HR Archives

How Culture Brings Strategy to Life

Posted on January 25, 2017 by Saja Chodosh

Culture and Strategy

Business, culture and strategy can work harder for companies but how? For many businesses, company culture and strategy exist in two different worlds. They take on separate conversations and are designated as separate leadership and separate budgets. And although many executives today realize that both culture and strategy drive their business, they fail to link the relationship between the two. But not grasping how strategy and culture can work together means both become less impactful.

More Connected Than You Think

There are many misconceptions about what company culture really means and, as a result, what its true value is to a business. Some dismiss culture as an ‘HR-only issue’ or address it as the ‘fluff’ of what a business really is. What they don’t realize is that company culture is one of the most integral drivers of long-term success, sustained growth, and competitive advantage.

Because company culture is often undervalued, when we see companies struggling, HR departments are often the first to have their budgets cut. And even when smart companies allocate funds towards building a stronger strategy, many dismiss culture as part of this conversation – leaving HR leaders out of the conversation.

This is a mistake. Without focusing in on employees and building a cohesive, strong culture, even the strongest strategy can’t really come to life. In the end, your people are the ones who bring a strategy alive. And so no brand strategy is really strategic without making company culture part of the discussion.

Culture Can Bring a Strategy to Life

In order to get your brand strategy out of a presentation deck and living in your business, you need motivated, inspired, aligned, and vision-driven people. People who are strategically in-pace, clear about the brand, and directed towards a shared vision.

In the end, culture can make or break a strategy – giving it an environment to thrive in or die in. Here’s how a focus on culture can help bring a strategy to life.

Greater Focus and Alignment Around the Vision

Although the first step of a successful strategy is getting leaders aligned around a shared purpose, it doesn’t end there. Everyone within the business – from the higher-ups to the new hires — has to be driven towards the same vision. It starts with the leadership but needs to trickle down. Without everyone on board, business goals and objectives will float further and further out of reach.

When businesses get smart about sharing their strategy, giving new voices a place at the table, and finding exciting, innovative ways of getting their employees on board, the strategy thrives. It’s important that employees feel clear about what the strategy means for their business and their own personal work. What changes? What is there to get excited about? What is everyone driving towards? How does a new strategy change the culture? What are the specific behavior changes within the workplace that reflect this new strategy? These are all questions that require transparency and that need to be addressed.

When the whole company is united around a shared vision and clear about how to get closer and closer to that vision, the business becomes more focused, more efficient, more inspired, more productive, and in the end, more impactful. With culture and strategy – together — driving it forward.

More Consistency and More Collaboration

When culture becomes a part of the strategic conversation, recruiting and retaining employees who are going to have the most impact on your business becomes easier. And finding the right fit and keeping people motivated, happy, and inspired becomes more of a reality.

When you’re clear about the kind of people who are going to drive your business into the future, and help shape the culture you want to build, collaboration flourishes, innovation thrives, and creativity rockets. Employees feel empowered because they are clear and excited about living the brand every day. The strategy comes to life through employees who come together and instill the emotional impact in target audiences, bring the brand promise alive, and keep business moving forward every day.

Culture and Strategy Working Together

Brand strategy has a very direct connection to the issue of culture change. When culture becomes a part of the strategic conversation, and employees gain clarity around why the brand matters and why their business is different, they behave in ways that are aligned strategically with the values, vision, and aspirations of the company. Coming together with a shared focus is what puts that strategy into play, and allows businesses to outperform the competition and position themselves for success.

Emotive Brand is a San Francisco brand strategy and design agency.

Building the Business Case for your Rebrand Project

Posted on November 8, 2016 by Tracy Lloyd

Recognizing the Need for a Change

Why build a business case for your rebrand? You know when your business needs one. There are lots of warning signs that indicate the need for a new brand. Whether it’s new, high-performing competition, an outdated look and feel, uninspired employees, dropping engagement and productivity within the workplace, trouble recruiting or retaining top talent, or a brand that’s simply fallen behind its own positioning, you need a change. Often those in HR and marketing are the first to notice the need for a change. The current brand is just no longer doing the work it needs to do to move your business forward, outperform competitors, and attract the best-fit talent to your company. And your business is faltering as a result.

Gathering Support from Leadership

But the fact is, in order to change your brand, you need backing and leadership support. The top of your organization is only going to invest in a rebrand if they are confident it will pay off for their business. And tight budgets and an uncertain economy make it even harder to make the case. That means it’s even more important to build a strong, clear case that persuades decision-makers that the investment in a new brand will, in fact, position the business for success.

Often, people don’t realize the true connections between brand and business – that the way the brand lives and functions changes customer perception, shifts behavior, and impacts the overall financial performance of a business. At Emotive Brand, we understand that a thriving brand = a thriving business. But how do you communicate this value and persuade the decision-makers in the room to get on board?

Building a Strong Business Case For Your Rebrand

Because this is a large decision with large impact, there are a lot of questions surrounding the potential impact of a new brand. Questions like: How can we position the brand for long-term success? Will the brand architecture shift? How much do we need to invest? What’s the value for customers? For employees? How does the brand change impact brand behavior? Revenue? ROI?

Of course, every business is different and therefore demands a different case to answer these questions. So make sure you tailor your case to your business’ specific concerns, visions, goals, and objectives. Internalize where your business is struggling, where it could go, and how it could get there. Here is some general advice for building a strong business case:

1. Identify what’s at stake.

Clearly articulate the need for a new brand. Quantitative and qualitative measurements are not mutually exclusive. Use both to paint a picture of the current state, where the brand is faltering, and where it could go. Often, mapping the current brand to business goals and objectives can demonstrate how off kilter the two really are. Don’t forget to inject an emotional appeal as well. Since the people you are speaking with also work at your company, they will empathize and understand the story you are telling.

2. Do your research.

Identifying competitor companies or other organizations with previously similar problems can help bring the value of a rebrand to life. Show how a change in brand has transformed like-minded businesses to demonstrate how a new brand could do the same for you. Using your potential brand strategy agency’s case studies might be particularly useful here. Point out untapped audiences your brand might help you capture, or draw attention to outdated brand behaviors that are stalling business. Make sure to do internal research as well. Listen to people’s concerns and internalize top leader’s greatest worries. Make sure you focus on these concerns and explain how a new brand might address them.

3. Spell out connections.

Like we said, for many in the room, the connections between brand and business may not be clear. When building a business case, you have to make sure that the brand’s potential impact on business is explicit. Communicate and demonstrate how the two are not mutually exclusive or hardly connected. In fact, they are interconnected, each driving the other, and potentially thriving as a result. Brand strategy is mapped directly to business strategy. Help people understand the ways in which a brand can change things like purchase behavior and customer perception and how these shifts then ladder back to business performance.

4. Look to the future.

Although current obstacles and problems should be addressed, your business case must also look forward. The potential future of your business is what will inspire and motivate. A new brand is a step forward for a company and should be addressed as so – a fresh start, a new opportunity, untapped territory for success. So get people excited about the future.

5. Outline the payoffs.

Even though you are making a business case, it’s not just about hard ROI (although this is most definitely a large part of the story). Focus on every way in which in the brand might add value.

Increased ROI:

A strong, emotive brand will lead to increased sales and revenues. Marketing and advertising will be better positioned to increase the lifetime value of customers in your target audience. And you will waste less money on marketing to customers who do not connect with your brand. Examining how your brand impacts financial results is important to maximizing your business value, maintaining competitive advantage, and increasing profitability in the long-term.

Successful recruitment and retention efforts:

Employees should be your greatest brand champions. Building a brand that everyone can rally behind, makes top employees less likely to leave and the right employees more likely to come to your company.

Aligned leadership:

Brand strategy is one of the surest ways to identify where leaders are misaligned. These discrepancies might be stalling business and keeping you from moving forward in pace with a competitive market. Getting leadership on the same page with a shared vision, and a way of getting there, is one of the best things you can do for your business.

A stronger and more meaningful culture:

If your employees live your brand promise everyday, the brand will shine from the inside out, and your business will, in turn, thrive. This is because meaningful culture leads to more inspired leadership and employees, higher levels of engagement, productivity, creativity, and innovation. Businesses that want to compete need employees who believe in their brand and business, and feel validated by their workplace culture everyday. As result, these are the people who give your business the momentum to advance with the times.

Increased brand awareness:

Brand recognition, connection, and engagement are key to a thriving business. When people recognize your brand, your brand is able to grow. And increased awareness of a brand that can emotionally connect with people means increased loyalty, as well as a higher lifetime value for customers.

Big Impact

Building a strong, persuasive, and clear business case that appeals to the worries, concerns, objectives, hopes, and dreams of the decision-makers in the room can help gather the investment and support your brand needs to move your business forward.

Emotive Brand is a San Francisco brand strategy and design agency.

Six Steps to Improving Brand Behavior

Posted on October 12, 2016 by Tracy Lloyd

On Your Best Brand Behavior

Whether it’s B2B or B2C, brands need to be on their best behavior at all times. There’s nowhere to hide in this digital world when a brand misbehaves. A poor customer service experience, an offensive remark from a CEO, a bad workplace reputation, a lack of transparency, or lies, are types of brand behavior that create a lasting (and widespread) impression.

When business suffers, often, a business can trace it back to a misstep in the brand’s behavior. And though it’s easy to revamp the website or roll-out workplace training as a quick fix, the real challenge is making a shift in brand behavior across the board, starting on the inside with the way employees approach their work and each other.

Time for change

Identifying and aligning around a strong brand promise is critical as your brand evaluates its behavior against its aspirations. But even when there’s a guiding light for how the brand ‘should’ behave across all touchpoints, there may still be a disconnect. When people aren’t living up to the promise, it’s important to make a plan to truly affect how people think and feel about your brand.

Easier said than done

Pointing at one aspect of the brand and expecting results doesn’t cut it. Even so, companies spend billions of dollars on training programs as an obvious ‘fix’ for brand behavior. HBR notes that in the US alone $160 billion are spent on training programs that don’t work. Bad behavior persists without evidence that these programs enhance organizational performance.

Blaming it on external factors isn’t the answer either. It’s not the customers’ fault if the brand isn’t living up to its promise. If the market changes or competition creeps in and customers don’t respondlike they used to, the brand needs to adjust its behavior. A comprehensive approach that looks at behavior inside and outside the business is necessary to truly ignite change.

Creating and Sustaining Change

When the writing is on the wall that the brand’s behavior is negatively affecting its performance, there are six things that will make a significant impact:

1. Solicit an external perspective.

Brand behavior change comes from within, but it’s nearly impossible for top-down change to ignite from the inside. The recent HBR story on leadership training notes that ‘HR managers and others find it difficult or impossible to confront senior leaders and their teams with an uncomfortable truth’ that the policies, procedures and everyday behavior of an organization’s top management are responsible for the brand’s poor behavior. And they are. Using an outside agency to help identify the shifts the brand needs to make in its behavior and develop a clear strategy will ignite the behavior change in a much more productive way than is possible if internal leadership is tasked with the job.

2. Start at the top.

With an external team involved, begin by working with senior leaders to define the values and strategic direction the brand will follow. Then, identify the change in your leadership team’s behavior and commit to making shifts that align to the strategic direction. The brand’s promise should serve as the guiding light in identifying the type of behavior necessary to change. Aligning leadership behavior to the brand promise ensures that the rest of the organization has an example for their own behavior shifts, and subsequently the brand’s external behavior is well positioned to follow-suit.

3. Examine and redesign roles and responsibilities:

This must happen at all levels of the organization to reflect the brand’s promise and motivate change. Ensuring that the brand has the infrastructure in place to support its promise is critical. A brand positioned around its excellent customer service, for example, needs to have the team and people in place to execute.

4. Evaluate day-to-day behaviors:

Evaluating day-to-day behaviors outside of job descriptions helps people identify the individual things they can do to better represent the brand. At the end of the day, a brand’s behavior is reflected in the small things that it does. And, more often than not, the people behind the brand are responsible for every small touchpoint the brand makes with its audience. Establishing internal behavior expectations beyond job descriptions ensures the brand can live up to its promise and create a reputation that people come to associate as integral to the brand itself.

5. Measure change:

Measuring change for individual performance and organizational KPIs. Setting new expectations for behavior is one thing. Holding the people behind the brand responsible for the new behavior is another. Not only should individuals be held accountable, the business should too. Gauge the behavior change with established metrics on a recurring basis to ensure it lasts.

6. Adjust and adapt:

It’s important to constantly adjust and adapt your systems and procedures to sustain new behavior. Set a timeline for change and commit to reevaluating what’s working and what’s not in a designated time period. There’s always room for improvement.

If the brand needs to shift the way it behaves in order to improve its reputation, following these six steps will help ensure the change in behavior is widespread and lasting. When done right, it can have a positive impact on employee engagement, sales, people’s perception of your brand, and your business.

Emotive Brand is a San Francisco brand strategy agency

The Modern Workplace Requires a Revamp

Posted on June 21, 2016 by Tracy Lloyd

The modern workplace requires new ways to connect, inspire, engage, and bond with employees like never before.

Over the past few years there has been quite a lot of research and stories on worker happiness (and the startling lack thereof).

One talked about the story of an employee who, after two decades of service to a financial institution, decided he couldn’t take it any more:

“I felt like no one cared about me as a person there, and finally decided to extricate myself from the grind. I know many of you feel the same way now in your jobs…trapped and unappreciated.”

The modern workplace

The modern workplace calls for significant changes in the intent, attitude, and behavior of business leaders. Here are some observations and recommendations:

What makes people happiest in their jobs is all profoundly personal. “Do I work for an organization whose mission and methods I respect?” “Does my boss authentically advocate for me?” “Is the work I do meaningful?” “Am I afforded sufficient variety in my day?” “Do I feel valued and appreciated for all the work that I do?” We know that all these matter more to people than their compensation – and workers generally don’t quit jobs when these basic needs are met. According to a worldwide Towers Watson study, the single highest driver of employee engagement is whether or not workers feel their managers are genuinely interested in their well-being. Today, only 40% of workers believe that

People only thrive when they feel recognized and appreciated. In a recent Harvard Business Review article, “Why Appreciation Matters So Much,” Tony Schwartz reminds us that all employees need to be praised, honored, and routinely acknowledged for their efforts and achievements. Consequently, leaders must allow themselves to manage more from their hearts. Our brains are great at building strategies, managing capital, and analyzing data. But it’s the heart that connects us as human beings, and it’s what’s greatly lacking in American leadership today. This is what now must change.

Your employees will stay if you tell them directly you need them, care about them, and sincerely plan to support them. Anytime someone quits a job for a reason other than money, they’re leaving in hope that things will be better somewhere else. So, everyone who works for you must be made to feel that they matter. Plan one-on-one meetings and re-discover the dreams each person has at work. Tell people directly how valuable they are to you. To be successful, all your future behavior must demonstrate to your employees that their best career move is to remain working for you.

The value of defining a meaningful position for your brand

A meaningful position is a place between what your business needs and what people want as they strive to create new meaning in their lives.

Operating from this position, your brand is more accessible, approachable and likeable because it reaches out to people in an emotionally meaningful ways.

When a brand has a clear idea of the meaningful position it wants to hold in the hearts and minds of people, it is easier for the leadership to shift the “give and take” of key brand relationships.

Seeing their roles through the lens of meaning, business leaders see how their intent is to inspire a purpose beyond profit. They realize how their attitude toward employees can be made more welcoming, accepting and empathetic. They shift their behavior in ways that focus on creating a distinct set of positive emotions within the workplace.

From this meaningful position, the brand and its leaders, become far more personally relevant and emotionally important to employees.

This, in turn, positively influences the intent, attitude and behavior of employees (as well as customers, partners, suppliers…indeed, all the people vital to the brand’s success).

Employees relate to the brand beyond the job title and compensation offered. They adopt positive, supportive and helpful attitudes toward the brand. They change their behavior by working with greater purpose, remaining loyal and recommending the brand to others.

Meaningful brands use this human dynamic to thrive.

Leaders of meaningful brands use this human dynamic to inspire, motivate and bond with employees.

To learn more about how to create the right strategies for a more modern workplace, download our white paper “The Meaningful Workplace“.

Emotive Brand is a San Francisco branding agency.

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Building the Employee Experience

Posted on June 16, 2016 by Paige Lansing Valle

It’s no secret that the employee experience with HR has developed a bad rep. The reality is that most people associate HR with two things: hiring and firing. For many organizations, HR is rule enforcement, the behavior police, gliding in when the people problems arise. And even when employees do have a positive experience with HR, it’s often limited to the brief experience of onboarding.

Building Responsibility

We’ve mentioned that attracting, engaging, and retaining top talent is the top priority for executives today. And for most businesses, this responsibility falls on HR. It’s no small responsibility, either. The competition for top talent today is intense, and this talent often feels overwhelmed at the options, lost in a sea of thrown-around benefits, unsure if they really are a good fit, or confused about what their work experience would really be like.

And in a fervent search for the right people, businesses are now realizing that people want to be treated as just that, people. Not tools for production. Not numbers on a salary sheet. Not expendable workers. But people who are important to the present and future success of the business, who want to feel like their experience and work matters to employers. Money is no longer the sole motivating factor for talent today. Employees need to feel meaningfully connected to the brand they work for.

A Shift in Role

With the challenge of getting talent on board as top-of-mind, many agree that HR needs a rebrand. This means a shift in focus: away from money and people as resources and towards the creation and building of a holistic, compelling experience for employees. As a result, some organizations are saying “Bye, Bye, to Human Resources?” altogether.

In fact, several of the pioneering companies under-going this shift have renamed HR: “Employee Experience” or other people-centric terms that are among the most popular new names. Although notable, a name change isn’t enough to really elevate your brand and differentiate your workplace. The brand must also behave in a way that puts its people and their experiences first – at every touchpoint. And placing people at the center may be the most promising competitive advantage brands can create today.

Mavericks in the Move

Going against the grain is never easy, but HR leaders who want to succeed need to become mavericks. Building something that goes against the norm, challenges the status quo, and sees beyond the perceived limitations of HR, takes courage, hard work, and drive. And there’s no cookie cutter approach to building a successful employee experience. It needs to authentically reflect your own brand’s purpose and promise.

To be a maverick in this shift, collaboration is key. Oftentimes, businesses steer towards trying to segment different components of the employee experience by dividing areas like “talent,” “recruiting,” and “ground control.” However, by bringing them together under one roof, your team can more easily discover disconnects, divides, and unearth more key areas that need focus. By coming together, conversing, and aligning, the whole brand experience will be more cohesive, powerful, and compelling.

Consider the Whole Journey

Every interaction with the brand matters: a potential employee’s first landing on your website, the first day of work, the last day, and every experience with the brand before and after. It’s not only about building an experience that makes current employees more engaged, productive, and inspired (which with a focus on employee experience, you’ll do). Nor is it about throwing some beanbags in a room or pasting your mission statement on a wall for all to see. It’s much bigger. It’s about building an entire brand experience that extends from employees’ first encounter to long after they’ve worked for you.

The employee experience should reflect and drive your culture, helping employees live your promise and lead with purpose. So consider your entire employee journey from start to finish. How do you support employees along the way? How do you connect people to the journey and how does the journey make them feel at each stage? Putting energy into a 2-day onboard is great, but how do you extend this kind of care? Your brand needs a dedicated team – whether that’s HR or the ‘People Team’ – responsible for the employee experience along the entire brand journey.

Employee Experience = Every Touchpoint

Despite the buzz around employee experience, a clever renaming isn’t enough. For companies that are finding success with this shift, the rename is only a catalyst for change. Your business must consider how to influence each and every touchpoint in a positive way. Building and growing a holistic employee experience is no small task. So make sure your HR team has a seat at the table, and a strategic seat at that.

To stand out and compete, your brand must resonate with people at every interaction. Your brand promise should be reflected in the voice of your communications, positively modeled by your leader’s workplace behavior, and reinforced by everyone within the organization. A thoughtful employee experience should breathe your promise and motivate and inspire people towards your purpose.

Placing focus on each and every touchpoint of the entire employee experience will help your business recruit, retain, and add meaning to every interaction people have with your brand. Investing in your employee experience is investing in your brand and its long-term success.

Emotive Brand is a San Francisco branding agency.