employee branding

Connecting to the Company Story: Coding is Crafting for Etsy’s Engineers

November 21, 2011

Tweet Every organization has a story. Any group that wants to be an important part of that organization needs to craft a place for itself in that story. The story an organization tells itself and shares with others helps everyone make sense of who the organization is. For members, the organization’s story helps them articulate […]

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3 Ways That Employer Branding Can Benefit Current Employees

May 17, 2011

Tweet It’s easy to see how Employer Branding is useful to HR departments and potential job applicants. Employer Branding, the practice of marketing images of your organization as a desirable place to work towards potential job applicants, is a sensible strategy for attracting the right people onto your bus (-iness). Employer Branding works to draw […]

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Fronting for “the Man”: Can BP disarm our anger by using a Black “Teddy-Bear” Spokesperson?

June 24, 2010

Tweet [Trigger alert: This post is about racism.] There is no more incendiary question than the implicit and unspoken question that often follows the promotion of non-white and/or non-male employees: Did s/he get the job because s/he’s qualified, or did s/he get the job because s/he’s (fill in the diversity criterion here)? Corporate American is […]

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BP’s Bravest Brandividual: What could be motivating Darryl Willis?

June 22, 2010

Tweet If you’ve been paying attention to BP’s “Making it right” newspaper advertising, or if you’ve seen BP’s recent television advertising, you’ve seen BP’s new Brandividual Darryl Willis. Aside from Tony Hayward, BP’s walking PR disaster CEO, Darryl Willis is the only person with a name shown by BPs own advertisements as being in charge […]

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Employee Branding at BP: Do snazzy uniforms protect the response teams?

June 16, 2010

Tweet Somebody at BP has been reading The Onion. BP has figured out that dressing their employees in groovy outfits can help build esprit, camaraderie and a even a sense of importance. Okay, I’m being snarky here… but I am wondering about the positive (and possibly negative) effects of the outfits these BP control center […]

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Corporate Logo Tattoos: The wrong way to wear the brand

March 31, 2010

Tweet In the domain of “things I just don’t understand about people’s relationship(s) to organizations” is this nagging question: Why would anyone want to brand themselves with a corporate logo? Way back when I began studying organizational identification and employee branding (branding in the metaphorical sense), I heard about an April Fool’s Joke on NPR […]

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That Special Starbucks: Does the place help the people be authentic?

March 4, 2010

Tweet First it was the Siren. Then it was the Christmas cards. For a while, it’s been the original artwork by their very own baristas displayed on the walls.. And now, my favorite Starbucks is getting bouquets of flowers. On a recent visit, there were two big vases of flowers on the counter by the […]

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Beyond an Online Dress Code: A ‘Look Code’ for Work Avatars & Employee Branding

November 3, 2009

Tweet We need to go beyond dress codes and consider “Look Codes” for the work avatars that employees use online. Online look codes will help employees translate the qualities of their organization’s brand into the avatars they create for themselves. Organizations should care about their members’ work avatars because these avatars are representing the organization, […]

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The People Make the Place Authentic

October 1, 2009

Tweet When you think about “the organization” or “your organization”, do you simultaneously overlook the actual people in it? This tension between thinking of an organization as an entity and simultaneously recognizing that it is also a collection of individuals runs through all our conversations about organizations. When managers and leaders are considering their organization’s […]

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EmployER Branding vs. EmployEE Branding

June 24, 2009

Tweet Sometimes the distinctions between terms are irrelevant; they don’t make much of a difference. Not so with the distinction between employEE branding and EmployER branding. Just the switch of one letter, and the switch of the organization’s focus, makes all the difference. EmployER Branding EmployER branding is all about creating a sense of place. […]

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