When it comes to brand and reputation, most companies generally focus on how their consumers view their products and services and subsequently what consumers may write about their products or services. And rightly so. In the internet age where reviews can make or break a product, a positive review is priceless.
While customers and clients are important, a company’s employees are even more so.
“Clients do not come first. Employees come first. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of the clients.”
– Richard Branson
Why What Your Employees Think Is So Important
In Benify’s new e-book, we share that when it comes to employer branding, your satisfied employees are your most valuable ambassadors and whose voices are the loudest. Just as brands benefit from their most loyal customers, so, too, does company recruitment and employee retention thrive when employees let the world know what a great place it is to work.
Happy employees have the potential to provide the kind of marketing that money can't buy. As Forbes writes, “You may not have a huge marketing budget or a Madison Avenue advertising agency to support your marketing efforts, but there is one competitive advantage you have that no other business does – your employees.”
Employers cannot underestimate the power of “word of mouth” and influence.
Empowering Your Employees
If you want your employees to become brand ambassadors of your company, it’s simple:
"Always treat your employees exactly as you want them to treat your best customers."
– Steven Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
Additionally, as a recent Gallup article explains, companies need to “deliver an exceptional employee experience in every stage of the employee lifecycle”.
And what constitutes as a great employee experience for today’s employee, Gallup research shows is, among other things, employees doing what they do best every day, growth opportunities, job security, work-life balance, and a focus on personal wellbeing. “Meeting those expectations through an engaging employee experience validates the brand image that attracts people to you and, after onboarding, sustains their engagement.”
But it's not only current employees who are brand ambassadors for your company; departing employees and former employees are also important ambassadors for your employer brand. After all, it's usually former employees who write online reviews about their former employers. That is why it's vital to provide a positive final impression, which can be done through a well planned digital offboarding process.
In our latest e-book on employee experience, we share five tips to help turn your employees into your best ambassadors. Here are two of them:
1. Create a brand guidelines document
If you’re going to encourage your employees to act as your brand ambassadors, you want to provide some guidance as to how to describe the organization, its mission, and its values. Making sure this information is easily accessible will help ensure that communications stay on brand.
2. Allow employees to use their own voice
While you want everyone to know what the organization stands for, you don’t necessarily want to have 100 employees parroting the company’s mission statement online. That won’t be perceived as authentic. Instead, let employees have a voice of their own and share their own unique workplace experiences to illustrate how they live the company’s values in real life.
Want to know the other 3 steps on how to turn your employees into brand ambassadors? Download Benify’s new eBook "The New Employee Experience: How to maximise and optimise every step of the employee journey" now!
