Are you keeping those closest to your brand at a distance?

Jon Randall, Director, Culture & Engagement, explores why employees need more than an understanding of the brand they represent.

Employees shape your brand through their everyday work, yet their own relationship with it can be surprisingly indirect.

They might see a new campaign, attend a launch presentation or receive guidelines explaining how to use the identity. But ask how the brand helps them make a decision, approach a problem or work with a colleague, and the connection can be harder to find.

The people closest to the organization could give the brand much more substance, reach and credibility. While we spend considerable effort helping people outside the business connect with the brand, the relationship with those already within it is often overlooked.

An influence that already exists

Everyday decisions give substance to what the brand stands for.

A procurement team’s treatment of a supplier says something about the company. So does a manager’s response to a mistake, a product team’s choice about what to prioritize, or the way a candidate is treated during recruitment.

Giving a specialist team responsibility for the brand doesn’t remove everyone else’s influence. But it can encourage the assumption that the brand belongs elsewhere.

That leaves a source of strength underdeveloped. People who understand what the brand means for their work can use it to make choices, challenge something that doesn’t fit and develop ideas that move the business forward.

Making the connection visible

Service businesses offer a useful starting point. In a hotel, airline or retailer, the connection between employees and the brand is easier to see. What should the experience feel like? How should people be welcomed? What should happen when something goes wrong? Service standards make the brand promise practical.

That connection deserves the same attention where employees have less direct contact with customers. If a brand stands for partnership, that should shape how teams collaborate and how suppliers are treated. If it stands for openness, that should show up in how it shares information or handles difficult questions.

But asking people to deliver the brand promise doesn’t necessarily mean they experience it themselves.

An employee may be expected to show care while working in an environment where their own concerns go unheard. They may be asked to make things simple for customers while navigating unnecessary complexity internally. They are then left to bridge the contradiction through their own effort.

A relationship people can believe in

Employees don’t need an identical experience to customers. They do need the same underlying principles to hold true in their relationship with the company.

BrewDog offers a stark illustration of what happens when that relationship is challenged. In 2021, former employees writing as ‘Punks With Purpose’ alleged a culture of fear at odds with the company’s public identity. BrewDog apologized and announced an independent review.

The choice of name was telling. These were people who understood the brand’s punk identity well enough to use it to challenge the business. Knowing a brand intimately does not necessarily mean feeling included in what it promises.

Most organizations will encounter less public versions of this tension. The useful question is whether employees can recognize the brand in how they are managed, what gets rewarded and the decisions leaders make when priorities compete.

Their answers matter to the development of the brand. Employees can identify contradictions, find practical ways to fulfil an ambition and contribute ideas grounded in how the business actually works. That requires opportunities to influence it as well as instructions on how to express it.

Strength that develops through use

There is something muscle-like about this capacity. It strengthens through use.

When employees draw on the brand in everyday decisions, discuss what it means in difficult situations, and see its principles reflected in their own experience, their relationship with it becomes more direct.

Building that relationship requires effort beyond a launch or campaign. It means giving employees the space to explore what the brand means for their work. It also means creating an employee experience that reflects the brand’s principles, and changing practices that undermine them.

The people closest to your brand are already helping to make it. Give them a closer relationship with it, and you give the brand more strength to draw on every day.

If you want to discuss how your employees can help shape and strengthen your brand, get in touch.

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