Does Your Brand Follow Your Employees Home After Work?

I like to work. A lot. In fact, I spend more time reading, looking at websites, talking to clients, etc. than I probably should. In management consultant terms, I've let my "work life" bleed over into my "home life." But it's been my choice and I enjoy both immensely.

Unfortunately, that's not the case for most people. Historically, we've been able to keep some kind of separation between the two - maybe we see different people socially than those we see at work. Maybe we have rules about what we can and can't talk about outside of the office. Maybe we hang out with our work-friends, but avoid spending time with the boss.

All of those have been successful strategies in the past, but now thanks to advanced communication, a broadening geographic scope for many businesses and an increasingly demanding and responsive consumer base, one gets the feeling that things are going to change pretty dramatically. And not necessarily for the better.

In fact, I think we've seen the first signs of significant change just in the first month and a half of 2005.

Case 1: Things best left unsaid ...
This article, found on the CNN/Fortune website, is an interesting piece on the impact blogs have had on a number of employees and their relationships with their employers. In these incidences, the employees lost their jobs for revealing information their employer thought was inappropriate.

Was the information important or vital to the business of the employer? You might be able to argue "yes" in a few cases, but not most. Was the information damaging to the employer? I think we could say "at the very least, embarrassing" in almost every case. But "damaging"? It doesn't appear so.

In fact, much of what these bloggers published to the Internet is what they might have told a few close friends over a beer after work; shared with a spouse or family member; or written into a journal or diary. But by posting it to a blog, the author is opening up these "dirty little secrets" to millions of people who don't know or respect the intent or interests of the author.

You have to wonder what people are thinking when they post that kind of information to a blog? Are they expecting to get fired? Do they think they can't get fired?

I believe the easy answer is "yes." In fact, many of these people think their right to be openly critical of their employer is a 1st Amendment Freedom guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. The problem with that, of course, is the first Amendment to the Constitution merely prevents government from intruding on your speech - it says nothing about your employer.

As a result, employees who talk bad about their boss or co-workers run the risk of getting canned. That risk goes up substantially when the talking is done in front of literally millions of people (online) and in a form that can be easily shared and sent to the employer.

Honestly, why does some of this need to be shared in a weblog to begin with? Isn't a little discretion called for here?

Clearly these employees are not thinking about the possible ramifications their "inside glimpse" might pose to the brand for which they work. Consumers aren't so good at discerning between the sardonic wit and the whistleblower when it comes to brands they may find remotely appealing or tentatively suspect. Bloggers need to keep in mind the first rule of disclosure: "Assume everything you say will be used against you."

That seems to go double for your brand.

Case 2 ... Where there's smoke, there's unemployment.
Plenty of businesses have smoke-free environments, no smoking policies, Employee Assistance programs covering smoking, etc. But, as this article from WXYZ TV/Detroit points out, smoker's addictive habits count at home as well as at work.

Under Michigan law, it looks like a practical argument can be made that these firings were legal. But looking on a broader sense, it may be that this ruling signals a signficant change in the influence employers have in the "off hours" lives of their employees.

All in the name of brand value, no doubt.

I've spoken plenty of times about the whole new level of intimacy the new marketing paradigm brings to the brand/consumer relationship. Well those rules of intimacy change in the employer/employee relationship as well.

As expectations of product performance go beyond features and benefits and start focusing on brand value, there are several things employees need to do - constantly - to maintain brand value. How smoking fits into that mix remains to be seen, but we don't doubt it will play a rule at some time, either in this Michigan case or some other time down the road.

How employees and employers figure out the new responsibilities of living the corporate brand's values at work and at home remain to be seen.

And it should be quite interesting to watch.

Later.