Employee Branding in Reverse: Satyam Scandal turns employees into Untouchables?

(photo of Satyam colleagues by Tony George)

When the organization you work for is involved in a major ethics scandal– does this mean that you and all other members are ‘marked’ too?
And does this make sense?

Yes.

When the organization that you are part of becomes tainted by a public scandal, you and other members are likely also to be "tarred by the same brush". This is the flip-side of the employer branding process.

Employee branding is when you, the member, display characteristics of the organization in your own behavior to help the organization promote its brand. When an organization’s members behave in ways that promote the organization’s brand, they encourage others to treat them as representatives of the organization. They ask to be seen and treated as carriers of the organization’s values and to be experienced by others as a proxy for the organization itself.

(Note, whether this transfer of values actually occurs is a different issue. What matters here is appearances and presentations.)

When the organization’s reputation is good, this employer branding process can benefit the organization member, who gets treated with the warmth, respect, or enthusiasm that someone has for that organization.

But the reverse is also true — once you have aligned yourself with the organization, and acted in ways that encourage others to treat you as the organization’s representative, you become vulnerable to any repercussions of the organization’s negative behavior.

Take this example from "India’s Enron Scandal" (and note the co-branding there…):

Over 19,000 Satyam employees are actively looking for new jobs. Who will hire them? Not Infosys, Satyam’s competitor.

And why not? Said Infosys founder and non-executive chairman N R Narayana Murthy:

“We will not touch such a tainted company,”

Ostensibly, Murthy was commenting on whether or not Infosys would "poach" Satyam employees. At the same time, however, the Infosys chairman was also expressing an assumption shared by many:

If Satyam’s employees really "are" the company, if they really have internalized the company’s values and defining characteristics, then they must also have internalized whatever values (or lack thereof) created these ethical breaches.

Note that this logic is not the same as saying that any Satyam employee knew about and assisted with these unethical behaviors. Instead, it’s all about the values of the organization and the degree to which these values are held by employees. Whether an organization’s values are ethical or not, these values influence corporate and collective behavior. And, when employees are strongly connected with or branded by their organizations, these corporate values influence individual behavior.

Employee branding is a two-way street.

Even though we usually focus on employee branding as a way to have what’s good about an organization spread from the organization’s core values out to the individual employees’ behaviors, employee branding can spread any corporate value, good or bad. Thus, employee branding can spread values that make bad corporate behavior possible.

Will people think of Satyam employees as being tainted, just like the organization they are part of?
Yes.

Does it make sense to think of Satyam employees as being tainted?
Yes.

is it fair to think of Satyam employees as tainted?
That’s another story… .

What are your thoughts about employee branding in reverse and/or the plight of Satyam employees? Please share in the comments, below.

Tagged as: Co-Branding, employee branding, employee branding in reverse, Employer Branding, ethical scandals hurt employees, india's enron scandal, Infosys, Murtha, organizational ethics, organizational values, Satyam scandal