Our research has found that when employees show strong levels of alignment to and belief in what their business and brand stands for, that organisation is typically delivering a significantly superior performance. So, with an identified correlation between employee & brand alignment and success, everyone is driving this activity to the top of their agenda, right? Not quite. Looking at the average organisation in the UK, our research and data paints a fairly bleak picture.
8 out of 10 businesses' efforts to create great customer experience are being hamstrung by employees who don’t understand what the organisation stands for or buy into what the business is trying to achieve.
Almost two thirds of UK employees (64%) don’t feel their organisation has a clear purpose, and the same percentage don’t understand what their brand stands for, or what makes it different. Only two in five employees (39%) say they’re motivated by the vision of their business and 64% don’t believe their company exists for any reason other than making money. At the same time, more than half (58%) don’t feel they play a part in shaping the future of their business.
The costly disconnect
It is often overlooked that one of the executive team’s main jobs is to spend time understanding the links between their people, brands and customers, and then engaging the workforce with what the business is trying to achieve. However, it seems that increasingly there is a disconnection between senior leaders and employees at the coalface.
It also seems that the average marketing team, for whom brand promise and customer experience are paramount, is failing to win over their own people. This means in most organisations there will be an untapped opportunity for marketing directors to work more closely with HR directors to understand their culture, align their organisation, and build their brand through their people.
When this doesn’t happen, the tensions between external promise and internal execution can be fatal to what the brand is trying to achieve. You can spend a lot of money on the best marketing campaign ever, but if your customer-facing teams are unable to share that vision effectively through their everyday representation of your brand, the business results are likely to be disappointing.
Get this right and grow
The cost of this misalignment is more than a lost opportunity, particularly in businesses where customer service plays a vital role in maintaining a competitive edge. The upside for brands getting this right is significant. Our research found that employees in organisations increasing sales by more than 20% year-on-year are on average 30% more likely to understand what their brand stands for and what makes it different.
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