Once you’ve hired an employee, you might simply think of them as another part of your business – within the construct and able to function towards your own ends.
How exactly your brand functions in relation to your employees, however, is an important piece of how audiences will perceive your brand. This is partly because prospective applicants will undoubtedly make up at least some portion of your audience, but also because it tells a greater story about your brand personality – whether you intend it to or not.
Humanity and Personability
Every business has a personality. This might be something that you cultivate directly through your marketing. Identifying a tone of voice that works for your brand can allow you to intersperse your communications and marketing with that tone, giving a piece of marketing content with the same objective as any other an individualistic edge that helps it to stick in the mind of those exposed to it.
Part of the reason that some audiences might find themselves to be more endeared to smaller businesses could be because they have a more personable atmosphere to them – a stronger idea of who is on the other side. When you get to giant corporations like Amazon or Apple, as much as people might know the CEOs behind them, it’s hard not to just see a giant money-making machine. As aspirational as those mega-corporations can be to some business owners, they aren’t relatable. Instead, their marketing campaigns (as in the case of Apple) come down to the fashion and the prestige of their products, more than anything else.
This is to say, if you make a point of your business being concerned about people – helping people live better lives, being empathetic to customers – that might not last should it come to light that you don’t treat your employees very well. Customers might then take this and think about what else you’ve said that isn’t worth trusting, and it’s a thread that can keep on being pulled to your detriment.
An Enticing Workspace
So, you might think to remedy this by creating an enticing work environment – one that actively encourages people to apply. It can be difficult for some people to imagine a job where they’re happy, and even if they aren’t passionate about the work that they do, they could come to enjoy their job just because of the environment that you’ve created. This could be through a physically appealing workspace – lots of natural light, more open and colorful spaces as well as integration of mental health boosters like house plants.
It's also about the emotional space, and a lot of that comes down to how you interact with them. Trusting them to do the work that they’ve been assigned instead of middle managing can do a lot to make people feel more valued and independent, and that can positively impact their opinion of you as an employer. Encouraging communication with other employees of all kinds might also make them feel more compelled to talk to them about things that are more strictly about the work. Also, if your team feels as though they have access to a committed HR team, they can always feel as though they have a safe space to talk about issues they might be facing. Outsourcing this aspect of your business with an HR dept in Streatham can also help them to feel more neutral and perhaps more reliable from the perspective of your employees.
Productivity and Output
Understanding that a better relationship with your employees will likely result in a happier and more productive workforce might be all the incentive that you need to try and implement positive changes. It can be a difficult thing to achieve in a short span of time – especially when it comes to the more emotional elements such as building trust and establishing open communication. Still, a new perspective can help you to get started in a new direction.
From the perspective of your audiences, they’ll see the high quality of your output and naturally respond positively. In theory, it could be an everybody wins situation. Things are rarely that simple when there are so many different considerations to make, but it does showcase a direction for you to take that could be very positive for your brand, your employees and your audiences. Another difficult aspect is arguably that it’s not enough to just establish a positive workspace; you also have to maintain it. That in itself is something that requires a commitment to your goal beyond the short term.
