Living an employee-empowered brand culture

A colleague recently shared the following story that sets the stage nicely for discussing the importance of establishing an employee-empowered brand culture…

I’ll never forget the first time I flew on a commercial airplane. It was the summer after my senior year of high school on a flight to Kansas City. While everyone was boarding, the flight attendant got on the intercom and said “Ladies and gentlemen, we have someone onboard flying for the first time today and he’s really nervous.” In my youthful naivety, I was convinced somehow they knew this was my first flight. Then she announced “Let’s encourage him by giving a big round of applause to our captain, John Smith.” (I don’t remember his real name.)

This was on Southwest Airlines. Of course, laughs followed. Flying was suddenly fun.

Many people have similar Southwest Airlines experiences. Southwest built a discount airfare empire on a fairly simple dual-premise of staying true to their brand promise and empowering employees to live out that promise in front of customers.

When you empower employees to live the brand promise, you open it up to great potential. After all, when you create and launch a brand you hope to see your staff grow into brand ambassadors, not brand parrots. Robotic recitation of your brand will resonate as inauthentic with consumers and fall flat on its face. Your consumers must believe staff truly buys into the brand in order for them to sign on, as well.

Opening up the brand to employees doesn’t mean they can do whatever they want. There are brand promise guidelines to which they must adhere. But the flexibility to address consumers in different ways while working under the brand umbrella is critical towards building a fluid and dynamic brand that can weather the test of time.

How can you help create an employee-empowered brand culture at your credit union? Here are three ways.

• Ensure employees know management has their back. Yes, sometimes a well-meaning employee may stray from the brand promise. Empowering employees to live the brand can lead to mistakes. However, employees also do a better job when they feel a greater sense of brand ownership, especially when they know management is ready to forgive mistakes and work with employees on avoiding similar ones in the future.
• Develop a truly unique culture. No, this doesn’t mean “Hawaiian Shirt Day” once a month. Along with the Southwest Airlines example, other companies with acclaimed unique cultures include Zappos (where employees define their job titles, are encouraged to speak to customers without scripts and report to teams rather than managers) and REI (where employees participate in regular town hall meetings and are encouraged to voice their ideas and concerns). By building a unique culture in which your employees share the same interests as your credit union, your brand becomes a self-perpetuated code of living and working.
• Train, train and train some more. People tend to do best that which they practice most. That’s why firefighters regularly practice their dangerous trade and athletes train constantly. Muhammad Ali once said “I hated every minute of training but I said, ‘don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.’” The same applies to your credit union staff and living an empowered brand. They can’t live it if they don’t know it. All employees must go through regular brand training exercises, from the greenest on the line to your veterans. Then, send them out to re-train fellow employees.

Making the switch to a brand-centric credit union culture is a challenge. It is not a short-term play or something you do once and stick on a shelf. The most powerful brands are those which are led by employees that truly believe in what they do and share that openly with the consumers they serve. When your credit union makes the transition, it establishes itself as an industry leader and seeker of greater wallet and market share.