A week or so ago I read the results of The Chronicle of Higher Education annual survey results for the Best Colleges to Work For. According to the highly regarded publication, 41,000 employees from 247 US college campuses (I believe there are over 6,000 two and four year schools) participated in the research project. They were asked to rank their school in categories including; confidence in senior leadership, connection to institution and pride, internal communication, job satisfaction, life insurance, teaching environment and more. Earlier in the month The Chronicle published the results.
While reading the survey results I naturally thought about my organization, the BrandED consultants group, and the work that we do for colleges and universities to help them with their brand development efforts. A large part of our work, and how we differentiate ourselves from most other firms, is devoting a good deal of time and effort on internal branding. Most schools (most organizations for that matter) have not paid a great amount of attention to engaging their internal stakeholders in the brand development process. I am confident that this emerging trend from industry will become more prevalent on college campuses.
Perhaps projects like the one conducted by The Chronicle will lend more support to internal branding. My view is that engaging employees in your brand development process will result in a better place to work, and by doing so your institution can effectively align your internal culture with your external reputation. I would guess that once organizations understand the the return on investment is greater when devoting resources on their employees. The value of the brand will increase too. If your organization does not have an internal brand plan, I highly encourage it. Your employees are your greatest brand champions.
Rex Whisman
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