Aug. 5, 2008 at 11:23am

Branding begins at home

Posted by Shari Campbell in Branding, Internal Communications, Measurement
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A health care company undergoing profound change asks its employees in an internal newsletter to support yet another reorganization. A nonprofit that helps people find affordable housing is considering expanding its role to include community development.

What do employees think about these changes? Will they embrace them or undermine them?

Our firm is frequently asked to help organizations with rebranding efforts and to assist in strategic communications during change initiatives. And yet I’m always surprised when the audience that likely has the most impact on the brand – the organization’s own employees – is overlooked.

Let’s face it. Your employees are your biggest brand ambassadors. How you involve, engage and communicate with them can play a big part in fostering a healthy brand.

A few lessons from some recent experiences:

Lesson #1: Listen first. Change is inevitable. And it’s almost always guaranteed to cause some ripples of concern. Whether it’s rebranding, merging with another hospital, or starting a new business such as physician clinics or a medispa, listen to what your employees are saying about it. Simply put, “you can’t build outside of your walls what you don’t own inside them.” (Foster School of Business, Unversity of Washington, alumni newsletter)

Lesson #2: Talk to employees. Senior leadership may place undue focus on communicating with the board of directors, donors, community leaders or physicians. Don’t get me wrong. Each of these audiences is vital. But your hospital or physician clinic employees touch more customers in more ways. There’s also a strong relationship between executive communication and “organizational satisfaction and culture.” It’s been measured and shown to be statistically significant again and again. (Kotter, Leading Change, mckinseyquarterly.com)

Lesson #3: Orchestrate, manage and measure. Hospitals and health care systems with outpatient facilities, urgent care clinics, physician offices and other related businesses represent literally thousands of customer touch points. When we fail to orchestrate and manage brand communications, we increase significantly the likelihood that the brand promise and brand delivery will fail.

Take the lead within your hospital to make sure employees understand their role in delivering on the brand promise. Make employees a part of your brand launch or relaunch with special events, employee meetings and chotskis that reinforce the brand’s promise and personality. Harness the power of technology and deliver messages to staff (especially those who work nights, weekends and occasional shifts) with YouTube videos, a brand blog and live chats with your CEO, or a contest that invites your employees catch people “branding.”

Also be sure to measure the results of your efforts. Or as Katie Paine puts it in her new book Measuring Public Relationships, “If you can measure your relationships you can improve them, and improved relationships will bring you and your organization increased efficiencies, greater effectiveness, and improved overall performance.”

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