Corporate scandals come with a high price tag. In many cases, organizations face the financial impact of lawsuits, hard costs related to product repairs or recalls, but the greater cost is paid in broken trust, reduced employee engagement and long term damage to employer brand.
When a corporate scandal erupts, employees may no longer be proud of their employer, or feel confused and concerned in their roles. Interested candidates may no longer feel the company is a good match with their personal values, or perceive a culture that promotes negative behaviours.
It has been a tumultuous few years for auto-manufacturers, with faulty ignition switches, sticky gas pedals, and most recently, alleged rigged emission testing. When a manufacturer has a reputation for producing poorly functioning equipment, how do they continue to retain and hire top engineers and other talent?
There are steps that can be taken to ensure a company’s employer brand can be quickly repaired and employees stay engaged ahead of any kind of corporate crisis arise.
- Start with a Strong Existing Employer Brand
Scandals generally erupt without warning, and companies are unprepared for the impact on their employer brand. During your branding exercise, you learned the most effective channels to communicate with your different stakeholder groups and developed internal expertise. In the wake of a crisis, there are many competing priorities and it is an efficient strategy to focus on strengthening employer brand rather than building a reactive PR strategy. Working with an employer branding partner to create an employer branding strategy ensures that you are in control of the perception of your employer brand, throughout any business situation.
- Understand your Current Employees and keep them Engaged
Your current employees may be affected by people or procedural changes in response to the crisis. Give employees an opportunity to voice their concerns and understand how their views of the company may have been impacted. Transparency is key – it prevents rumors from spreading within the organization and keeps employees focused on the overall vision and mission of the organization. While employees may not be speaking directly to the media, it is important to create a communication strategy and key messaging designed specifically for employees. They will be asked questions from friends and prospective candidates about their experience through the crisis. Your goal is to help them understand the facts, be aware of improvements across the organization speak positively about their experience as an employee throughout.
- Ensure alignment with public relations and crisis communication
Your employer brand and employee engagement efforts need to tightly align with public relations and crisis communications, and the changes your organization has promised. Employees are paying attention to the media stories and any gap between internal and external messaging will violate trust. If communications attribute responsibility to a certain group within the organization, it is important to frame messaging in a way that sets expectations for resolution to ensure future talent isn’t deterred from joining the team in the long term. Continuous reputation management is critical to ensure the employer brand recovers. It is possible to leverage events to showcase the best of the internal organization, make sure your strategy addresses the opportunity.
About Blu Ivy Group
Blu Ivy Group is a leading employer branding and employee engagement consultancy that aligns your organization with contemporary workplace paradigms. Blu Ivy Group’s mission is to help client’s build award-winning people practices, inspire extraordinary employee engagement, and cultivate unique and desirable workplaces. Blu Ivy Group provides integrated solutions in employer brand and engagement research, strategic consulting, employer brand integration, creative and talent communications.
Blu Ivy Group is a trusted partner to many of North America’s most respected employer brands. For more information, visit us online at bluivygroup.com or contact Stacy Parker at sparker@bluivygroup.com