Essay Examples - Management Essays
The Role of the Employee Brand
A brand represents a companies product or service. In today's climate brands encompass much more than this. They represent the whole business, including its employees. From a company's perspective, employees who are 'living the brand' will believe in what it stands for and this in turn will be reflected to their customers
Often the 'brand' is confused with the more tangible aspects of a product or service, such as logos and trademarks. The Institute for the Study of Business Markets (ISBM) define a brand as: a relationship with a market, based on cumulative customer experiences, tied to trademarks and other identifying elements, which has an economic impact for a firm. Often the entire value of the product or service (offering) is tied to the perceptual experience of the brand, rather than the product or service itself.
The brand is conveyed on the offering itself, not just through the front line employees, who have direct contact with the customer, but everyone within the organisation that may come into touch with existing or potential customers, as well as the potential employee (ref A). Thus the critical role of employees is in building and sustaining the brand. Most of what companies communicate are not the controlled communications of advertising and packaging, but the uncontrolled communications resulting from how their staff behave, figure? (showing whole Brand).
Many marketing companies use the concept of perceptual mapping in order to measure the degree of perception and attitudes towards the company's products and services.
Perceptual mapping aims to find out how the customers see the product and how they want the product to be; in other words perceptual mapping measures the gap between the actual product and desired products. For example, consumers accompany Volvo with safety.
There are two types of widely used perceptual mapping methods:
- Multidimensional scaling: multidimensional scaling depends on comparing the similarities and dissimilarities between a set of similar objects based on different dimensions or attributes of the products such as Tesco's stores or different types of yogurt in the market, the aim of the comparison is to group the researched objects into different clusters by identifying specific distances between the objects.
- Multiple discriminant analysis or Discriminant Factor Analysis: this way is widely used by market researchers in order to compare and contrast different products based on multi-attribute image rating, this method is very useful in investigating differences among groups, discard variables that are little related to group distinctions and test theory by observing whether cases are classified as predicted, discriminant analysis is categorical, it is very similar to ANOVA(analysis of variance) and regression analysis, .
Customers Perspective
Customers judge a company and its brand by how well they're treated. Research conducted by MORI (1999) identified that the third most likely reason for consumers to buy a product or service from a company again, or recommend it to others, was how they were treated by staff, figure ?. Additionally, the results also showed the main factors which put off people from purchasing companies' products or services were to do with staff, especially how they treated you, but also how they handled enquiries or complaints, and their knowledge and enthusiasm for the products and services, figure ? (ibid.).
According to Philip Kotlet keeping a customer is easier and more cost efficient than acquiring new customers.
Acquiring new customers requires huge marketing investment in advertising, market segmentation and new investments in stores and equipments.
Investing in customer services is much cheaper than investment in new marketing campaigns because customer service does not only keep customers but also makes customers recommend the products to others.
Traditional companies define customer services as establishing a customer service desk that will exchange or refund bought products for customers, other more developed and successful companies such as Home Base define customer service as determining the needs of the customers, satisfying customers by providing the products and services that they want and keeping them satisfied.
The second definition does not only include the human factor of customer service but also the product, the price, the location of the store and many other things.
Successful companies incorporate the definition of customer service in their values,
Customer service is part of the marketing strategy of the firm; a customer service is equivalent to external relationship marketing; external relationship marketing contrasts with transaction-oriented marketing.
According to Liljander, V. (2000), the concept of external relationship marketing depends on the type of the product.
Selling some short-lived products depend on transaction-oriented marketing. For example, selling the Crazy Frog tone to customers does not require knowing the details of the customers.
While selling long-lived products will be more successful if the selling company hold its customers' information.
Customers will give the company their information if they are over-satisfied with the product or the service that is provided to them.
Building The Employee Brand
Internal communications materials are commonly used medium for helping employees understand and embrace the brand vision, but as (ref17) points out they are often so dull and generic that they have the opposite effect.
(ref22) draws attention to the commonly used internal staff newsletter as a medium for building the employee brand. However, (ref22) points out that this is often badly designed and lacking in coherent content to be an effective medium to building the employee brand with many employees barely giving it a cursory glance. The main criticism is failure to produce a newsletter on a regular basis and lack of meaningful content. (ref22) suggests a number of topics to be included in an effective staff newsletter such as recent compliments from customers, complaints (along with ways to prevent the same problem in the future), recognition of outstanding employee achievements. These will all play an important role in building a customer orientated culture.
As illustrated above, many employees are dull and generic, the reason for that is the fact that many companies' look to their employees as a liability rather than an asset.
According to Hauser,J, Simester, D & Wernerfelt, B (1994), employees usually do two types of tasks:
- Short-term tasks that are related to their day-to-day activities.
- Long-term tasks that are related to knowing more about the company that they work with, the products that the company sells and customer services.
Research showed that the firm's long-term profitability is related to the employs' long-term tasks; when employees provide customers with excellent customer service customers become an asset and that will lead to a surge in profits in the long-run and higher wages for employees.
The high turn over of employees is another reason for not investing into employs' knowledge.
Anderson, E & Sullivan, M(1993) showed that the company that has incentives for employees and senior management usually have a better quality of service; in other words when companies' align the interests of its employs' with the interest of the company usually have a more satisfied employees that are more willing to learn about the values of customer service that will lead of course to a better customer satisfaction.
When companies align their employee interests with their interests they maximise their long-term cash flows and profits, Kotler(1991, P 19).
Companies should aim at finishing the short-termism by re-allocating the tasks of the employees.
Internal Marketing - Getting Employees To Identify With The Brand
Companies advertising campaigns on TV or through newspapers, etc. are targeted at the end consumer, but the message conveyed will also be communicated to the companies employees (ref11). A conference of brand management professionals at the Institute for the Study of Business Markets (ISBM) indicated that employees, especially the sales force, should be the first audience of any marketing communications in order for them to reinforce and convey the message to the consumer - not only in what they say but way they do, to act as brand champions for the firm. Recommendations by ISBM leaders stress that companies must also take account of employees as a target audience for any market communications programme in order to understand what the brand means and how to communicate it.
Internal marketing helps employees make a connection to the products and services a company sells. (ref16) asserts that when employees believe in the brand then their loyalty to the company increases, developing a common purpose and identity with their companies brand. In effect, acting as brand custodians.
Internal and external communications can often be mismatched which threaten the employees perceptions of the company. It may well be that management be conveys one message internally to employees, while the companies advertising campaign says another. For instance, if a health insurance company claims the welfare of their clients is a number one priority and this is not reflected internally, employees become disillusioned and are distrustful and resent the company. Companies therefore need to align staff around the same ideas and values portrayed externally, developing a 'two-way branding' exercise.
When Homebase launched their new advertising campaign with the slogan 'make a house a home' it invited staff to design display stands in the stores with products to be used in the TV adverts in advance. Thus it brought the brand alive for employees giving them both an emotional connection to the brand vision and credibility of the brand.
Quality Bicycle Products in America employs 195 staff and part of their mission statement is a commitment to protecting the environment (ref16). To bring the vision alive for employees and cultivate them as brand custodians, the company pays employees $2 a day if they use either a bicycle, carpool or take the bus to work. Thus, by weaving the brand messages into employees everyday experiences managers can assure that a brand custodian behaviour becomes instinctive (ref16).
Developing Employee Brand Loyalty:
If staff have a high view of their company's products or services then they will readily purchase the offerings which can lead to employees becoming brand champions. Thus encouraging others to buy their company brand, which in turn has a pass-on effect to external customers. This will create a positive image of the company, since they will be more willing to recommend the brand to external customers (ref 14).
Consider Tesco's with over ?? employees in the UK. All employees are potential customers. At the same time, it is likely each employee will have contact with friends, family and neighbours - all potential customers that can translate into incremental sales. Brand loyal employees are more likely to act as brand champions if they use their company's brands (ref 14).
Homebase regularly run a 'friends and family discount evening' whereby staff are issued with vouchers to pass on to friends and family members. All vouchers are coded with the employees number and for every £100 spent the staff member receives credits towards their own purchases.
Companies' employees usually have more information about the companies' products and services than the general public; employees play the role of the insider in spilling information about the company and its products.
The speed of spilling information from employees to the public is quicker than the speed of spilling the same information via different means of media to the public.
According to Kotler, p & Murray, M (1975), there are three types of marketing:
- Aggressive marketing: aggressive marketing depends on repetitive marketing campaigns in order to guarantee to the factory a given number of orders that is sufficient to cover the expenses and costs of the company.
- Minimal Marketing: minimal marketing depends on no-selling marketing because the company thinks that the people will look for the services of the company for themselves, these industries cover Hospitals and food stores.
- Balanced Marketing: balanced marketing is a middle way between the last two approaches, it depends on marketing and selling at the same time that means that the company will advertise itself in the market and it will train its employees to serve customers in the best way which means that employees are an essential part of the marketing strategy in fact, employees do the selling function directly: through the store and indirectly through their friends and families, this is a mix between push and pull marketing.
Wearing The Brand
Great emphasis is placed on staff uniforms these days, the approach that companies take to considering the corporate identity they wish to portray, is important both to a customer and employee, both existing and potential (ref 20). Richard Ford, a brand consultant, maintains that when it's right it gives a brand character, impresses customers, and gives a big lift in employee satisfaction (ref 20). Uniforms not only make a statement about a brand but can also elicit from the wearer a sense of pride and affinity to the company and thus build upon the employee brand (ref19).
At Burger King, Jeff Hicks, maintains that it's a key part of inspiring and attracting people (ref20). They let staff express some individuality by wearing their own trousers, while issuing a range of tops that employees can choose from. Accordingly, they claim many employees of other fast-food companies have switched alliance to themselves on the basis that they will not be forced to wear an ill-fitting or naff uniform (ref20).
Many companies are now recognising that the 'right look' for their employees must be something they will want to wear and so take staff views into consideration (ref21). In considering employees preferences, many companies are creating committees composed of those employees who will be wearing the final selection, recognising that staff will only feel resentment if they are forced to wear a uniform they are unhappy with for a good part of their lives ((ref19). The marketing director of Transport Tourism created a new uniform as part of their re-branding exercise (ref 21). Initial mock-ups were presented to staff for their approval with their comments and objections acted upon. A follow-up survey, after launch of the new uniform, revealed employees felt it to be a source of pride (ref 21).
A Knowledgeable Workforce Reinforces the Employee Brand
Donald Robin (1967) ,in his input-output model, thinks that companies should look at what they give employees before they look at what employees give them back.
Donald constructed an Input-Output employee model, Donald tried to see what makes employees learn and be knowledgeable in the first place, Donald thinks that gains or Surplus what makes employees work and learn more.
Donald also thinks that employee's surplus is not in contrast with the organization's aims and goals.
Employee's knowledge scheme and training should be based on incentives to learn, if there are no incentives the training programs will become loss-making activities.
The organization should start by defining what it wants and what its employees want; the organization should head towards serving its needs and its customers needs and its employees needs.
If the organization wants to satisfy the employee's needs, it has to look at the hierarchy of needs in the society that it works in.
The company has to link its incentives with customer service on all levels and that is how employees get to do the direct selling function directly and indirectly.
When the employees are satisfied and their needs are filled, they will be proud of their job and their company, and that happens when the employees motivations are understood by the company and filled, that is how employees find the time to learn and progress and that would be reflected in the shape of good customer services.
The vast majority of employees link their life in the workplace with their life outside work; work is part of the social image to all of us, work is the place where we get friends...etc.
Employees promote the company indirectly through their relationships with other friends; for example, Avon, the make-up company depends in selling its products on many man and women who sell directly to their friends and family.
Avon does not only get its customers from its friends and families but also from its own distributors who are proud of being working with Avon.
Avon has managed to penetrate markets in the US, UK, Australia and other countries by making its distributors sell directly to their relatives.
The success behind Avon is the fact that Avon gives its distributors the incentive of establishing business, making money, complete their personal image by establishing a business, making social relationships from that job and finally learn more about the product in order to make more sales, Avon's distributors do not only sell cosmetics but also information about the products that they offer.
Although Avon did not succeed in the past in convincing Boots to put its products on their shelves in succeeded in motivating its distributors by the importance of the work they do to their lives.
Employees Attitudes towards Employer
Generally, employees tend to think that employers are trying to exploit them by making them work more hours and make the work more stressful.
In order to understand employee's attitudes, we need to understand the psychological contract concept.
According to GUEST, D.E. and CONWAY, N. (2002), the psychological contract is the perceptions of the two parties, employee and employer, of what their mutual obligations are towards each other
The psychological contract implies obligations on the employees; thses obligations are normally not specified in the legal contract.
the spychlogical contract creates a fair balance between the responsibilities of the employees and the rewards that they should expect in return for filling their obligations.
The purpose of the psychlogical contract is to build trust and confident between the employer and the employees, these trust and confidence will create a better working environment that will improve the attitudes of the employees and that will be reflected in a better customer service.
Companies who fail to create a fair psychological contract will face employees that always try to avoid their responsibilities, the employees of such company will develop a passive attitude towards the company, they will try not to think forward when they are working; the management will find itself in a situation where it is spending a lot of its time and resources on direct monitoring and control of its employees in order to make sure that they are doing their job.
Companies who succeed in creating a fair psychological contract usually perform better than the companies who do not.
According to Argyris, C (1998), there are two types of employee commitments; the first one is the external commitment which results from the contractual contract between the employee and the employer, the second type of commitments is the internal commitment; which results from the psychological commitment.
According to Argyris, C (1998), Because of the nature of the psychological contract, employers tend to abuse the will of the employees to be rewarded by sending messages that intend to confuse the internal commitments with the external commitments.
Managers who try to break the psychological contract will damage the credibility of the management's promises; employee's response will be very negative because broken promises will create a collective sense of disappointment to employees.
First Impressions:
Normally, when employees get a job offer they go on their first day to an induction in order to introduce them to the company and its culture and its values.
According to Tosi,H & Zahrly, J (1989), the induction is considered a transitional phrase before the start of the job.
Nicholson (1984) considers that the adjustment of individuals to job transition is a function of three sets of values:
- Organizational induction and socialisation process.
- Role requirements of the new job.
- Prior occupational/ socialization/ motivational orientation of the new comer.
We can see from the above that the induction affects the success of the candidate in doing his/her job because it prepares them for the job itself and make the number of mistakes that they do substantially less.
There are several elements that companies introduce in the induction day; these elements include:
- Information about the company: the information about the company includes historical information, profits, sale growth, markets, market share, what the company is trying to achieve
- Contractual relationship: this normally includes explaining large parts of the contractual relationship between the two sides such as salaries and benefits and what the employee should do and what he should not do (do's and don'ts).
- Psychological contract: this includes incentives, success stories, the way forward, and many more elements.
Good companies try to concentrate on the third elements in order to give a very positive impression to its employees regarding the company.
Employees who perceive their company as an order-do company (concentrate on contractual agreements) will tend to take a negative overview about their company; these companies are usually fast food companies that depend on physical effort and not creative effort by its employees.
Companies who depend on its employees in order to create value will concentrate on the psychological agreement in order to clarify to its employees how they could achieve psychological satisfaction and financial stability; these types of companies have to capture the minds of their employees by clarifying to them the unlimited chances of development and financial rewards that they could get by abiding to the psychological contract.
1- Mood theory:
According to Gardner, M (1985), mood is an essential part of the consumer behaviour theory, consumers choose the place of their purchase and the items that they purchase based upon their mood and the mood of other people.
For example, the mood of the stock market participants might determine the prices of the equities.
The mood of the boss might encourage or discourage employees to ask the employer for a pay rise.
The mood of the staff who are working in customer-facing roles might encourage customers to ask questions about the products and services of the company and that will make them understand the benefits of the products and buy more.
According to Gardner, M (1985:281): small changes in physical surroundings may influence consumer's moods at the point of purchase, ., in fact, although, consumers' moods are often affected by factors beyond a marketer's control, moods can be greatly influenced by seemingly small aspects of marketer behaviour, e.g.,. A salesperson's smile or a long wait for doctor's appointment.
We can see from the above that satisfied employees will mean better sales and better loyalty to the store, that is why big companies such as TESCO's always ask its client-facing employees to smile and say Hello to customers and offer help at all times.
2-pay difference:
According to Cowherd, D & Levine, D(1992), pay difference between senior management and junior management is a very important factor in determining the quality of the product; in cases like Home base and Tesco's the quality of the product of customer-facing roles is the level of service which includes product knowledge and the will of the employees to give a positive impression to the customers about the company.
According to the relative deprivation theory that low-status employees feel deprived when they compare their pay to the pay of other reference groups when they think that they have made a lot of effort and contributed positively to the profits of the company.
The relative deprivation status leads either to hopeful behaviour or frustrated behaviour that will in turn lead to a less productive labour and poor quality of service.
The feel of injustice that the relative deprivation status causes absenteeism, sickness, strikes and many other forms of avoiding work.
When employees are paid well, they will become very proactive in achieving the aims and goals of the management.
Better pay makes employees able to solve many of their problems outside work, this directly affects he personality of the employee because he will be more concentrated on his job and the rate of staff turn over will be substantially less.
Better pay is the only way to make employees relaxed and able and willing to learn more about customer's services.
Some companies try to reduce the wages of their staff because they want to maximise their profits while others think that paying a good salary to their employees will maximise their profits by reducing the cost of training, sickness, absentiseem and staff turn-over.
In the service sector where the quality of the service depends on employees more than anything else, companies pay more than any other sector in order to keep their employees loyal.
In many call centres and fast food chains, the staff turn-over rate is about 35%; employers do not care about the loyalty of their staff if they are not skilled (www.skills4.com, see reference number 9).
In this case, it is recommended that managers should treat their staff as good as their customers because companies with high staff turn-over have bad reputation, for example, McDonald's have very bad reputation regarding treating its employees and that makes the employees and their families and communities buy less from McDonald's and that is where newspapers start talking about the bad treatment and the general public will be aware of this fact which will ultimately make the whole sales of McDonald's less.
3-communications:
According to Corson, J(1944), communications between senior managers and employees might prove to be difficult in the existence of middle management that always try to convey the messages of the senior managers in the form of orders.
Many employees would like to have some autonomy in doing their job because they feel relaxed and that would lead to a better customer service and better learning by the employees and explaining to customers about the products of the company.
According to Tomas,H & Anderson, N (1998), the socialization process of the new employees affects their performance highly, socialization is the best way to communicate, the spell over of information is much quicker in the case of communication by socialization than socialization by announcements and orders.
The same study concentrated on the importance of the learning process; employees have expectations about the organization before they start working but when they start working their expectations will be adjusted and they will start collecting more realistic information about the company.
Based on the gap between the prior expectations and the realistic data, the employees will change their behaviour and that has a very direct relationship with satisfaction and sales volume.
This study indicates that there is a big gap in communications between the employee and the management on the induction day; that is why there is an adjustment of expectations after the start of the work.
According to Bourgiose, L (1980), most companies agree with their employees on goals but they do not agree with them on means to achieve those goals.
That creates a problem to the employees because they know what to achieve but they do not know to achieve it.
According to Bourgiose, L (1980), this creates uncertainty to employees and poor performance.
4-Appraisals and communications:
According to Billikopf, G (2003), employees and employers fail to achieve their mutual goals because they fail to communicate in the best possible way.
Communication should take several forms such as regular employee appraisals, appraisal is a very powerful tool in encouraging the exchange of information and vision between management and employees.
Billikopf, G (2003) distinguishes between two types of appraisals, the first one is the traditional performance appraisal and the second type is the negotiated performance appraisal.
The first type of appraisal that is considered not effective because neither staff nor management understand the real meaning of it, the first type has failed employees and management and the organization because it is one sided where the management will say to the employee his strengths and weaknesses without listening properly to the concerns of the employees.
The first type of the appraisal is not linked to pay rise so employees are not really concerned that this appraisal will affect their situation effectively.
The first type of appraisal happens only in one meeting between the management and the employees without putting in place mechanisms to monitor the improvement of the employee.
The second type of appraisals is related to pay directly and it leaves enough time for the employee to respond and it has mechanisms in place to monitor the effort made by the employee to monitor, the second type of appraisals takes into its account the ability of the employees to perform certain tasks and it adjusts the management's target according to the ability of the employees to achieve it.
5- Different ways in order to achieve company's goals:
There is a large argument about determining the most suitable way to achieve the company's goals.
Deterministic:
There are some companies that prefer to set their goals first and decide thereafter on the best policy (means) that leads to achieving those goals, the problem with this way of thinking is that the management will tell the employees exactly what to do, it will not leave for them the chance to test the best way to serve customers.
Accumulative knowledge:
While other companies set the goals that the company would like to achieve and thereafter the company tries a set of policies (means) that would achieve the desired goals; this way of thinking will achieve more flexibility because it will let the staff participate in setting the means of achieving the goals and aims of the company.
6-Rationality vs. Behaviourism:
Rationality:
When the employees themselves see how certain policies fail and they participate in setting the right policies, they will be totally convinced about the company's way of achieving its goals and they will abide by the rules because they can see the benefits of it.
This school of thought thinks that employees and management are rational but rationality will be reached by accumulation of knowledge.
Behaviourism:
The rationality school of thought has an opponent school which is the behaviourism school; the behaviourism school offers an explanation to the human behaviour based on the reinforcement principle.
According to Locke, E(1977), The behaviourism school of thought thinks that the behaviour of the human being is determined by the expectations of the consequences of the taken action.
When someone does something and he gets a positive feedback, he tends to do it again, the positive response will reinforce the action, the action taken by the individual does not need to be maximising his wealth.
In that sense, companies have to reinforce the desired actions that are taken by its employees by giving them a positive feedback.
This school suggests that employees do not have to go through understanding the logic behind the company's rules and policies, the company will be able to encourage its employees to behave in a certain way by rewarding them or punishing them.
Behaviourism is more than rewarding and punishing employees in order to achieve the aims of the company, behaviourism is a school of thought that aims to understand the human action in order to achieve equality and protect human rights in the society.
Companies who understand the real aim of the behaviourist school of thought will have very good reputation among their employees and their society because they aim to understand the nature of the employees and maintain their dignity.
Such companies encourage democracies and human rights activists, such companies see their community is their future not another resource to exploit.
7- Economics and Employees:
According Mailath, G(1998), management and employee normally play a non-cooperative game theory.
This has been strongly represented in the form of distrust between management and employees, strikes and other forms of struggle within the organization.
Mailath, G(1998) thinks that the non-cooperative game between management and employees is wrong because it is based on two assumptions:
- Maximization: the principal of maximisation depends on the fact that each agent is rational and it is totally aware of the available resources.
- Consistency: each agent should be fully aware of the other agent's expectations and intentions.
Mailath, G (1998) thinks that the two above conditions are not valid in the case of the relationship between employees and management.
The management is trying to maximise its profits by reducing the costs of training, development and employee's wages.
While the employees are trying to maximise their profits by increasing their wages and benefits by making strikes.
Agents try to achieve Nash equilibrium when they play non-cooperative games, they try to use threats against each other in order to reach a compromise that is satisfactory to both sides.
But some scientists do not think that compromises are good all the time because they prevent revolutionary changes.
That is why some scientist preferred the relationship to be co-operative rather than non-cooperative.
The relationship between the two sides must be co-operative, the two sides have to be clear to each other about their aims and aspirations and what is the best way to achieve that.
If that happened the employees will be in a situation where they can co-operate fully with the management and help reach the mutual aims and goals.
Employees will feel better about the company that they work with and not for and they will start feeling more willing to help customers and transform the needs of the customers to the management in order to translate these needs into products and services.
Employees will be quick to notice theft that eats the company's profits.
Theft is not only a result of stealing goods and services by shoppers but by some members of staff themselves, shrinkages and errors done by staff when working, Kayton, S (2003).
If the shrinkage has been reduced by better monitoring by the staff and these savings have been distributed on the employees in the form of better wages and benefits everybody will be happy in the organization.
Customers Perspective:
Do you think that the brand of the product is supporting product loyalty?
How does a good customer service impact brand loyalty?
Is acquiring new customers easier than maintaining the current ones?
What do you think the cost of acquiring new customers is?
What is the scope of customer service in your company?
Does the customer service in your company include product knowledge, sales training and brand awareness?
Do you think that the management of your company tend to limit customer service in the customer service desk?
Does your company give training on customer services on all levels of authority?
Does your company think that customers service training programs are extra cost?
These questions aim to understand the relationship between brand loyalty and product loyalty, they also aim to understand the cost of acquiring new customers and the cost of maintaining the existing ones, I also aim to measure the tendency of traditional companies to restrict customer service by the customer service desk.
The Role of the Employee Brand:
Do you understand the brand of your company?
Do you confuse the brand with the tangible products?
Do you feel that customers are paying for the brand rather than the tangible product?
Do you feel yourself part of the brand of your company?
Do you need more knowledge to understand the brand of your company?
Do you think that you are selling the brand rather than the tangible product of your company?
Does your branded product have more features and better quality than the non-branded product?
This section is very important in measuring the attitude of the employees towards their brands, it is important in analysing the learning elements; it divides the learning to learning about the brand and learning about the products, theses questions try to understand the opinion of the employees in their own brands in order to see whether that brand adds more to the quality of the product or not.
Internal Marketing - Getting Employees To Identify With The Brand
Does your company share with you its marketing messages?
Do you think that you are a brand campaigner for your company?
Do you understand the messages that your company tries to convey to customers?
Do you see the TV and radio advertisements campaign that your company launch?
Do you believe in the brand of your company?
If you do not believe in the brand of your company, do you still sell its products?
Do you think that the internal and external marketing in your company are mismatched?
The aim of these questions is to understand whether companies convey marketing messages to employees or not and see if employees understand it fully.
We need to see if there is any mismatch between the internal marketing and external marketing strategies in the company.
Developing Employee Brand Loyalty:
Do you buy the products of your company?
Are loyal to them?
Do you recommend them to your friends and family?
Does your company give you vouchers?
Do you use these vouchers or give them to someone else?
Does your company run friends and family discount evening?
In this section, we are trying to see what makes employees loyal to their company,
I am trying to understand if brand or prices are contributing to employee brand loyalty.
I am trying to measure the importance of word of mouth in making employees' families and friends buy from the brand.
Wearing the Brand
Does you brand increase your satisfaction?
Do you feel proud of your company's brand?
Did your company get your opinion when choosing the uniform?
Do you like your uniform?
In this section, I aim to understand the attitude of employees towards their brand and see if employees like their brand or not.
A Knowledgeable Workforce Reinforces the Employee Brand:
Do you think that your company is giving you more tasks and responsibilities without proper training and decent pay?
Do you think that your interests are in line with the expectations of your company?
Does your company set incentives to learn?
Are the incentives provided by your company motivating you? Are they relevant to your needs?
Do you promote your company to friends and family given the current incentive scheme?
In this section, I aim to understand the relationship between the scheme of incentives and the satisfaction of the employees.
I also aim to know whether the incentive scheme is making employees sell the products of the company to their friends and family.
Employees Attitudes towards Employer:
What is your feeling towards your employees?
Do you think that your company understand your needs and try to satisfy them?
What is your reaction if your company failed to understand your needs?
Do you still satisfy the demands of your company even if it has failed to satisfy your needs?
Would you change your job if your company failed to meet your expectations?
This section aims to understand the psychological contract; I aimed to see how employees respond to the broken promises of the management.
First Impressions:
Do you think that the induction helps you in understanding the company and its culture?
Did you see a difference between the image of the company and the way that it treats employees?
Did you find socialisation easy?
This section aims to understand the adjustment process that employees undergo after starting their jobs; I aim to know if inductions help employees to adopt.
The Role of the Employee Brand:
Do you understand the brand of your company?
Do you confuse the brand with the tangible products?
Do you feel that customers are paying for the brand rather than the tangible product?
Do you feel yourself part of the brand of your company?
Mood theory:
Do you think that your mood affects the buying behaviour of your customers?
If yes, please explain the reaction of your customers.
If no, please explain to us the reaction of your customers.
How much more your customer would buy if your mood is good?
How much less your customer would buy if your mood is bad?
Do you think that the mood of your customer might be affected by your personal mood?
Do customers buy your products and services if their mood is good given that your mood is bad?
Do customers praise/condemn you if your mood is good/bad?
If you are in a good/bad mood, do you explain more/less about the product?
The aim of these questions is to try to understand the relationship between employee mood and the buying behaviour of the customer.
We also aim to understand the impact of employee mood on the customer mood in order to be able to know if the employee's bad mood will give bad impression about the store in general.
We also would like to know the psychological reaction of the customer to the employee's mood.
The thing that we would like to know is what are the little things that our customers would feel satisfied about and make us gain their loyal to us?
Pay difference:
How would you feel about pay difference between you and senior management?
Do you think that is fair?
Do you feel that you work harder than your senior managers?
If you get paid more, would you perform better?
Would you learn more about the products of the company?
Would you be happy to do more things voluntarily?
Do you feel yourself more motivated if you get more money?
Do you think that your absenteeism will be reduced if your salary is higher?
In this section, we aim to see how employees feel about the pay difference between them and their senior colleagues, and measure their frustration and their expectations to what their pay should be.
We aim to study as well the relationship between pay rate and learning about the company's products and services.
We also aim to measure the relationship between pay rate and absenteeism, sickness, staff turn-over.
Communications:
Do you think that there is a subjective factor in understanding the senior management messages?
Do you prefer to have the discretion in understanding the senior management messages?
Do you prefer to work independently?
Would you like to take the initiative by yourself in achieving the aims of the company?
Would you work under instructions from middle management?
Do you think that the uncertainty in conveying messages between senior managers and employees is a source of poor performance?
Appraisals:
Are you satisfied with the current system of appraisals in your company?
Do you feel that appraisals are important steps in guiding you to the best way to work?
Do you consider appraisals that are just a formality?
Would you put more time and effort if appraisals are linked to your pay rate?
Do you feel that there is a gap between appraisals and your after appraisals support and monitoring of performance?
These questions aim to clarify the difference between the first and the second types of appraisals.
It aims also to show that pay-related appraisals are more important than no-pay related appraisals.
Different ways in order to achieve company's goals:
Rationality:
Do you learn more by trial and error?
Do you abide by the company's rules and conditions if you learn by trial and error?
Do you prefer working under direct orders from middle management?
Do you think that there is a set of optimal policies that would suit the company and regulate its work for a long time?
Do you believe that we reach this set of rules and conditions by accumulative learning?
This set of questions aims at understanding the impact of communications on performance.
The questions aim to classify companies which change their rules and regulations(pro-active companies) according to an accumulative process or companies which set a fixed rules and regulations and consider them as ideal(passive companies).
Rationality vs. Behaviourism:
Do you follow orders because you fear punishment?
Do you like be appreciated by your colleagues?
How would you like to be appreciated? By money? Good word? Promotion?
Does working for a company that promotes human rights and democracy work more?
What is your stance towards working in a company that does not care about the environment?
Do you think you will promote a company that cares about democracy and human rights or work for the company who pays better money?
Back to: Example Essays...
Employees and Economics:
Do you prefer to work in a non-cooperative company where the relationship between management and employees is struggle?
Do you think that co-operative organizations will offer better communications than non-cooperative organizations.
Do you feel that non-cooperative organizations protect your rights more than co-operative organizations?
Would you sell the products of the company directly and indirectly to your friends and family?
Would you feel more secure in non-cooperative organization?
Would you work effectively to reduce theft and other ways of shrinkage in co-operative organizations?
Do you think that non-co-operative organizations will secure to you more pay rises than co-operative organizations?
The aim of this set of questions is to try to understand the attitudes of employees towards co-operative and non-cooperative organizations.
We aim also to see if employees are willing to sell the products and services of the non-cooperative company to their friends and family.
We also want to see if employees feel more secure in non-co-operative organization.
Reference:
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