Growing the employee brand at ASI: a case study.

The employee brand is the image presented to an organization's customers and other relevant stakeholders through its employees. The employee branding process is predicated on achieving and maintaining message consistency throughout the organization. Messages emanate from various organizational sources such as the systems of organizational staffing, performance management, and compensation. Each message should reflect and reinforce the organization's desired brand image which, in turn, should be consistent with the organization's mission and values. When this happens, both the psychological contract and employee brand knowledge is effectively managed, resulting in a brand image that is consistent with the organization's desired brand image. The development of the employee brand through the employee branding process can provide a source of sustainable competitive advantage for the organization. This case study is designed to be used as a teaching tool for understanding the complexity of the process and providing guidance for growing the employee brand.

Keywords: employee branding; internal marketing; internal branding; psychological contract; competitive advantage

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Melissa Thomas sat at her desk writing a first draft of her comprehensive report to the executive team outlining the course of action that would help grow the employee brand at ASI. ASI, a premier audio system manufacturer, was far different from her previous employer. The owner and president of ASI was insistent on producing a quality product and providing an exceptional quality customer experience reflecting the organization's values and mission. In fact, the stated corporate goal was "to exceed our customer's expectations for the value of our products regarding quality, reliability, service, and usefulness." In such a competitive market, the president knew and understood the competitive advantage employees can offer--especially when customer experience is coupled with a quality product. This dual goal led the executive team to hire Melissa to help the business continue to grow as it has done for the past 17 years. As the first employee hired exclusively to orchestrate the human resource management activities, she knew this would be a challenging assignment.

ASI Past and Present

The vision for ASI really didn't take hold until 2 years after Mike completed a customized sound system for the church he attended. An electrical engineer for a major company by day, he dabbled in audio electronics as a hobbyist by night. When Mike's church started a remodeling project on a very tight budget, Mike volunteered his services to customize the unique audio requirements of the church. This successful installation led several other parishioners to ask for Mike's help in designing customized audio systems that were able to meet theft unique requirements. The nature of these projects varied in budget and scope. Some were for internal sound systems and others were for external systems. Each project was unique and required a unique solution. After 2 years, Mike decided to quit his job and grow his hobby into a business. He mapped out a business plan and decided to offer a range of commercial, customizable audio systems designed to deliver audio in either indoor or outdoor settings to audiences ranging from a few to thousands.

Currently ASI has a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Jackson, Kentucky. It is known for its high-quality audio systems as well as cost efficiency, which allows the savings to be passed on to customers in the form of lower prices. It employs 37 people, including 3 supervisors, in the manufacturing facility. In addition, ASI has 28 people in the front office, including the telemarketing staff, audio designers, supervisors, and the executive team. The executive team consists of Mike, the founder and major share holder; his son Tom, President; Debbie, Director of Marketing; Jan, Manager of Accounting (and formerly Human Resources); and now Melissa, Director of Human Resource Management.

The executive team made it very clear to Melissa that the primary reason she was offered the Director position in Human Resources is her background in employee branding. They were convinced that if they were to succeed in this highly competitive market with a direct-to-the-customer distribution system, they would need to couple their quality product with outstanding customer interactions. ASI's success or failure depended largely on what happened at the point of employee--customer interface. The organization currently enjoyed high morale, low turnover, high levels of performance, and outstanding customer relations as measured by several external indicators. However, with projected sales at an all-time high, the team knew its employees were the key to continued success. As such, the primary reason the executive team decided to hire a Director of Human Resources was to continue to grow the organization's human element to reflect the organization's mission and values.

Melissa understood and appreciated the executive team's goal for growing the business inside as well as out. She was also very comfortable with the openness of the team and its receptiveness to a thorough analysis and examination of the internal processes and systems. This commitment allowed her relatively easy access in conducting a message audit. In her first meeting with the executive team, she articulated the critical importance of the mission and values and the creation of a desired brand image. In essence, the mission and values needed to be ASI's driving force in determining its desired brand image as well as the basis for all messages emanating from all organizational systems. These messages influence the employee's knowledge of the desired brand image and ultimately influence the psychological contract. Although the psychological contract was a relatively new concept for the executive team, they quickly understood how this perceptual agreement originates and influences the employment relationship as well as the negative consequences if it is not managed.

It is with this understanding that Melissa led the team in generating a plan to continue to grow the employee brand into a sustainable competitive advantage for ASI. Their approach was based on a review of the academic literature pertaining to the employee brand and the process by which the employee brand was developed (Mangold & Miles, in press; Miles & Mangold, 2004, 2005). In this quest, the executive team was convinced it needed to focus on ensuring that the desired brand image would be effectively communicated and reinforced throughout the organization on a continuous basis. Melissa and her team perceived that to accomplish this, they needed to know the extent to which current operations were consistent with the stated values and mission. Then they would develop a plan to orchestrate the various organizational message systems for consistency.

This approach was based on the premise, indicated in the academic literature they had studied, that organizations consist of a series of message systems. For example, the system by which organizational staffing is accomplished comprises one message system. Messages communicated through that system include those that are written and those that are spoken. They also include the signals that are sent through the decisions emanating from the system itself. For instance, the characteristics of the people who are recruited and hired send strong messages about what is valued by the organization (e.g., skill levels, motivation to accomplish specific tasks, etc.). Other organizational message systems include the training and development system, the performance management system, the compensation system, the employee communications and public relations system, the organization's culture and leadership, and the processes by which decisions are made as well as the decisions themselves.

Melissa and her team drafted a plan by which the message audit would be conducted. It would determine if organizational messages, actions, and processes were consistent with ASI's stated values and mission. The steps involved in conducting a message audit are outlined in Figure 1.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

Melissa prepared the first four sections of the plan and presented it to the team at an afternoon meeting. The information gathered was based on corporate information in conjunction with observations and an employee survey that measured the extent to which employees perceived that the organization's stated values and mission were actually reflected in the organizational process as they experienced them. Below is a presentation of the information she gathered, organized according to the steps outlined in Figure 1.

Identify Organizational Mission and Values

The first step in the audit was to revisit the organization's mission and values statement. A formal statement of ASI's mission and values is presented in Table 1. Consistent with Melissa's observations, "defect free" is a cornerstone of the organization's belief systems and is closely intertwined with its six sigma standards and ISO credentialing. Like many organizations, ASI's focus on defect-free products also extends to continuous improvement through continuous learning and a philosophy of excellence in its sales and customer service operations. However, ASI takes the idea of defect free farther than many companies do by focusing on internal interactions among coworkers as well as between employees and managers. ASI defines the values that underlie defect-free interactions with one another to include respect for others, open communication, teamwork, integrity, attention to detail, and conscientiousness.