JOSH LEVINE, AUG 19, 2019: How is customer service? Are employees treated well? Where do corporations invest their cash? Ads and PR campaigns say what companies want the world to see, but with social media generally, and sites like Glassdoor specifically, most anyone can see what’s really happening, and in high definition no less. Search engines made the world’s information universally accessible, and for better or worse that now includes a company’s culture and corporate behavior.
If companies can’t deliver on brand promises, if employees gripe about business practices, if law suits allege unfair business practices or environmental harm, existing and future customers will know. And when they have a choice they will choose otherwise. (Ain’t no marketing campaign gonna convince me that your CEO isn’t a misogynist.)
In our increasingly transparent world, companies must act in alignment with their brand inside along with customer, or suffer the consequences of declining sales, engagement and shares as even modern monopolies have found.
Corporate values articulate the “how” of business; they are the guardrails of employee behavior, and when done well, demonstrate the priorities of the organization — and now, it turns out, by delivering on those values or not we can all tell if you are the brand you say you are.
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