“A brand is a living entity – and it is enriched or undermined cumulatively over time, the product of a thousand small gestures” – Michael Eisner, CEO, Disney

What Mr. Eisner is saying is that the small things matter when it comes to your organization’s brand. Every interaction impacts the perception participants have of your brand.

When the topic of brand comes up in conversation, most people’s minds go straight to the outward, consumer facing side of a brand the side that customers see and interact with. But that isn’t a complete view of a brand; in fact inner beliefs and culture directly affect the outward actions and performance of a brand. After all, how many organizations do you know of that don’t have a single frontline employee that interacts with customers on a regular basis? I’m going to guess very few.

Let’s take another look at Michael Eisner’s quote. He describes a brand as a living entity, that is enriched or undermined. What a better way to grow and enrich a brand than by focusing on the people and culture inside the organization? And who better to facilitate an inward focus on brand than Human Resources, the task force in charge of recruiting, hiring, training and coaching the organizations greatest assets “it’s people” to become better teams and leaders?

In most organizations, brand ideology is embedded into some activities more than others. For example, it is standard in most companies to an orientation process, where new hires learn the history of the company and it’s beliefs. It’s in these moments that employees learn this is how we do things here lessons about the brand.

Outside of these few brand centered occasions it can be very easy to overlook the day-to-day processes and the implications they have on the brand. I believe it is in these small day-to-day activities that the most opportunity exists to build the brand into the culture. Ultimately, an orientation may make an impression on a new employee, but it’s the everyday experiences that the employee is going to live. If the stated company beliefs don’t match up with daily experiences, then which perception of the brand is the employee is going to take to heart? You bet! Their own.

While working with clients to help them continually improve and grow their brands, I’ve developed a simple framework to help them fully grasp the depth and complexity of the many ways that their brand is experienced, and also help them improve this experience over time.

I call it the Touch Cycle. It’s a great method for diving in and exploring the many touchpoints of your brand, and learning where you can make improvements.

Here are the steps:

1.  Choreograph Touches

• List all the HR touchpoints large and small.
• To make this easier start breaking down all the activities that HR is in charge of in your organization (trainging, hiring, recruiting, etc.). Now start listing all of the interactions that take place within these segments of HR.

2. Listen and Watch

• Observe how people interact with your touchpoints. Are there any breakdowns in communication? Are they responding the way you thought they would?

3.  Reinforce Behaviors

• Encourage on brand behaviors at each touchpoint.

4.  Evaluate and Expand

• Take a look at all the work you’ve done in steps 1, 2, and 3. Evaluate the effectivness of the touchpoints you identified in step 1. Determine what’s working and what’s not. Were there any surprises? What insights did you gain from this process?Is value being added at each point of contact, giving people a reason to further engage? Are there touchpoints that we should eliminate? Are there areas what we should expand into and add new touchpoints to the brand experience?

I outline this process in detail on my blog “ The Brand Touch Cycle

Use this tool to help you identify, analyze and improve the brand touchpoints of your HR activities. Here are some things to consider during your analysis:

Speed - How fast do you respond to job inquiries or resumes sent your way? How long does it take for an internal issue to be identified and dealt with? In this day and age, speed isn’t hoped for, it’s expected.

Culture “ Are you proactively recruiting talent that is passionate about your brand? Or are you just trying to fill a job description?

Empower “ How easy is it for employees to send organizational complaints or suggestions your way? Have you built and intranet for collaboration?

Procedure and Paperwork  Are all the forms, procedures and paperwork required of employees necessary? Do they align with the brand?

I hope you will take this as a challenge to explore the internal touchpoints of your brand and continually improve them to grow a better organization, one that employees are proud to work for and consumers want do business with a strong brand.

Chris Wilson is our guest blogger and is a  Marketing and Brand Strategist and author of the Marketing Fresh Peel.  He is the Digital Brand Strategist at Hester Designs.  Find him on Twitter @Freshpeel.

Photo Credits bsamp & FreshPeel

One of my favorite fellow bloggers is Chris Wilson who is also located in Oklahoma City.  While his blog focuses on digital marketing strategies for businesses, many of his posts are relevant to those in the job hunt as well as the human resource industry.  A recent post of his discusses, a revealing Slide Share presentation by Jeff Brenman of Apollo Ideas discussing  the future of the workplace.

With Chris and Jeff’s posts in mind, it is important for us to understand that how we as the employer and employees view and see the workplace is changing.  And because of this what companies are looking for in candidates is also changing.  How will you as a job seeker and me as a human resource business professional adapt?

• Transparency. Your activities both inside and outside of the office will be tracked. Everything you do and say both online and offline can and will effect your company’s future success.  For businesses, this is certainly scary stuff which is why having a clear vision of who you are, your company is, and what the rules are is especially important.
• Flat. Your work location won’t matter.  Offices for the most part will become the thing of the past.  Skype, Videoconferencing, and streaming video will be the future of the way in which we work.  If your company has an office space, it will most likely be shared, a term called coworking where creative people often outside of your company work in a shared workspace.  Working from home will be the norm.
• ROWE with me. Companies like Best Buy have been using the ROWE for years with great success.  ROWE stands for Results Oriented Work Environment.  Environments like these are ideal for the global world we live in and offer flexible hours, employee satisfaction, and a focus on results.  Imagine taking Wednesday off to attend your child’s school play and spending that evening in the virtual office without having to take a vacation day or feeling guilty if you didn’t.
• On demand. One of the down sides to this new world of work is that because work is flexible and results based it is also always changing.  Employees and businesses will have to learn to quickly make solid business decisions while also understanding that because change is constant so will the work load and hours required to do your job.  Employees will begin to work on a more contract and consultancy basis to allow businesses to better adapt to the changing needs of the business world and marketplace.