way to transform
your workplace into a positive one where your employees will be happy and motivated every day.
It's Easy to Raise Morale
Understanding Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Basic Human Needs makes raising employee
morale easy, so you can have happy, motivated employees who love coming to work every day...
even if you don't have a budget for it.
Whatever activity you do to increase morale should fit into one of the five categories of basic
needs. Then it will produce results without spending a lot of money.
The Five Basic Human Needs
According to Maslow:
1. Survival: A person's primary need is for survival, the first level of Maslow's pyramid.
2. Security: Once people have met their survival needs of food, clothing, and shelter they
seeks security, the second level.
3. Social Acceptance: After feeling secure the very next thing people seek is social
acceptance, the third level on Maslow's pyramid.
4. Esteem: This need can be met by showing respect, appreciation, and recognition from
coworkers and managers.
5. Self-Actualization: The drive to continue growing and learning.
In a work situation, employers have the opportunity to address all five needs by:
1. Providing a living wage
2. Assuring job stability
3. Encouraging social acceptance
4. Treating employees with respect
5. Providing for personal and professional growth
Job Security Is More Than a Paycheck

While most companies provide for survival needs with a paycheck, job security is becoming an
issue with more and more people. When a company provides training for employees, they are
also providing job security because a well-trained person will find another job if his job is
downsized. Therefore, anything a company can do to increase employee skills will increase the
feeling of security to its employees.
Providing for survival needs and security needs are what cost a company money in salary and
benefits.
The Top Three Levels of Maslow's Pyramid Boost Morale Without Costing Money
The activities in this manual address the upper three levels of the pyramid that don't have to cost
money.
 Social acceptance (activities that provide for social interaction)
 Respect (expressing appreciation and recognition)
 Personal development (ongoing training)
Activities that fill these needs will bond your employees to your company and provide an
environment where employees love to come to work. The best part is that these employee morale
activities don't have to cost a lot of money. They do, however take some time and effort.
How Often Should You Have Activities?
It is more important that morale boosters be frequent rather than time-consuming or extravagant.
 Doing something once a month is not enough.
 Doing something every week is good.
 Doing something every day is optimum.
Your company's rewards of increased harmony, creativity, and productivity will depend on how
frequently you have morale boosting activities.
With using a mix of social activities, appreciation and recognition, and personal
development activities, your employee morale program will create happier, more motivated
employees who keep your customers happy and make more money for your company.
Visit http://www.ConfidenceCenter.com for immediate access to 3 Free Employee Morale
Boosters that will help you energize your staff, create a positive workplace atmosphere, with
happy employees who get along with each other.
1. Employee Morale Survey: Discover how happy your employees are right now, and which of
the 7 key areas need improvement.
2. A list of the Top 10 Morale Boosters that will immediately jump start employee enthusiasm.
3. Weekly Creative Employee Morale Boosters that keep employees energized, enthusiastic, and
loyal without busting your budget
9. How to Boost Employee Satisfaction and Morale
By Malcolm Carlaw (June 7 2010)
Unhappy employees are very often unproductive employees. Keeping employee morale high is a
must for that reason at least. Not to mention that it's just good ethics and social responsibility to
keep employees happy. And, remember, when your employees are unhappy, the quality of their
customer service will decline. Are your employees meeting their customer service potential? If

not, it's time to turn this trend around. Carry out the following recommendations regularly to
create a motivational environment to support the energy and enthusiasm of your employees.
Morale and Motivation
Whenever you put a crowd in a room and request that they perform a job, a group attitude often
emerges known as "morale". Morale encompasses employees' mental outlook toward their job,
their colleagues, their customers, and even themselves.
Managers tend to describe employee morale as high or low, as if it was a temperature, and in
some ways it is. Employees in workplaces where morale is high, approach their work with
energy, enthusiasm, and zeal. Employees look forward to come to work, and are enthusiastic
about doing their jobs once they arrive. On the other hand, when morale is low, employees can
become spiritless, discouraged, and slow-moving.
Motivation, on the other hand, refers to employees' drive to get the job done. Highly motivated
employees tend to be high producers, but that does not necessarily mean their morale is high.
People are often motivated by "negative incentives" such as a fear of losing their job, an
excessive need for rewards, or an overly competitive need to outperform a colleague.
How morale and motivation are essential to create a high-performance work environment
We've found that the best results come when a workplace has both high morale and high
motivation. Following are some tips to help you accomplish this in your own workplace. Make
an effort to follow through with these tips on a consistent basis, and we're sure you'll see
encouraging results.
How to Boost Employee Morale and Motivation
 Emphasize the positive: what went right, what can be done instead of what cannot, what's
going well, etc.
 Reward employees for exceeding expectations.
 Provide regular feedback on performance
 Offer a work schedule with as much flexibility as possible.
 Give employees all the information they need to exceed expectations.
 Talk to employees about the overall mission of the company and about how their efforts
contribute to achieving it.
 Use proven, effective techniques for giving praise and correcting employee performance.
 Involve employees in decisions that affect their jobs to gain their buy-in.
 Establish user-friendly channels of communication.
 Ask for employees' input when creating incentives.
 Hold employees accountable for their performance.
 Ask employees for their feedback on your performance and management style.
 Ask employees for their opinions and feelings on issues and decisions that impact the
work environment.
 Tell the truth, but gently.
 Use "we" language.
 Always celebrate success.
Industry-certified and recommended, Impact Learning Systems is a leader in Customer Service
Training and Sales Training. The training programs offered by Impact Learning Systems are
loaded with additional tips to boost morale and motivation in your workplace. What's more, they
will give you the skills and knowledge to implement these measures for lasting results

10.Employee Branding - Guidelines
By Ayesha Khalid Khan
1. Organizational messages are supposed to be cautiously planned and designed in much the
similar method mission and vision statements are planned and designed.
2. The organizational messages are supposed to be a sign of the organization's mission as well as
standards.
3. Messages aimed at outer public are required to be in line with the messages directed towards
the workforce.
4. Messages intended for outer public must be sent within the organization too.
5. The plan of staffing and selection systems is supposed to include messages that constantly and
cyclically reveal the brand name and organizational image.
6. The reimbursement system is supposed to include messages that constantly and cyclically
reveal the brand and organizational image. Such as, executives in organizations that give
importance to training ought to be held responsible when they do not succeed to train and
develop their workforce.
7. Training and development systems must facilitate executives and workforce to internalize their
organization's mission and values as well as assist them in knowing how the mission and values
are relevant to their responsibilities in the organization. This should allow them to more
successfully draft messages that regularly reflect the brand name and organizational image.
8. Marketing and public relations systems are supposed to write messages that repeatedly and
without fail reflect the brand name and organizational image.
9. Executives must be taught the significance of sending messages that are steady with their
organization's mission, vision, guiding principles, and practices.
10. Performance supervision systems must concentrate on variations between practices and
strategies to reduce infringements of employees' psychological agreements.
11. Precise as well as unambiguous job samples must be provided to new workers so that rational
hopes are included into their psychological agreements.
12. Corporate traditions - such as objects, different activities and behaviors, administration
standards, standards and viewpoint - should strengthen the messages workforce get.
13. Individual productivity must be considered and evaluated to find out if there are 'message
associated' issues on the departmental, divisional, or organizational levels.
14. Individual messages must be repeatedly scrutinized for uniformity with other messages.
15. Message channels are supposed to be checked to guarantee reliability of message delivery.
16. During the occasion that messages have to be altered or psychological agreements changed,
organizations are required to take cautious steps in redrafting the messages.
17. Measures should be applied to evaluate results such as clientele maintenance, service value,
revenue, as well as employee satisfaction and performance.
11.Successful Branding - Five Key Elements and One Mantra
By Shannon Kavanaugh (5 aug 2007)

Successful branding begins with a well-defined brand that is RELEVANT to your market. You
might think that since you have a logo, tagline, and business card, you've completed your
branding. But, unless you've carefully considered and defined ALL five of the key brand
elements-position, promise, personality traits, story, and associations-you still have work to do.
And, until you've infiltrated your brand into every level of your organization and built the
discipline of CONSISTENCY into every behavior, action, or communication-both internally
and externally-you are not yet on the path to a successful brand strategy.
Five Key Brand Elements:
 Brand Position
 The Brand Position is the part of the brand that describes what your organization does and
for whom, what your unique value is and how a customer benefits from working with you
or your product/service, and what key differentiation you have from your competition.
Once you've defined your brand position, make it available in 25, 50, and 100 word
versions.
 Brand Promise The Brand Promise is the single most important thing that the
organization promises to deliver to its customers-EVERY time. To come up with your
brand promise, consider what customers, employees, and partners should expect from
every interaction with you. Every business decision should be weighed against this
promise to be sure that a) it fully reflects the promise, or b) at the very least it does not
contradict the promise.
 Brand Personality Brand Traits illustrate what the organization wants its brand to be
known for. Think about specific personality traits you want prospects, clients, employees,
and partners to use to describe your organization. You should have 4-6 traits (5 is ideal),
each being a single term (usually an adjective).
 Brand Story The Brand Story illustrates the organization's history, along with how the
history adds value and credibility to the brand. It also usually includes a summary of your
products or services.
 Brand Associations Brand Associations are the specific physical artifacts that make up
the brand. This is your name, logo, colors, taglines, fonts, imagery, etc. Your brand
associations must reflect your brand promise, ALL of your brand traits, and support your
brand positioning statement.
 One Mantra: Once you've developed and defined a relevant brand, you must begin
building the brand with employees, customers, prospects, partners, etc. through
CONSISTENT execution. Repetition is key to the success of the branding process.
It's easy to falter "just this one time," because you're busy, or because you think your effort will
only be used or viewed internally. Faltering, however, will make the fact that you have a good
brand completely irrelevant. No one, including your employees, will ever really know or
remember what your brand is, unless it is the same every time they are exposed to it. Without
consistency, brand awareness becomes impossible to achieve, no matter how much money you
spend on marketing. And your good brand identity-that you spent so much time defining-begins
to look more schizophrenic with every falter.
To help ensure you build the habit of consistent brand execution company-wide, we recommend
you document your Brand Elements in a Brand Book and provide this guideline to every
employee for their own use in their daily activity. Then become your company's brand
ambassador and begin the diplomatic process of self-enforcing its use!
Go-To-Market Strategies is a resource center for sales and marketing professionals and business
leaders. Our tools, templates, and services help companies achieve big aspirations with limited
budgets.

12.Importance of Employee Branding in the Modern Corporate World and
Its Implementation in UAE
By Rohit Agrawal
Introduction
In the competitive world of today, every company seeks to have the best talent around. This is the
reason that it has become extremely difficult for the employees to get into any company. But as
far as the best talents from the high-profile universities are concerned, companies have to come
up with exciting packages so as to ensure that the highly-talented lot can become a part of their
functioning. So, as far as the current research is concerned, an employee brand is what attracts
the employees towards a company. It is actually an image that the company makes of itself in the
minds of many that it is the best place to get employed at. An employee brands ensures a sense of
belongingness in the people and this makes the employees play an integral role in the
achievement of success. Hence, one can say that an employee brand is the value of a company
that exists in the corporate. Hence, one can say that in the present scenario, one of the goals of a
company is related to employee branding. This goal is to achieve customer satisfaction where the
customers are nobody but the employees themselves. One can also introduce employee branding
as one of the core values of an organization. Those companies that this research has seen to have
a good image in the market place are the ones which also have a good extent of employee brand
attached to its name. The most important question that needs to be answered with respect to
brand employer building is that the company has to know as to what they are and what their
vision is. Along with this, they also have to meet the expectations of the stakeholders in the
meanwhile. (Mangold, 2004)
Internal View of Employee branding
One must be able to define the meaning of employee branding to the company. It must be
remembered that employee branding is actually the image of an organization for the people
working in the organization. It is this reputation that the companies make of themselves inside
their premises that are also carried outside to the passive candidates, the customers, the clients
and also the others who are affected by the proceedings of the company. Hence, one can say that
within the company, employee branding is done to attract the employees, and also for their
subsequent retention in times to come so as to improve the company's image of employee
branding. The management of every country has to understand a very simple fact that it can't lay
a narrow focus on the employee branding. If this is done, it would only be a departmental project
and would not have been entitled to be a part of the overall business strategy of the company.
One must keep another fact clear that if employee branding is only considered to be a part of the
recruitment process and then given the back seat, there will be too many cases of absenteeism
resulting in subsequent resignations at frequent intervals. (Turning staff into brand ambassadors,
2009)
Importance of defining Employee Brand Objectives
Every activity that is regular in a company requires a definition for its subsequent planning. The
reason for the same is that once the objectives are defined, the company would certainly save a

lot of money and time in the process that are carried in the latter stages. We are all aware of the
fact that every company has a different lifecycle stages and objectives at different times. So,
defining the employee brand objectives would be of help at all these life stages that the company
has For example, one of them can be to establish an employee referral program. These objectives
with respect to employee branding can be to integrate the culture of two companies in process of
doing a merger, or to decrease the turnover rates of the employees, to increase the hire volume
for a particular period of time, training to improve the quality of the employees, and also to
update the career section in the websites to ensure that the company can convey the idea of
employee branding and the importance that it holds in the organization. These are all the cases
that need to be defined with respect to employee branding for better implementation and
subsequent success of the company. (Pickard, 2009)
Relationship between Employee branding and Marketing and Communications
A company must define the ownership of a brand strategy so as to make a reach to the consensus
and also so that the employees of the country remain united in their ways. The management of a
company must always take the forefront in driving employee branding with the help of education
in the organizational premises and also by awareness building. There are certain employees who
stand as unconditional and do not require a general need for motivation. But for most of the
organizations it is a long-term and also strategic attempt of talent management. These strategies
are designed in order to attract, keep busy, prevent absenteeism etc and these strategies can only
be fulfilled by a collaboration of the employee branding department with the marketing and
communications department. As for example, the marketing and communications department s
can be of extreme help in the case of analysis through websites, or also in the segmentation of the
target market. Research says that wherever this collaboration stays weak, there is certainly a large
struggle, or delay in the projects or even the creativity can be minimized to a large extent.
Modes of Discovering Employee brand
One can develop an employee branding strategy by making a comprehension of the culture
followed in the organization, the work experiences of candidates, the drivers of talent, external
perspectives of the organization, vision of the organization, the leadership issues and also the
management practices. If a company focuses on these areas for discovering its employee
branding, it would be able to make a construction of its message platform which would have the
characteristics of being the most authenticated, of a compelling nature and also distinguished.
This systematic procedure would also be embraced perfectly in the internal organization. Other
than this, the external reach of the organization would also better as a result.
There are also various ways of carrying the development program of employee branding. These
are both quantitative and qualitative research. This can be in the form of focussing on groups,
conducting interviews of leaders and also meetings and seminars. One can also gather
competitive intelligence in the process. If the company wants to develop itself externally as well,
it can check the online reputation of the firm so as to find out the views of the organization about
what is said about them on the web through the blogs, or some social networking sites like
Facebook and Orkut.
Role of the CEO and the Higher Authorities in Employee branding
It is extremely important for a company to have its top management converse about the employee
brands in the earlier stages of the development of the same. There is an institute called the
Employee brand Institute which suggests that it is highly positive for a company's future
prospects to get involved with the key stakeholders on this issue. These issues can include the
following:
* The support of employee branding in development of the business strategy
* The culture of the organization and its consistency across the globe
* The perception of the organization both internally and externally

* The channels of communication for bottom-up and vice versa
* The most critical positions of success and the extent to which the company has gone in
achieving the same
* All the above defined can be with respect to the attraction of the employees towards the
organization, the engagement in achieving the organization's goals and finally the removal of
policies of absenteeism from the organization and achieve maximum retention of employees (HR
faces the challenges of 2002, 2002)
Significance of Employee brand
Many researchers have argued that in spite of following all the characteristics of employee
branding, companies have generally considered it as a shortcut for getting the best talent
available in the surroundings. Many companies also tie up with ad agencies so as to market their
employee branding even if they do not practice them in reality. These are some of the activities
which fall totally against the much valued significance that employee branding has. It is often
said that if one takes good care of his guests, there is all the probability that the guest will
become your own and will continue to be loyal with you. This is followed by organizations like
Google and Marriott. Every organization must understand this fact very clearly that the
organization's core values are defined by the extent of being productive and responsive towards
the customers. In others words it is a common belief that if a company takes care of the people it
affects, these people would certainly take care of the company. The competitive world of today
teaches a very simple concept which is that every gain is mutual. Along with the services, it is the
employee brand of a company that it would have to deliver to make the best possible returns.
Implementation in UAE
Employee branding has seen its heights touched in UAE. One can see that every now and then
there are some new entrants into every big organization. For example, if one has a look at the
statistics of the country, more than 80% of the population is that of the expatriates. The level is
even increasing every now and then. For a person to make a living in country, the work
atmosphere has to be very good and along with that it is also required that the companies offer
many opportunities for the candidates. Both these characteristics on which the employee brand
depends are highly followed in UAE.
Employee branding and Tourism in UAE
The incessant development of tourism in the country is based on a number of reasons. There is an
entire integrated system that is responsible for the same. The country would never have had the
same number of tourists just with the advancement in the infrastructure itself. There are also
many other reasons for the same. These reasons include the application of employee branding in
some of the famous companies in UAE. Alshamel Holidays is a very well-known name when it
comes to tourism planning in the country. The company has reached its success because of the
fact that the employees are highly satisfied with the processes that are followed by the company.
The company has attracted the employees not just by giving exciting packages in terms of money
and the other extra incentives along with it, but also with the level of motivation that is practiced
in Alshameel Holidays. The organization connects more than 45,000 hotels all over and most
importantly; this strong network is maintained by individuals employed all over.
The difference that the company has with respect to other holiday designing organizations like
Al-Futtaim is that, the company has made an image of itself that can't be imitated in the market.
The company has used its employee brand strategy as a part of the organizational goals that have
been discussed in the first section. There are many companies that are looking forward to hire the
type of employee collection that Alshamel Holidays can offer but the only difference is that they
have used the false significance of employee branding as mentioned above. Many tourism
companies only guarantee a democratic mode of leadership with a flat organizational structure
where the employees would also have their say in making strategies. This is actually followed in

Alshamel Holidays organization. Every seminar which is held so as to make the strategies to
attract new tourists is also attended by the other employees as well whom the company feels to
make a suitable contribution in the making. This also develops a healthy competition amongst
the employees and the employee branding is advanced further. Once again, we see that a mutual
benefit has a major role to play. The company's prospects increase this way as well as the
employees' morale.
13.A Simplified Approach to Brand Terminology
By Debra Semans (11 feb 2010)
When talking about the various aspects of branding, apparently, quite a lot. Finding, learning and
using the "correct" brand terminology is causing a great deal of confusion for marketers. Why are
the specific terms so important? Isn't it more important that we just get on with it?
Let's just simplify the terminology being used by advertising agencies, brand consultants, brand
designers and market researchers around the topic of brand. In efforts to differentiate themselves,
these experts have exacerbated the problem by coining their own terminology for what are
essentially the same brand elements, techniques and processes that everyone else is offering. Add
to the mix that most marketers today did not learn about brands in their business school
marketing courses, and you have the potential for - and the reality of - a lot of confusion.
One of the areas that seems to be attracting a lot of attention and misunderstanding among
practicing marketers right now are the terms brand, internal brand, internal branding and
employee/employer brand. The question comes up in almost every brand conversation I have,
"What is the difference between an internal and an external brand? What is an employee brand
and do I have to have one? And what do you mean by internal branding?" Here are the simplified
- but hopefully not simplistic - answers.
A brand is a long-term relationship you have with your customers, based on consistent delivery
of an expected benefit. Brand is often described as a promise that is made and kept with your
customers, but I prefer to avoid putting brand on a transaction basis. I prefer to think of brand as
a relationship - something that is built up, developed between two people or organizations and
that lasts a long time.
There really isn't anything new in this definition. This is pretty much the same definition that
brand experts have been using for the past few years. It does always surprise me when a business
tells me they don't have a brand and they don't need one. If you are in business, you have a brand.
If you have not been actively managing your brand (a situation I describe as "benign neglect") it
may not be a strong brand and it may not be what you would like it to be. But, rest assured, you
have a brand. All you have to do is ask your customers and they will tell you all about your
brand. You may discover that your brand is a corporate asset you should be aggressively
managing for business results, just like any other asset your corporation owns.
An employee brand, on the other hand, is the brand you use to attract and retain employees. An
employee brand may be different from the external brand it is related to - but not too different or
it will not be credible. For example, it would be impossible for Virgin Airlines or Southwest
Airlines to have an employee brand that is staid, conservative and rigid. Likewise, it would not
be credible for a very conservative brand to attract employees using an employee brand that is
overtly young and hip. While your employee brand must be related to your customer- or
market-facing brand, it will definitely deliver different emotional and functional benefits. The
benefits associated with an employee brand might be stability, fair compensation, good benefits,

and training, where your market-facing brand benefits would relate to functional and emotional
promises inherent in the brand relationship.
As to whether you have to have an employee brand or not, again, don't worry - you have one. If
you have employees in your business and hire employees, you have an employee brand. You may
not be managing it - and it may not be exactly what you want, but if you ask your employees and
your prospective hires, they will tell you about your employee brand. They may also tell you
about the employee brands of those companies against whom you compete for labor - so it
probably a good idea to explore.
Now, let me stress that there is no such thing as an "internal brand" - the internal brand is exactly
the same as your external brand. In fact, to reduce the confusion, we can drop the internal and
external designations and just refer to your brand. Internal branding, on the other hand, is the
process of aligning people, functions and operations to consistently deliver the brand promise -
building that brand relationship with the customer over time.
Brand and internal branding are the responsibility of the entire organization - everyone
contributes in some way to creating and enhancing the organization's ability to deliver on its
promises. The employee brand, on the other hand, tends to be the purview of the human
resources, organizational development and internal communications folks.
When I teach business people about branding there are always questions about the meaning of
this or that term and is it the same as another term that they have read in a brand book or heard
from another brand expert. I always tell my students not to worry about the terminology from the
point of view of what's 'right' or 'wrong.' What's important is that they be sure to know what they
mean by any given term within their organization so they can work with others on branding.
From there, focus on the actions they need to take to build great brands. The terminology that
works for your business or organization is the right terminology to use for you and your situation.
The important thing is - "Just do it!"
Debra S. Semans, a veteran marketing researcher and nationally recognized expert on brand
research, brand positioning and strategy, is senior vice president for Atlanta marketing research
company, Polaris Marketing Research, Inc. She has overall responsibility for Polaris' client
relationships and project satisfaction. Semans also has responsibility for Polaris' marketing
efforts, as well as building strategic alliances for project support services.
http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Debra_Semans
14.Brand Management: Customer vs. Employee
By Terry McKenna
When it's all said and done, all you're truly left with at the end of the day is your company's brand
and what your brand stands for in the minds of both your customers and employees. But do you
manage your company brand for the benefit of both constituencies: customers and employees?
Most companies that I consult with focus their brand management efforts solely on the customer.
But if you're really serious about differentiating your brand from your competitors, then I suggest
that you begin to manage and think about your brand from a dual, yet fully aligned point of view:
customers and employees.

Your brand, be it appliances, electronics, automobiles, clothing, etc. serves as a powerful magnet
that attracts both customers and employees to your front door, while also serving as an anchor to
hold them. The best companies manage their brands from both the customer and employee
perspective. And why not, after all isn't it your front-line store employees who are the face and
personality of your brand to your customers?
Your current brand management focus and responsibilities should encompass the two most
important components of your business: your customers and store employees.
Customer Perspective:
Great brands connect with their customers on an emotional level vs. logical. It terms of emotion,
what does it feel like viscerally to do business with you?
Brand positioning starts with a frame of reference that communicates to your customers an
expectation they can achieve when doing business with you. However, you have to know who
you are before you can convince others.
Many companies often promote attributes of their products and services that consumers don't
care about. It's important to assess not only product benefits and features but in addition the
customers buying experience: every point of contact, commonly referred to as "moments of
truth" or "touch points."
From the moment your customers approach your stores to the moment they leave, what was the
experience like? From exterior, to store design, to product offering, to service - is your customer
buying experience fast, friendly, and helpful?
It's the overall experience that your customers will recall when it's time for them to purchase
again, therefore make it positive and memorable. While careful consideration of your brands
point of differentiation is important, just as important are your points of parity with your other
products and services. Be sure to assess on a continual basis your points of parity otherwise
brand attributes that were once differentiators may become minimum requirements, also know as
"price of entry."
Employee Perspective:
If providing your customers with a fast, friendly, helpful and memorable buying experience is
key to success, then I think we'd all agree that the folks serving your customers are the critical
link. Not technology, products, or store design; but people! Don't get me wrong, technology,
products, and hard assets are indeed important to your business, however, successful branding is
all about connecting with your customers on an emotional level, and that can only be achieved on
the human level.
Technology is a great enabler, however your brands real moment of truth is when your customers
are standing at the transaction counter looking into the face of your sales associate. It is at this
moment that all your branding efforts (promises) are either fulfilled or broken (*). Managing the
employee dimension of your brand involves: recruiting, interviewing and selection, training,
career development and business culture, which includes: motivation, teamwork, reward and
recognition, and leadership. It is the people side of the business that represents your brand to your
customers that create the emotional link for brand loyalty
When it's all said and done, all you're truly left with at the end of the day is your company's brand
and what your brand stands for in the minds of both your customers and employees. But do you
manage your company brand for the benefit of both constituencies: customers and employees?
Most companies that I consult with focus their brand management efforts solely on the customer.
But if you're really serious about differentiating your brand from your competitors, then I suggest
that you begin to manage and think about your brand from a dual, yet fully aligned point of view:
customers and employees.

Your brand, be it appliances, electronics, automobiles, clothing, etc. serves as a powerful magnet
that attracts both customers and employees to your front door, while also serving as an anchor to
hold them. The best companies manage their brands from both the customer and employee
perspective. And why not, after all isn't it your front-line store employees who are the face and
personality of your brand to your customers?
Your current brand management focus and responsibilities should encompass the two most
important components of your business: your customers and store employees.
Customer Perspective:
Great brands connect with their customers on an emotional level vs. logical. It terms of emotion,
what does it feel like viscerally to do business with you?
Brand positioning starts with a frame of reference that communicates to your customers an
expectation they can achieve when doing business with you. However, you have to know who
you are before you can convince others.
Many companies often promote attributes of their products and services that consumers don't
care about. It's important to assess not only product benefits and features but in addition the
customers buying experience: every point of contact, commonly referred to as "moments of
truth" or "touch points."
From the moment your customers approach your stores to the moment they leave, what was the
experience like? From exterior, to store design, to product offering, to service - is your customer
buying experience fast, friendly, and helpful?
It's the overall experience that your customers will recall when it's time for them to purchase
again, therefore make it positive and memorable. While careful consideration of your brands
point of differentiation is important, just as important are your points of parity with your other
products and services. Be sure to assess on a continual basis your points of parity otherwise
brand attributes that were once differentiators may become minimum requirements, also know as
"price of entry."
Employee Perspective:
If providing your customers with a fast, friendly, helpful and memorable buying experience is
key to success, then I think we'd all agree that the folks serving your customers are the critical
link. Not technology, products, or store design; but people! Don't get me wrong, technology,
products, and hard assets are indeed important to your business, however, successful branding is
all about connecting with your customers on an emotional level, and that can only be achieved on
the human level.
Technology is a great enabler, however your brands real moment of truth is when your customers
are standing at the transaction counter looking into the face of your sales associate. It is at this
moment that all your branding efforts (promises) are either fulfilled or broken (*). Managing the
employee dimension of your brand involves: recruiting, interviewing and selection, training,
career development and business culture, which includes: motivation, teamwork, reward and
recognition, and leadership. It is the people side of the business that represents your brand to your
customers that create the emotional link for brand loyalty

REVIEW OF LITERATURE ON EMPLOYEE BRANDING
Employee Branding in Telecommunication Sector of Pakistan:
Employee’s Perspective
Hijab Ashraf, Madiha Khalid, Sehar Maqsood, Muhammad Kashif, Zeeshan Ahmad
and Irfan Akber
Corresponding Author: Muhammad Kashif
This research reconnoiters the employees’ perceptions concerning role and impact of
human resource initiatives towards successful internal branding efforts in telecom
sector of Pakistan. Primary data was collected from 200 functional-level managers
serving various telecom organizations, through an already developed and tested
instrument. The respondents were stratified to create subsets among different
departments and then random sampling technique was used to choose the number of
subjects from each subset to collect data. The data was presented through descriptive
statistics, regression, and correlation techniques. The findings of the study suggest
that employees appear to have positive insolences considering the importance of their
personal involvement while incorporating the brand values to work activities. An
effective implementation of internal branding process within the organizations is
heavily dependent upon human resource initiatives taken within the telecom
organizations. The results of study will help firms to understand the missing link
between human resource management and internal branding while creating excellent
customer service experiences.

The Importance of Predictive and Face Validity in Employee Selection and
Ways of Maximizing Them: An Assessment of Three Selection Methods
Kelechi John Ekuma
Abstract
The current exigencies and fluidity of the business environment engendered largely by
demographic changes,
technological advances and globalisation have made it imperative for organisations to posses the
brightest talents
as a source of competitive advantage, if they hope to survive. The continuing ‘talent war’ and
fierce competition.
in the global market place; and issues concerning employee branding and candidate attraction,
means that
organisations and their managers have to carefully review their recruitment and selection
processes, ensuring that
employee selection methods not only contributes towards enhancing organisational image, but
also predicts
future job performance to a reasonable extent. There is therefore, the need for chosen methods to
be high in both
Predictive and Face validities.
This article critically examines the importance of the concepts of Predictive and Face validities to
employee
selection in a wider context as an HR strategy and as an integral part of organisations’ general
strategy,
suggesting ways of improving both concepts. The central argument of this article, is that for
selection methods to
be effective, reliable, valid and minimise costs associated with loosing top talents, poor employee
performance
and turnover, it must possess high predictive and face value. The article assesses three major
selection methods
(interviews, work sampling and assessment centers) with a view of maximizing their predictive
and face
validities, arguing that the design, contents and the manner of administrating these methods are
major issues. The
paper concludes that there is no one best way of selecting new employees, but a combination of
carefully chosen
methods and well-trained HR professionals will undoubtedly improve face and predictive
validities and by
extension, the selection method.
(Prepared by Mr. Sem Shaikh)
(This study material only for academic purpose only)
THE M.S. UNIVERSITY OF BARODA
FACULTY OF COMMERCE

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE & BUSINESS MANAGEMENT
MASTER OF COMMERCE

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