Brand Balance.
The link between Brand and Productivity? Why It Matters & How to Measure It.
In today's ever-evolving business landscape, building a successful and enduring brand goes beyond just clever marketing campaigns and eye-catching logos. While branding establishes the external perception of an organisation, the internal foundation provided by organisational culture plays an equally vital role in shaping the company's identity and overall success. The key to long-term prosperity lies in striking the delicate balance between brand and organisational culture, where they seamlessly intertwine to create a mutually reinforcing relationship. This article explores the importance of finding equilibrium between these two critical aspects and provides actionable insights for businesses seeking sustainable growth.
Organisational and brand harmony is the ultimate goal of all future focused CEOs. True competitive power results from an alignment and consistency between an organisation's internal operations and its external brand promise and experience. It involves ensuring that the organisation's values, culture, and actions are in sync with the brand identity it projects to its customers and stakeholders.
Before addressing the brand’s external brand communication issues, we must first investigate the organisation’s levels of harmony or disharmony. Organisational Harmony focuses on the internal aspects of the organisation, including its structure, processes, and people. It involves ensuring that the organisation's internal operations are aligned with its brand identity. This can be achieved through various means, but these are the critical two:
Purpose and Values: The organisation's vision, purpose, and core values should be workshopped with all areas of the organisation and then clearly defined and communicated back throughout the organisation. The collective buy-in helps serve as guiding principles for decision-making and actions, helping to shape the organisation's culture and behaviour.
Culture and Employee Engagement: The organisational culture should reflect the highest possible standards of the brand values and promote behaviours that are consistent with the brand image. Employees should be recognised for their potential and cross departmental ideas as well as engaged and motivated to embody the brand values in their day-to-day work, which contributes to a consistent brand experience for customers. The culture should actively support open internal communication channels to disseminate information about the brand, its positioning, and messaging. This helps employees understand the brand identity and their role in delivering on it.
Brand Harmony: This aspect focuses on the external perception of the brand by customers, stakeholders, and the general public. It involves creating a consistent and positive brand image that aligns with the organisation's values and promises. Key elements include:
Brand Identity: The organisation should have a clearly defined brand identity, including its purpose, values, personality, and positioning. This identity should be consistently communicated across all brand touchpoints, such as logos, visual design, messaging, and brand voice.
Customer Experience: The brand promise should be consistently delivered throughout the customer journey, ensuring that customers' interactions with the organisation align with their expectations. This involves providing a seamless and coherent experience across various channels and touchpoints.
Brand Reputation: The organisation's actions and behaviors should align with its brand promise. Consistency between what the brand communicates and how the organisation behaves is crucial for building trust and maintaining a positive brand reputation.
Stakeholder Alignment: The organisation should consider the expectations and needs of its stakeholders, such as employees, customers, suppliers, and the community. Understanding and addressing these expectations in a manner consistent with the brand identity helps in building strong relationships and generating brand loyalty.
Organisational and brand harmony are essential for building a strong and reputable brand. When there is alignment between internal operations and external brand image, it creates a sense of authenticity, trustworthiness, and consistency, which in turn enhances brand perception and differentiation in the marketplace.
Once an organisation has achieved a level of harmony that they believe provides them with the competitive advantage they need; they will need to establish a"Good to Great" mindset. A Good to Great mindset emphasises sustained excellence and identifies what makes them truly great in the sector and in the lives of their customers. This mindset helps unearth unmet needs in the market and helps focuse on positive change by leveraging strengths, successes, and aspirations of individuals and organisations.
If your business is concerned about controlling staff then you're not a future business. You're living in the past. The traditional approach to branding is to isolate the creative and development process to the CEO and a handful of executives whilst deliberately avoiding all the critical areas across the organisation. Once the brand identity is created; it is then imposed on to the staff like a big truck tipping concrete on to staff and then hoping people sets into perfect sculptures that represents the business internally and externally as a cohesive organisation. It doesn’t work! So many workplaces are drowning in cultures of fear rather than support & co-creativity.
The fact is that there are different functions of the business that attracts different types of people that all have different backgrounds, beliefs, views, ideas, and lives. Employees are a part of a diverse social ecosystem. Business leaders still operate under the management style of the outdated industrial revolution monoculture system. These employers fail to unlock potential of employees as a powerful and competitive engine.
Musubi has a long held belief that design benefits ALL parts of a business in delivering memorable and considered experiences that is ultimately underpinned by a commitment to exceptional ideas, human scale design and inspired culture.
Building a strong brand is crucial for success. A well developed brand not only drives customer loyalty and revenue but also plays a significant role in enhancing employee productivity. The connection between brand and productivity may not be immediately apparent, but it is a vital factor that can have a profound impact on an organisation's overall performance.
Come together based around shared ideas.
A brand is far more than a visual symbol and memorable tag line; it embodies the core values, purpose, and promise that an organisation makes to its customers and stakeholders as well as anchors the mission and vision, operating principles and tactics of an organisation. Internally, the brand is central to all decisions, actions and values, thus enabling employees to deliver the brand promise. The internal and external messages about the brand must tell the same story and be seen as part of the same narrative in order to establish the right emotional connection and trust that customers associate with the company.
Quiet quitting.
Quiet quitting is a term originally coined at a Texas A&M economics symposium on diminishing ambitions in Venezuela on September 17, 2009, by Economist Mark Boldger. The philosophy of quiet quitting is not abruptly leaving a job but doing exactly what the job requires, no more no less. The main objective of this mindset is avoiding occupational burnout and paying more attention to one's mental health and personal well-being. Proponents of quiet-quitting refer to it as acting your wage. It is a byproduct of bad managers that are dysfunction and highly ineffective causing employees to switch focus away from work to worry about internal politics and feel unstable.
Quiet quitting Is about an organisation that perpetuates bad culture that hires bad bosses, not bad employees.
What Is Productivity?
Productivity is a measure of economic or business performance that indicates how efficiently people, companies, industries and whole economies convert inputs, such as labor and capital, into outputs, such as goods or services.
Personal productivity.
The term “personal productivity” is often used to describe how much individuals can accomplish every day in their personal lives, not just in the workplace. It is vital that staff are able to come to work as a whole person and be respected for who they are. Each of us need to achieve personal needs such as school drop offs, pursue mind and body activities, complete chores, etc. Personal productivity then adds to the the wider team.
Team or department productivity.
Team productivity is measured by the collective output of one or more individuals united under a common goal. That common goal is driven by the brand and the how the brand is positioned in the marketplace.
Based on the survey, older age groups are more likely to believe that “employees should always go above and beyond at work.” Meanwhile, those aged 18 to 29 years old are split 50-50 on the statement. Younger age groups are also more likely to believe that “employees should do the work they’re paid for—no more, no less.” All of them need a purpose behind the work they do for their employer. There is a mental criteria - What does my job mean in the bigger scheme of the business? How does my role contribute to other parts of the business? why does the business exist? and how do we forge ahead within our sector?
Sector productivity.
The team or workforce productivity becomes an advantage within the sector and measured against the key competitors within the industry. aggregate productivity of all companies in an industry or sector is an expression of the sector’s productivity.
The PWC tax scandal highlights how dysfunctional the the brand “I have the utmost faith in the ethical standards of the people we employ,” Seymour told the inquiry into corporate tax avoidance in April 2015. “I certainly would be shocked and hugely disappointed if anyone in our firm is breaching laws.”
Disappointed doesn’t begin to describe the feelings of PwC’s 900 partners in Australia.
Trust and Confidence: A reputable brand instills trust and confidence in employees, leading to higher levels of autonomy and empowerment. Employees who trust the brand's values and leadership are more likely to take risks, make decisions, and contribute innovative ideas, thereby boosting productivity. c. Customer Focus: A well-defined brand often puts customers at the center of its operations. This customer-centric approach encourages employees to prioritize customer satisfaction, resulting in improved productivity and quality of service.
Organisational Culture: A well-defined brand acts as a guiding force for shaping the organisational culture. When employees align with the brand's values and mission, it cultivates a positive work environment, collaboration, and a sense of belonging. c. Reputation and External Perception: A reputable brand attracts top talent and enhances the organisation's image. This leads to higher employee satisfaction and pride in being associated with a respected brand, resulting in increased productivity.
How to Measure Productivity in the Workplace.
By taking a Personal through to workforce perspective to productivity, it allows us to look at how companies can reassess measuring productivity. Especially, if it hopes to gauge the effectiveness of its efforts to improve productivity. There is an enormous range of productivity metrics in common use, depending on the industry and the type of business function you’re measuring. Here are some of the most common:
Downtime.
This is the percentage of time that an important business system is unavailable. Unplanned downtime will compromise productivity.
Employee turnover rate.
This is the percentage of employees who leave an organization during a certain period of time. High turnover is often associated with low productivity due to the time required to find and train replacements. Fortunately, companies can take steps to minimise employee turnover.
Labour utilisation rate.
This ratio assesses the proportion of workers’ time that is spent on productive tasks. It’s calculated as the time spent on productive or billable hours divided by the total number of employees’ available hours and, like revenue, is important for services firms to track.
Gross profit margin.
This profitability metric reflects the efficiency of a company’s core business operations. It’s calculated as net sales revenue minus cost of goods sold or services delivered. A business whose gross profit margin is consistently below others in its industry risks being overtaken by more productive competitors. Thus, it’s important for all companies to track their gross profit margins.
There is a collective dissatisfaction for how brands work. How they engage and how they deliver benefits across the business. Deeply resolved brands provide opportunities for commercial investment, strategic clarity, unification of culture and marketing focus.
When we are engaged by progressive CEO’s we co-develop a well-developed employer branding strategy that enables the organisation to achieve significantly higher employee productivity related outcomes. Rising competition in the global business environment compels the organisations to develop competitive advantages over the other organisations. To be more competitive, organisations need to attract, engage and retain employees in a similar way as they retain customers this results to increase the productivity.
Employer branding has two dimensions.
the first is a source of attraction for new employees and the second is a source of motivation for incumbents to stay with the employer in the long run in order to attract potential employees and retain current employees, it is critical to provide them with organisational support and infrastructure during their early days and then coach and guide on a weekly basis. Both the ‘Customer’ proposition and the employer brand proposition must be aligned and focused towards an organisational goal that increases brand positioning against competitors.
Organisational Culture: The Driving Force.
We ask business owners a profound question 'why would your employees do more than they are paid to do? Organisational culture is the collective mindset, behaviours, and values that shape how employees interact, make decisions, and drive the company forward. Team work looking out for each other. It is the backbone of an organisation, guiding employee behaviour, fostering innovation, and providing the foundation for strategic alignment. A positive culture boosts employee engagement, productivity, and ultimately enhances the brand's reputation.
The Interplay between Brand and Organisational Culture.
Alignment: For a brand to thrive, it must align closely with the organization's culture. When employees live and breathe the brand's values, it enhances brand consistency, authenticity, and credibility. Consistency in messaging and actions creates a coherent and trustworthy brand experience for customers, reinforcing their loyalty and advocacy.
Employee Brand Ambassadors: Employees who genuinely believe in the brand and its values become natural brand ambassadors. By fostering a culture that empowers and inspires employees, organisations can cultivate a motivated workforce that actively promotes the brand. These enthusiastic brand advocates can significantly impact customer perception and contribute to the growth of the business.
Attracting and Retaining Talent: In today's competitive talent landscape, attracting and retaining the best employees is crucial. A strong organizational culture aligned with the brand's mission and values acts as a magnet for top talent. Prospective employees seek organisations that reflect their own beliefs and purpose, and a well-defined brand coupled with a positive culture can help attract like-minded individuals, fostering a thriving work environment.
Agility and Innovation: A dynamic and adaptable organizational culture is essential for staying ahead in a rapidly changing market. When the brand and culture encourage innovation, experimentation, and continuous improvement, employees feel empowered to take calculated risks and think creatively. This encourages agility and enables the organisation to adapt quickly to shifting customer demands and market trends.
Finding the Balance.
Define and Communicate Core Values: Organisations must clearly define their core values and ensure they are effectively communicated throughout the company. Aligning these values with the brand's promise helps establish a consistent and authentic identity.
Leadership as Cultural Stewards: Leaders play a pivotal role in shaping organisational culture. They should lead by example, embodying the brand's values, and nurturing a culture that supports and empowers employees.
Encourage Collaboration: Fostering collaboration across different departments and hierarchical levels helps break down silos and encourages a shared understanding of the brand's purpose. This collaborative approach allows for diverse perspectives, driving innovation and fostering a strong sense of collective ownership.
Continuous Assessment and Adaptation: Regularly assessing the alignment between brand and culture is essential. Organisations should seek feedback from employees and customers to identify areas for improvement and make necessary adjustments to maintain alignment.
Old world managers look in a review mirror to see the future and they demand control over employees. Musubi helps new world CEOs to redefine culture & brand that celebrate people.
All we care about is changing the way branding is developed and introducing greater value at every level.
Once Musubi has helped defined and document the Brand Values we set out to build a values program with a broader, more holistic approach to managing the employee experience from onboarding, incentives, diversity awareness, office design, and use of technology to share knowledge and projects.
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CMOs hire us because of our expertise, creative capabilities, specialised services, capable solutions based on the company's needs, and to benefit from our objective perspective. Collaborating with us helps CMOs optimise strategic ideation, enhances brand flexibility, create effective marketing campaigns, and achieve their branding objectives more efficiently.
Discover the power of partnering with us, where expertise meets specialisation. With our dedicated team of brand experts, we bring a fresh perspective to your organisation's brand development, offering unbiased insights and innovative ideas.
By entrusting your brand to us, you can optimise your time and resources, focusing on core business operations while we unleash the potential of your brand.
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