If your business has employees have you ever thought about how they impact your brand? It doesn’t matter whether your employees interact directly with customers or not they still impact your brand.
How Do You Hire?
How come when we’re hiring someone we look at their resume and examine the facts and specifications of their education and work history? Shouldn’t we be taking time to find out if they care about the things that we care about before we hire them?
After all, when you hire a new employee they’re going to be representing your business, your brand to your clients. What they care about might be important.
A Quick Example
For example, we have a client that does home staging. Their brand is about offering premium results for their clients. In order to deliver premium results, they have to employ people that will deliver those results.
If they hire people that won’t deliver those results their brand will suffer and lose authenticity. Not the employee’s fault. As the owner, you are responsible for who you hire and how you hire. AIf you aren’t getting the results you want, you may wish to reconsider how you hire.
Employee’s Need to Get Why You Do What You Do
In order to have a consistent and cohesive brand, your employees need to buy into what your brand is all about. They need to believe what you believe. They need to stand for what your brand stands for. They need to stand against what your brand stands against. They need to understand the story, where your brand came from, what it’s doing and where it’s going.
Do you take the time to find out if your potential new hires get your brand? And if they’re jazzed about what you’re all about? What process do you have to help them really understand and internalize your brand, your story, so it becomes part of who they are?
Consider Zappos
Consider Zappos their brand is huge on customer service. In fact, new hires for customer service positions spend a month in training. Zappos customer service is so unique that they take the time to ensure that their employees are educated on how to serve the customers. Because it matters.
One way Zappos helps ensure that their customer service agents really want to be there is by offering them $2000 to leave. Yeah if the trainee isn’t feeling like it’s a good fit or just not enjoying it they’re encouraged to leave. This helps ensure that Zappos customer service agents really want to be there. It helps ensure that they have bought into the spirit of the brand. They are now ready to help Zappos customers and do it within the framework of Zappos philosophy.
Wrapping Up
Are you hiring the same old way? Are you happy with the results? Are your new hires buying into why you do what you do? If not maybe it’s time to ask the question, “why do I do it this way and is there a better way”?
Photo Credit: How we hire might not get the results we are looking for. Sometimes we have to let go of the old ways and try a new approach. Thanks, Johanna Buguet.