The honesty behind employer brands
What if every professional experience had a trailer, so that whenever you had to make a choice, a change in your career, you could see the major events that would happen as a consequence? What if you could know how a certain workplace would make you feel before you actually had to make the choice? We are not yet so advanced as to see into the future, but luckily there are steps we can take before that in order to make sure the place we choose to spend a third of our day and more or less half of our waking time in will make us feel fulfilled.
This week I joined the team at a company’s offices to shoot video interviews with the employees and take photos in order to catch a glimpse of the local culture and work environment. After having the first-hand experience of hearing employers discuss about their employer brand and on the other hand, employees talk about their experience at work, I had the inevitable curiosity to find out more about the honesty in people’s claims about their happiness and motivation, and this curiosity doesn’t come without reason.
We interviewed several employees on video about their trajectory in the company, what they like about their job and team and what are the opportunities that the employer offers. As someone who’s had both pleasant and less so experiences with employers, I understand that sometimes frustration will arise and the temptation to sugarcoat your work experience. But I was taken by surprise by the discrepancy between reality and what the people strived to show on camera. Whether it’s due to pressure from superiors or the idea that this is how it has to be — people must not know that things are not going well, everyone secretly hates their job and we are all in this lie together — it’s disconcerting to witness this phenomenon.
A crucial step for employers is to realize that forging this ideal image is only a disservice. Not once I’ve been part of teams that slowly disintegrated because employees kept leaving, in fact I’ve done that myself as a result of deception and my experience so far makes me agree with Rodd Wagner’s observation from this article. “The built-in irony is that the companies that most need to hear that things need fixing are also those where fear of being blunt runs highest”. Knowing and trusting your strengths as an employer while being aware of the reality in your offices is essential to build an authentic employer brand. It’s not enough to find the channels that will appeal to young people, it’s important beyond that to communicate the right message, because not all employees who are being lied to are going to keep promoting the lie.
