Best & Worst of Employer Branding: July 2022
We’re entering the Silly Season, thank goodness, because I’m very much looking forward to wasting as much time as possible in August.
July was a slow time for bad employer behavior. I suppose many are waiting until the holidays to do their laying off. You know, in the spirit of the season.
The Best (sort of)
Halifax Bank in the UK is losing customers after it said on Twitter that if customers didn’t like its new policy of including employee pronouns on name tags, they should close their accounts.
At the end of June, Halifax announced that it would give employees the option of listing their pronouns on their name tags. Simple enough. The company announced the change via Twitter, which is a terrible place famous for hating anything and everything, and the culture wars were on.
One person called it “virtue signaling” and another said it’s a way to “police other people’s speech.”
Halifax responded with this: We strive for inclusion, equality and quite simply, in doing what’s right. If you disagree with our values, you’re welcome to close your account.
And they did. Some customers have closed their accounts and plenty more carried on yelling on Twitter.
Good on Halifax for sticking to their principles. Including pronouns on employee name tags won’t bring down hatred or discrimination against people in the LGBTQ community, but it’s a small bit of inclusion, and even the small bits matter.
But I’m not on board with Halifax’s handling of the situation. I believe in kindness, and I just don’t see this as kindness.
I think the attitude from Halifax toward its customers is aggressive. It’s still possible to stand by your beliefs and not be ugly. Instead of suggesting people close their accounts—basically, bugger off—what about something more friendly, like, This is what we believe in, and we’re sticking to it because it’s the right thing to do!
I’ll call this a good employer branding move poorly handled.
The Worst
If you thought keystroke loggers and time trackers were a violation of employee privacy, just you wait! Some employers would like to use the Metaverse to track employees’ eye and body movements.
Chandra Steele wrote for PCMag about a small survey conducted by a tech company called ExpressVPN.
They asked 1,500 employees and 1,500 employers about work in the Metaverse. Only a small fraction of employees surveyed actually work in the Metaverse, but the questions asked were about hypothetical work anyway, like “Why are you interested in working in the Metaverse?” and “Which of the following do you think the metaverse will have a positive impact on?”
Fifty-seven percent of employees surveyed said they’re interested in working in an “immersive work environment” like the Metaverse. Seventy-seven percent of employers said the same.
Despite interest, employees said privacy is their number-one concern. They’re not wrong. ExpressVPN asked employers what they would track in an immersive work environment, and the results are . . . concerning.
24% said they would track eye movement
23% said they would track body movement
31% said they would biometrics, like facial recognition
39% said they would monitor real-time location
39% said they would monitor screens
41% said they would record meetings
39% said they would track time
37% said they would track websites visited
33% said they would track social interactions with others
If you would like to send the message that you don’t trust your employees, nor do you have respect for their privacy or autonomy, by all means.
Now that more employees are working from home, employers feel the need to play Big Brother. This from the Harvard Business Review:
“In April 2020, global demand for employee monitoring software more than doubled. Online searches for “how to monitor employees working from home” increased by 1,705%, and sales for systems that track workers’ activity via desktop monitoring, keystroke tracking, video surveillance, GPS location tracking, and other digital tools went through the roof.”
It’s possible that such invasive surveillance will affect hiring and retention. A survey by the tech company Morning Consult found that more than half of tech workers would quit if their employer started monitoring work by audio/video recording or facial recognition, and about 60% said they wouldn’t take a job if the employer monitored productivity.
Spying on employees can backfire too. The writers of that HBR article said that “monitoring employees make them more likely to break rules” and “being monitored is likely to always have at least some negative impact on people’s sense of agency and moral responsibility.”
Rather than putting this burden on the employees, how about this: Don’t hire employees you can’t trust.
Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza writes about workplace culture, DEI, and hiring. Her work has appeared in Fast Company, From Day One, and InHerSight, among others.
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