Do your employees fully understand your brand and what it stands for? If not, you are not communicating your brand effectively to your customers. Building an inside out brand means starting internally, ensuring your employees live and breathe your values before communicating externally.
Smart businesses realise that a brand is more than just a communications idea, it is, in fact, a behavioural framework. In order for a brand to deliver its promise, every member of your business needs to be engaged. You need to build an inside out brand.
When your company embodies an inside out brand, customers sense authenticity, resulting in deeper trust and loyalty. So, how can you build a culture that energises employees and transforms your brand? The following ideas will help you get started.
Become values-led
Employees are your strongest and most visible brand ambassadors, and they should understand and reflect your brand values to endorse what your brand stands for.
Brand values are the guiding principles that direct your brand behaviour in any given situation. One of Virgin’s values is “Brilliant Customer Services – Friendly, human and relaxed; professional but non-corporate”. This is clearly seen in everything they do, from their communications to their customer services. In a recruitment context, values-led recruitment focuses on attitude, behaviours and organisational fit instead of just competency-based selection. The benefit of this approach is that it starts to forge a more like-minded workforce that is more committed and more likely to live and breathe your brand.
Action: Assemble an internal team to explore and short-list your brand values. Evaluate them and provide examples of how these deliver your brand experience. If you have existing values, review how these guide the actions of your employees. For example, if you chose ‘innovative’ as a value, ask how that applies to every employee’s role. Ensure your leadership team leads by example with their actions and weave your values throughout every part of the operation.
Help employees to understand
Do employees understand your brand? To deliver a consistent experience, your ambassadors need a consistent interpretation of the brand strategy. To help this, review how you communicate to your employees. Storytelling may be one of the oldest forms of communication, but it remains effective—it educates and inspires but doesn’t intimidate. It will communicate your philosophy, create a link from the heritage to future plans, and set the context for your internal culture.
Action: Create a project team to build a library of inspirational stories and content that is people-centric. Your objective is to help employees understand your brand – its purpose, the internal culture, to identify with the values, and then their role in achieving the brand vision. You could publish a brand culture book or Wiki, which not only educates your existing workforce but also helps when onboarding new recruits.
Build your Employee Value Proposition
Are you a magnet for talent, and have engaged and motivated employees? Your EVP should clearly and credibly describe the mix of values, benefits, and ways of working in your organisation. It is the deal struck between an organisation and employees in return for their contribution and performance. An effective EVP not only enables you to stand out as different but also helps you successfully attract and retain top talent.
Action: Build your Employee Value Proposition (EVP). Building an EVP can be a complex process; however, the following steps will help.
- Understand your people: Explore your workforce needs, wants and challenges. It’s important you understand these elements on an emotional level as well as functional. To gather this information, try exploring workplace, onboarding or exit surveys. If you are a smaller business, then host a workshop and consider inviting non-employees to see what would attract them.
- Explore competitors and identify white space: Understand what competitors are doing well and their shortcomings. Differentiation is crucial if your organisation wants to stand out from the landscape of sameness.
- Design an EVP strategy: Compile the top three reasons why your employees love working for you. These should include the benefits existing employees value and the benefits that prospective employees want and need. Remember to think about the tangible benefits (salary, perks, etc) and the intangible (company culture, progression). Successful brands are built on providing solutions to challenges, so aim to make your benefits as meaningful as possible. For example, what could you provide for parents who struggle with the pressure of juggling child care and work to help them stay productive and happy?
- Bring your EVP to life: Start broadcasting the EVP to prospective and current employees. Implement it as the foundation for every stage of your employee journey, from recruitment to exit. Within your recruitment advertising, take the opportunity to sell the ‘big idea’ behind your brand. A solid brand, especially one with a vision that includes a higher purpose, is likely to provide an employee with meaning and job fulfilment. Once brought to life, review your EVP yearly and evolve to keep it relevant.
Building an inside out brand: key takeaways
To summarise, refocus your brand on internal behavioural and organisational principles with people at the heart. Engaged people are the fuel to propel your brand to success. Values will guide the right fit and people’s actions and cement coherence. Helping employees to understand will nurture your army of ambassadors, whilst a well-articulated EVP provides the perfect platform to attract and retain top talent.
Ultimately, companies that commit to developing an inside out brand create long-term competitive advantage and sustainable growth.
