Author: James Walsh

Some companies spend millions of dollars on marketing and advertising to communicate their corporate and brand messages. Yet many have overlooked one of the cheapest and most effective ways to tout the company and its products: their employees. But now, thanks in part to the explosion of social media, more employers are capitalizing on the credibility and power of employee word-of-mouth. Such companies as PepsiCo Inc. are using their intranets and social media platforms to transform workers into brand ambassadors.

“If your employees want to contribute and they want to share their voice, not only is it a way to add value to your brand because it humanizes the company, but it also allows employees to feel really invested in your communications strategy,” says Rob Frappier, a community manager at online reputation and Internet privacy company Reputation.com Inc.

PepsiCo has begun using its internal communications system and social media to tap the reputation-building potential of its employees. “We view the idea of communicating internally with our almost 300,000 associates worldwide as a tremendous opportunity to tell the PepsiCo story,” says Bernadette Wade, vice president of global internal communications. “In fact, our goal is to turn all of our 300,000 associates into brand ambassadors.”

Motivating workers to become brand ambassadors not only helps enhance a company’s reputation but also strengthens the bond between employer and employee. Greater loyalty is particularly important now because so many employees feel disengaged and could quit when more job opportunities develop.

In late 2010, Purchase, New York-based PepsiCo surveyed its workers and found that 65 percent said their friends and families were asking them questions about the company, and nearly 80 percent wanted to share information about their employer’s involvement with environmental, nutritional and community issues.

One of PepsiCo’s latest initiatives is a series of e-postcards to publicize new products and brand extensions. This year, the postcards will be accessible through PepsiCo’s intranet, which about 140,000 employees use. Workers can then post the information publicly on their own social media channels.

The company also plans to release a series of employee-produced one-minute videos for download from its intranet. The videos will showcase the four pillars of PepsiCo’s Performance With Purpose mantra: performance, human sustainability, environmental sustainability and talent sustainability. “These will be ready-made materials that all associates can use and pass along” through social media, Wade says.

While PepsiCo’s employee ambassador program is new, IBM Corp. has dedicated the better part of a decade to encouraging its workers to spread the word about the technology and consulting firm.

“Internally and externally we’ve had tens of thousands of bloggers—then that expanded to wikis and now LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter,” says Adam Christensen, a social business and digital influence manager at IBM. “From a marketing and branding perspective, it’s really important for us to expose what we think is our greatest asset—our people—and have them engage with people publicly.”

Encouraging employees to participate is one thing; encouraging them to speak favorably about their employers is another. “Our goal is to create positive experiences for IBMers to participate in so they will share positive things,” Christensen says. “We don’t explicitly tell them to speak favorably. We create programs that they automatically want to talk about in a positive way so it’s genuine.”

Jenny Sussin, an associate marketing manager at IBM and an active social media user, says she has never been asked to publicize the company. But, she says, “There is just a ton of opportunities to share interesting content when you notice it” on IBM Web pages. The company’s latest large-scale social media effort involves its centennial. Through the company’s IBM100 website, employees can access content such as videos and “icons of progress” (100 milestones in IBM’s history), which can be linked through as many as six different social media platforms.

So far, the company is encouraged by its employees’ response. “We’ve seen them be very active on Facebook and Twitter sharing things in IBM’s history they’re proud of,” Christensen says.

To motivate employees to become cheerleaders for their companies, employers should emphasize the potential benefits to the worker’s own personal brand. If you say to employees: “ ‘You’re contributing to our company’s communications efforts and that’s good because it’s contributing to your own personal brand,’ it’s a way to make the idea of brand evangelism a little bit more palatable to your employees,” says Frappier of Reputation.com.

IBM, itself, has more than 80 employee-produced blogs covering everything from the company’s Lotus collaboration software to social media strategy. Christensen believes the online forums help workers promote their own accomplishments, while providing invaluable exposure for the company.

Yet there is still the potential for negative online publicity. “When it comes to getting your employees to talk about your company favorably online, it’s important to have a social media policy in place that clearly defines how your employees can use social media tools within the communications construct you’ve created,” Frappier says.

But according to the 2010 Forrester Research report The CIO’s Guide to Establishing a Social Media Policy, 43 percent of respondents’ organizations did not have policies in place, while 11 percent were unsure if a policy existed.

Implementing regulations without seeming restrictive is an emerging and important concern for online community managers. IBM took a democratic approach by allowing employees to develop their own social media checks. Among other provisions, the social media policy encourages employees to fully disclose their role in the company; to add value to the brand by publishing useful information; to withhold confidential or proprietary information; and to avoid engaging in conduct that would be unacceptable in IBM’s workplace.

“It’s really a policy owned by the employees,” Christensen says. “The social media guidelines give a level of clarity around what you shouldn’t do in a social context. IBMers have been really great with following those guidelines and using good judgment.”

Workforce Management, May 2011, pgs. 8, 10 — Subscribe Now!

Emboldened by the repeal of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, gay rights groups have set their sights once again on the federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act, or ENDA. The act would prohibit public and private employers, employment agencies and labor unions from using an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity as a basis for discrimination.

The proposed law, which was reintroduced in the House on March 30 by Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., would cover hiring, firing, promotion or compensation decisions, according to the gay advocacy group the Human Rights Campaign. But James Esseks, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender & AIDS Project, believes ENDA would achieve much more than legal protection in the workplace. “The law sets expectations for society,” Esseks says. “Establishing new social norms for appropriate behavior is going to create a better environment for both straight and LGBT people in the workplace.” With gay employees spending time worrying about discrimination, he adds, companies aren’t fully benefiting from their talent.

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Gays are protected from employment discrimination by laws in 21 states and the District of Columbia. In addition, employment bias against transgender individuals is prohibited in 12 of those states and the district. A handful of other states also prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation, but limit protection to public employees only.

Efforts to bar employment discrimination against gays on a national level date back to 1974, and the ENDA legislation itself has floundered in Congress since 1994. Opponents contend the act would create a more litigious workplace. “ENDA would invite employees to take an ordinary workplace conflict, in some cases with plenty of blame to go around, and turn it, literally, into a federal case,” said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, in his 2009 House testimony. Some ENDA opponents also argue that sexual orientation and gender identity are matters of choice and that gay and transgender employees aren’t entitled to the same protections as other minorities.

Despite ENDA’s history and the potential roadblock of the new Republican majority in the House, proponents remain optimistic and expect the bill to be reintroduced in Congress in March or April. “With bills like the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Repeal Act being passed, we are on the verge of doing away with institutionalized discrimination,” says Daryl Herrschaft, director of the Human Rights Campaign Workplace Project. “There are dozens of major corporations that are petitioning the federal government to pass ENDA; they want and expect the federal government to set a standard of equality of what a workplace environment should be like.”

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The project has long lobbied Congress and mobilized corporate support. More recently, it has begun using Facebook, Twitter and its blog to spread the word about ENDA and take the issues from Washington to the homes of people nationwide. “We have a very robust social media effort,” says Brian Moulton, chief legislative counsel at the Human Rights Campaign. “The American public is supportive of the goal ENDA would accomplish, but they are still very uninformed about the fact that it’s legal in so many places in the country for LGBT people to lose their jobs because of who they are.”

According to a 2010 survey by the not-for-profit Out & Equal Workplace Advocates, nearly eight out of 10 heterosexual adults said they believe employees should be judged on job performance, not their sexual orientation. Yet only 44 percent said they believe gays are treated fairly and equally in the workplace.

One of ENDA’s biggest backers is the Business Coalition for Workplace Fairness, a group of 80 major employers, including Cisco Systems Inc. and Ernst & Young, that pledge their support for the federal legislation. “We are already very open and active in ensuring Cisco is a safe place to work,” says Rick Moran, a Cisco vice president and executive sponsor of the company’s gay and transgender employee network. “But I think ENDA will provide visibility to a group that might otherwise be invisible; advocates need to stand up and promote safe work environments where gay employees are respected for who they are and the work they do.”

According to the Human Rights Campaign, as of 2009, 87 percent of Fortune 500 companies had nondiscrimination policies that included sexual orientation. But corporate officials say turning policy into practice is what truly drives a culture of workplace inclusiveness.

At Aetna, it starts at the top. Mark Bertolini, president and CEO of the health insurer, received Out & Equal’s 2010 champion award, which is given to a heterosexual who plays a pivotal role in promoting equal treatment of gay and transgender employees. Bertolini is a visible presence at Aetna’s gay employee resource group events and is also the first elected straight board member of the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce. “With our CEO as a clear symbol and sign of our commitment to improving the lives of the LGBT community, we can say we are here for the long haul,” says Raymond Arroyo, Aetna’s chief diversity officer.

At professional services firm Ernst & Young, raising LGBT awareness is at the forefront of its diversity efforts. A recent event included a video showcasing individuals’ experiences. One story profiled a gay man—not from Ernst & Young—whose partner had just died. Not having told co-workers or supervisors about his boyfriend, he went to work the following day. Why? Because, as far as anyone knew, he had no reason not to show up.

“We found that stories like these really had a companywide impact as far as LGBT awareness and LGBT partner inclusion was concerned,” says Chris Crespo, a director in the Americas Inclusiveness Center of Expertise at Ernst & Young. According to the Human Rights Campaign, about half of LGBT employees hide their sexual orientation or gender identity in the workplace. “They are afraid of being fired, or being made fun of, or discriminated against, or not fitting in,” says Justin Nelson, president of the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce.

Andre Cooley, for example, says he was fired last year from his corrections officer job in Forrest County, Mississippi, because supervisors at the sheriff’s department discovered he is gay. The ACLU has filed a lawsuit on Cooley’s behalf, citing a violation of his equal protection and due process rights under the 14th Amendment. Most people in Mississippi working for private companies have no legal protection from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. But because the county sheriff’s department is a governmental entity, the ACLU contends, the Constitution protects Cooley from anti-gay discrimination. “Andre’s sexual orientation has no bearing on his ability to perform the job of a corrections officer,” says Joshua Block, an ACLU staff attorney.

The sheriff’s department didn’t respond to requests for comment. But in its answer to the lawsuit, it states: “Actions regarding termination or specific rights based upon sexual orientation have not been enacted nationally and specifically by the state of Mississippi in that this is a states’ rights issue.”

Other wor-kers are exploring different avenues to voice grievances. One gay man took to the Internet this year, creating the blog “Gay & Fired” to rail against discrimination. Writing under the pen name “Michael,” and maintaining anonymity, he hopes to connect with others who have experienced discrimination because of their sexual orientation. “I’m going to have to leave the South,” he says, and find a more gay friendly place to live.
 

Workforce Management, March 2011, p. 3-4 — Subscribe Now!