Why It Pays to Care
Our readers out there know that we like to talk about treating your employees right. How employee engagement is crucial for business success. Sure treating people right is something most anyone should try and practice no matter what. However, is how your company treats its employees crucial to your corporate branding and overall sales?
Let's take a look at some notes from a recent Brand Conference. We weren't attendees but did have some good takeaways from the event hashtag on Twitter. Of all the bits of branding knowledge shared through that stream, this one really jumped off the screen at us:
@kufarms (or more formally Keith McIlvaine) is a social media consultant out of Pennsylvania and hit a crucial point. Consumers are interested in how you as a company treat your employees. We've seen this from rapidly rising companies such as Zappos or Southwest Airlines. They've received a ton of attention from their individual company cultures. As a result of that attention, they've seen increased brand exposure, positive PR and most likely increased revenues as a direct result of how they treat their employees.
Why are consumers so interest in company cultures? Customers see how companies treat their front-line staff as a correlation of how they will be treated as customers. If I'm considering making a purchasing decision with one company but know that they treat their employees poorly, what makes me think that I will receive any better treatment? How many companies have you heard of that have a poor employee culture but amazing customer service?
Employees have the potential to be your company's most influential brand advocates. How you treat them will influence how they verbally treat your brand.
What do you think? Does employee treatment directly reflect customer treatment?