When improving your company reputation, don’t ignore your employees
While reading a Forbes article The Six Habits Of Successful Private Companies, one quote stood out to me:
And Jim Goodnight knows what he’s talking about. He’s only the co-founder and CEO of a software company with $2.72B in revenue and almost 13,000 employees!
How often do we take the time to think about the contribution our employees make to the reputation of our business? OK, so if you’re a regular reader of our blog, then I suspect your answer will be, “quite often!” Yet, while many of us spend so much time focusing on what our potential and existing customers think of us, we often overlook those that are often the first point of contact for our company’s reputation, our employees.
So, let this be a reminder to all of us not to discount the contribution each and every employee makes to our corporate reputation. Train them, listen to them, involve them, and, as Jim Good night of SAS suggests, let them know they make a difference to your company.
I think a lot of it comes down to treating smart people with respect.
First, go out of your way to hire really smart people. Even if you have to overpay a bit compared to the market, the rewards are tremendous as top performers are always underpaid for what they bring to a company.
The next part is to avoid stifling corporate policies, edicts, and mandates that gets these smart people behaving as robots fulfilling out your orders.
If you do that, they’ll take ownership and do smart things that enhance your reputation on their own.