For the last couple of weeks, I have been going to a number of different company Christmas parties. While I along with most people were drinking, eating and being merry, a couple of thoughts popped in my head that I just have not been able to shake. I found it interesting just listening to employees from a number of different companies talk honestly and openly about the companies they work for. I thought this would make an incredible focus group for companies to hear an unbiased and totally raw opinion of what their employees are saying about them when the gloves come off.
When I meet with clients and we begin to discuss things like brand reputation and customer feedback, I always like to ask what they believe their employees are saying about their company. Usually they feel their employees are happy and would provide positive feedback. I would say 50% of the time, they are usually wrong. One of the areas that companies have spent very little time or money on is internal communications. Simply, this is developing a plan and process that allows for two-way communications between management and its employees. And I want to stress the term two-way. Anyone can send emails and have a newsletter distributed throughout a company, but that does not allow for any feedback from the people a company should focus on most, its employees. These people are on the front lines of your business, which represent your brand to your customers, potential customers and anyone else within ear shot.

I did a brand analysis for a company I work with who believed with total certainty that based on their internal metrics; their employees are satisfied and believe in the companies vision. It took me a half an hour to find a half dozen blogs written by employees whose main objective was to bash the company. Here are some specific quotes that I found:

“Company Name could give a damn about its employees. Its sole focus is on quotas and profits.” “It blows my mind how management can continually show absolute total disregard for their employees. How do they expect to stay in business?” “I have been working for him for almost 5 years now and I am constantly amazed how a CEO can continually lie to his employees and still show up everyday with a smile on his face?”

I could go on and on, but the wake up call for this client along with many other companies out there is that you need to start at square one and that is your employees. Opening up a line of communication, a place where an employee can feel like he/she has some sort of voice is incredibly important for an employee’s attitude and state of mind. In part 2 we are going to go into specifics of what a company can do to open up these lines of communications.

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