In our recent Red Folder eZine, we asked the following question: Do your employees understand, commit to, and know how to take action on your brand? (In other words, do employees buy-in to the company brand?)
Here are the results:

Nearly half of respondents mentioned that they would like to find out if employees
in their company are effectively living the brand.

The best way to find out if employees think, speak, and behave your company’s brand
is to evaluate/assess their performance of key behaviors that are directly tied to
the brand and company goals/objectives. So how do you do that?

First, set clear expectations for all employees on what beliefs are required to represent
your company’s brand/values. Then establish a set of basic, nonnegotiable behaviors
for all employees to demonstrate that are tied to those beliefs.

Integrate the brand into performance systems such as behavior-based interviewing to
select the best-fit employees; job-level behavioral expectations for onboarding, training,
and providing feedback; and a proprietary recognition system for proactively capturing
successes and acknowledging peers who demonstrate behaviors that enhance the work
culture and improve the customer experience.

Then conduct regular behavior-based assessments to track employee engagement, productivity,
and brand alignment across teams and departments in order to pinpoint strengths and
areas of weaknesses.

At Brand Integrity, we use our Achieving Brand Integrity Assessment to measure how
consistently a company’s employees perform across what are called the Five Dimensions
of Brand Integrity. Click
here to read a post about the assessment.

Click here to take a complimentary
Achieving Brand Integrity Assessment to uncover how well employees in your company
understand, commit to, and take action on your brand.

A study conducted
over a period of three years by SHL (a psychometric testing company) has concluded
that employee engagement is more important than job satisfaction. This indicates that
employees want more out of a career than to just like their job. Ilke Inceoglu, one
of the researchers involved in the study noted, “Job satisfaction has been superseded
by engagement because that shows links to performance.”

How are you managing the engagement of employees in your organization? I know of some
leaders who think that due to the economy, no one is leaving even if they are unhappy.
This simply is not true. Whereas times are tough and many companies have put a freeze
on or limited hiring, good employees

—

A-players

—

will be able to find a job elsewhere no matter what the economy (it may just take
a little longer).

Is your organization at risk of losing it’s A-players? Are your employees engaged?

You may be asking yourself: What does that mean? How can I tell the level of engagement?

Below are some features of an organization with high employee engagement. Read through
and ask yourself how well your company is performing.

• Employees understand the organization’s goals and objectives.
• Employees understand how their work impacts the organization’s ability to achieve
  results.
• Employees are committed to delivering consistently good experiences that drive a positive
  work culture and strong customer relationships.
• Employees take action to live the organization’s brand every day by demonstrating
  on-brand behaviors and experiences.
• Employees communicate effectively and are receptive to others.
• Employees recognize each other for a job well done.
• Employees hold themselves and each other accountable for delivering the behaviors
  and experiences necessary for driving a great work culture and profitable results.

How engaged are your employees? Where does your organization struggle? Knowing the
current reality regarding employee engagement in your organization is the first step
to rectifying areas of weakness and building an engaged workforce.