Recently I met up with a friend who considered applying for a role at a prestigious international publishing group employing over 5,000 staff worldwide with offices established in countries from Europe and the Americas to Africa and much of Asia. Its business operations therefore cover a wide geographical area with a great ethnographic, anthropologic, and socio-economic diversity. All highly positive attributes for any global brand. As my friend works as a teacher in an international school and had three school-age children of her own, she also felt connected with the business as a B2B and B2C customer having regularly consumed company’s goods and services, in addition to now becoming a job applicant and a potential employee. How does this relate to corporate branding and storytelling, you ask? If your brand does what it preaches all the time, it doesn’t seem to matter that much, however, this type of situation may uncover – via widely different responses to your brand from different stakeholders – weaknesses in your business models and corporate strategy.
Let’s consider the perspective of the job applicant who had previously engaged with the business as a customer. This perspective is useful initially as the customer perspective is also the primary lens via which companies scrutinise their branding image. The majority would agree that companies seek out employees whose values align with their own to ensure high levels of motivation, commitment, and staff retention as well as customer satisfaction when delivering products or services. In the specific example of the parent and teacher, this potential employee was the existing and repeat B2B customer of the company, regularly using its educational resources, such as textbooks, lesson plans, and online learning subscriptions, and on occasion purchasing teacher training products with extensive training services delivered online and in person by subject-specific gurus sent to the school site by the company. She was also a B2C or a retail customer since she regularly purchased books published by the company for her children. The company story from this perspective consumed by the job applicant couldn’t be more perfect: quality service and products, diversity, and high value provided by educational purpose and associated ideals of social mobility. This was the case of the perfect synchronicity between the company’s values and the candidate’s own interests and beliefs, making the loyal customer the potentially perfect fit for the job with the company.
But that changed when half-way through the application process she consulted a friend who worked as a freelancer for the company, and she learnt that this contractor’s freelance contract, which had been a few years earlier downgraded to freelance from a prior full-time permanent employee status - was being terminated because the company decided to work with another contractor based in India. Now for all the internationalists and universalists out there, there is nothing wrong with creating jobs and opportunities in India or any other country. More the better! However, such opportunities must be precisely that: opportunities resulting from the business growth creating more jobs and collaborations. It may be tempting for companies to pursue cost-cutting and under-cutting measures and dress them as ‘opportunities’, however, it will very likely turn out to be very costly for the company. The millennials are the most educated generation in the human history, and for them it is very easy to see through such moves. They understand that any measures of this kind belong to a bygone era of the nineties that gave rise to populism in much of Europe and North America, and the millennial employees committed to equality and sustainability in the large sense of the word, including economic and social sustainability, will be left baffled by such move. At best they will conclude this is a result of incompetence, at worst selfishness and lack of care. A company may realise that there is an ethical problem, but more often such concerns will be brushed aside as being perfectly legal. This can, however, prove fatal.
Since job applicants are also customers, the messages transmitted by the means of authentic stories and experiences are delivered not just to employees and candidates but also to company’s customers, and the customer hearing such messaging is likely to run to the competition. All the hard work that the company put into attracting customers by value-driven marketing has evaporated the moment the customer became a job applicant and realised their values did not align with the company. Fundamentally, the problem lies with an outdated business model that was popular in the nineties but that today the economists and management scholars alike recognise as posing a major problem to redistribution of the benefits of globalisation, and even to the global stability, security, and peace. The multinationals must recognise their role in this wider global human ecosystem, re-examine their options, and update their global business models to remain relevant. For example, if a small number of employees are affected by such changes they should be re-deployed to other roles or work could be transferred to the company branch in the new country rather than an external contractor, and this would in return allow for the existing job holder to act as a trainer transferring knowledge and maintaining quality service. The companies with multiple offices could also base their employee in-take per country proportionately to the customer value they generate in each country to keep their operations in line with both types of stakeholders. Would such solutions generate better stories? Certainly, and it would be less costly to the company too.
You can dismiss the above story by saying it’s just one person, but to cite Lord Karan Bilimoria CBE DL, the founder of Cobra Beer, whose highly inspiring talk I once attended, ‘you win or lose your business one customer at a time’. What can businesses learn from this short story about company branding and storytelling? Company stories are not told just by your marketing team or PR agency. Your stakeholders also tell your company’s story. Therefore, every company that is serious about growing its business must ensure all stakeholders’ stories are positive, reaching out to more customers, investors, potential employees, and other stakeholders all the time. The perspective of the customer turned job applicant is therefore an excellent lens to use as a tool to check that your business models are ethical and sustainable, and your brand remains positive and authentic.