Internal Experience: Building Brands from the Employees

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1 Insights&Trends I46/2014 Brand Internal Experience: Building Brands from the Employees Apart from pride and the feeling of membership, the factor that best describes internal experience with brand today, and determines employees satisfaction with the company is the capacity to feel one s social role, contribution to the social value, active participation in the company s commitment with the society Social connection in its turn creates or reinforces an emotional link associated with the pride of being a member of the company s voluntary social activity. Joan Cruz, Director of Territorial Coordination at the Telefónica Foundation, explains that Telefónica s Volunteering Programme in the last few years improved the employees commitment and pride sentiment by combining two areas CSR and talent. Projects developed by the Foundation on the global scale, especially those in Latin America, give the company s employees firsthand experience, and an opportunity to involve third parties in this experience by delivering social values defended by this international telecommunications company. Social Values in Action The framework of the Pro-Child Programme gave rise to an initiative suggested by the employees themselves the Programme of Solidarity Vacations. The initiative encourages each employee to spend part of his or her vacations working on projects launched by the company, thus achieving three key objectives: 1. Address personal social concerns. 2. Become familiar with the company s solidarity initiatives. 3. See that the company takes care of people. Thanks to projects and initiatives of this kind, Telefónica reported that only in 2012, 25,000 volunteers dedicated almost 200,000 hours to 1,500 initiatives and projects of social support, cooperation and international development. Thus employees who felt concerned about specific problems had an opportunity to take part directly in resolving these issues. The result is an emotional link of the Group s employees with Telefónica s brand and its social action. According to Cruz, this is a way for professionals to turn into real protagonists of CSR and, more specifically, the company s social action, thus creating a feeling of contributing to shared value and generating mutual benefit for the company, the employee and the society. This document was prepared by Corporate Excellence Centre for Reputation Leadership and among other sources contains references to the statements made by Joan Cruz, Director for Territorial Coordination at the Telefónica Foundation; Isaac Vitini, HR Director at Coca-Cola Iberia; Ignasi Fainé, CSR Director at Agbar; and Rafael González, Director for Corporate Culture Development at Adif. The statements were made during Branding Days event held by the Complutense University of Madrid jointly with Interbrand and Corporate Excellence on March 13 and 14 in Madrid.

2 Diversity for Innovation Another key factor in transforming personal commitment into social commitment or relating these two phenomena, is development of the internal level of integration of personal and professional abilities as a result of cultural diversity (in terms of origin, beliefs, languages, etc.), intellectual abilities (combining different kinds of intelligence) and even sexual diversity (in terms of gender representation and orientation). Coca-Cola developed an Integral Plan to organize its fight against excluding disabled people from labour, and aims to integrate these people by adapting workplaces of these people to their specific conditions. The plan also includes training and coaching programmes delivered by the company s employees on the voluntary basis to young people at risk of social exclusion as well as unemployed people who have difficulties accessing the labour market. According to Isaac Vitini, HR Director of Coca-Cola Iberia, in 2012, 130 young people took part in the company s training programme, which enabled them to incorporate in the labour market through business and cultural projects or upgrade their qualifications by joining academic programmes. Graph 1: Principal achievements and results of the 2012 The key is to create a feeling of contributing to shared value and generating mutual benefit for the company, the employee and the society. BENEFICIARIES FOR PROFILES Children and adolescents young Teachers General society BENEFICIARY RECEIVED PER SHARE direct intervention training knowledge General society VOLUNTEER active Volunteers Volunteer Initiatives Volunteer Hours POSITIONING publications 61 Exhibitions held 26 Forums / Conferences / Events 254 Visits to the web Followers on social networks Views from our YouTube channel THINK BIG Number of projects funded completed projects Youth receiving support from program GLOBAL ECONOMIC INVESTMENT * Eradication of child labor Education and learning Art and Digital Culture volunteering Other social action projects Support areas ** * This figure refers to Spain, fourteen Latin American and five European countries in which Fundación Telefónica is present with its activities. ** This item includes operating expenses, communication, rent, depreciation and other. Source: Annual Report, Fundación Telefónica, p. 11, Insights&Trends 2

3 Graph 2: Managing and Optimizing the Social Engagement of Employees (External) Responsibilities Define social policies and practices Enlist and guide mass employee participation Identify and track employee engagement Measure external engagement and results Solution leader Community manager Social Listening, Analytics & BI External Community Social Business Solution Managers Remote Offices Employees Home Office engagement value exchange goal sharing Goal Customer Care Product Innovation Brand Enthusiast Beta Testers Pre-Sales Support Source: DachisGroup by Dion Hinchcliffe. Access of all social groups to labour and diversity of talent and clients today are a source of development and innovation. Vitini believes that if a company and its shareholders reinvest part of their profit into social projects, its employees are more motivated to work in this company and actively help the company to work towards its social goals. That s why Coca-Cola joined the Diversity Charter, launched by the Diversity Foundation and the Spanish Government in an attempt to promote equal rights of all social groups to labour and encourage diversity of talent and clients as a source of development and innovation by eliminating all kinds of discrimination. Brand Built for the Employees Agbar is a group whose more than 150-years management experience of full cycle water services is renowned in many countries, the institutional environment (due to the fact that many of its operating licenses are public concessions) and the technical community, among engineers specializing in different areas of the business related to collection, transportation, purification and distribution of water. However, for citizens in general Agbar is a brand whose recognition is diffused if at all present among its key stakeholders the customers. At the same time, the issue of access to water and its future scarcity is a concern of the entire society. Ignasi Fainé, Agbar s Director for Communication and Corporate Responsibility, says that the company is aware of this challenge and is launching Aqualogy, a programme that implies active participation of the company s employees in creating and development of the brand idea whose aim is bridging this gap and ensuring that the employees associate themselves with the problem of access to water and its solution. Awareness of the problem of access to water is lacking, especially in developed societies where citizens access water simply by turning the tap. Thanks to Aqualogy, the employees and customers of Agbar, will learn about this important challenge for the entire humanity and understand that the company s objective is to contribute new knowledge for managing water rather than simply manage infrastructures. Involvement of professionals in the new Agbar platform is essential if we want to achieve a qualitative change in the perception of the water problem and spread knowledge in order to resolve this problem. That s why the company created Aqualogy Campus, the so-called corporate University, which provides ongoing training to its employees and external professionals working on the market of water services. The Culture of Segregation Up until 1996, Renfe was Spain s main railroad company which both managed the infrastructure and provided railroad services across the country. Since 1996, infrastructure management and services have been separated by creating GIF (Gestor de Infraestructuras Ferroviarias, Railroad Infrastructure Management Company) which in 2005 was restructured into ADIF (Administrador de Infraestructuras Ferroviarias, Administrator of Railroad Infrastructures). By dividing the group into two companies, its management gave a green light to the liberalization process in the sector. In 1996 and 2005, some employees were transferred from Renfe to GIF or ADIF, says Rafael González, Director for Corporate Culture Development of this Insights&Trends 3

4 company. However, the railroad sector has always been famous for the strong feeling of pride and membership a natural phenomenon in the sector where whole families work for generations. That s why emotional attachment of former Renfe employees was hard to create in GIF, and later ADIF, and their transition was difficult. How could the company resolve this situation and create an integrated organizational culture, where all participants would feel as part of a big new project introduction of high speed trains in Spain? Opening Ways was the slogan of the campaign that according to González, ADIF launched to this end. The company created an Intranet in the same year when its brand was launched and developed an Adaptation Plan for those employees who arrived from GIF or Renfe. ADIF took the following steps in order to achieve commitment and bonding with its new employees: 1. Diagnosis: a survey of 1,500 employees in plan: alignment of the employees with the company s strategic plan and strengthening of the organisation s internal cohesion. 3. Reinforcement action : development of an information programme with the application called Start, trying to integrate the brand into the personal and family environment by means of internal communication. Conclusion: Consolidation of the Internal Brand Making progress in the process of building the company s brand for the employees means staking on personal commitment by using factors related to professional development and satisfaction. However, it also means achieving commitment through social factors by identifying with the company s social values and direct participation in social action that has an impact on the community and people who are related to this company. Insights&Trends 4

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