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Corporate Values on the Corporate Website

Corporate Values on the Corporate Website

the-philosophers-stoneWouldn’t it be great in these days of gloom to find something bright, a ray of sunshine like a philosopher’s stone to bring businesses together in everlasting win-win situations?

Well, according to Business In The Community (BiTC) there is such a thing: a company’s statement of corporate values.

“A Purpose Beyond Profit”

At the beginning of the month BiTC released a briefing paper entitled “The whys and hows of corporate values”.

At its heart is a list of the benefits a company can reap from having a good, strong set of corporate values.

The actions required boil down to stakeholder engagement.  Employees, customers, suppliers and clients are all much more likely to be loyal to a company which has a clear ethos and understands its position in the wider world.

The paper also has one of the best definitions of corporate values I’ve come across:

It is not a mission statement that describes what task the company aims to fulfil. Neither is it a set of commercial objectives. …. Corporate values are about what the company stands for and how its employees behave. They are about framing a role for the business that gives it a purpose beyond profit. (my emphasis) [Read more…] about Corporate Values on the Corporate Website

Test Question

Actually, it’s one strategic question with ten tactical sub-questions, and it was asked recently by recruiting guru Lou Adler: “Is Your Career Site Turning Off Top Candidates?” Adler breaks out his query into a scoring system for site assessment and discusses each item in some detail, so the article is well worth a read. Meantime, I’ll recap Adler’s questions here, and then add two more Qs for good measure.

I’ve put a brief explanation of each topic in parenthesis:

1.  Can candidates just look, or are they forced to “buy”? (Visitors should get plenty of information without having to apply.)

2. Are jobs easy to find? (Visitors should be able to locate relevant job listings efficiently.)

3.  Can your career site be found easily? (Visitors to the corporate site should be able to locate the Careers area quickly.)

4.  Are your job descriptions boring or compelling? (Descriptions should “wow” a top candidate.)

5. Is the application process simple or an endurance contest? (Application should take less than five minutes.)

6.  Is there a way to stay connected without applying? (Visitors should have options to submit a resume or sign up for something even if they do not apply for a job.)

7. Is there a CRM nurturing process? (Follow-up contact campaigns should be in place for “candidate relationship management.”)

8. Can your ads be found by those who are Googling for jobs or those not looking? (Jobs should appear on the first or second page of a reasonably targeted online search—and extra points if jobs appear on social media.)

9. Do you use SEO’d talent hubs for groups of similar jobs? (Adler uses the term “talent hub” in a specific way—best to read his explanation.)

10. Can your candidates find employees they know within your company? (This point is about the importance of an active employee referral program—not clear how it relates to the corporate website.)

Questions 1-6 make up a handy checklist for doing your own site review, and questions 7-10 provide food for thought about recruiting strategy in general and web presence in particular. But there are a couple of additional queries I think would make an excellent addition . . .

Adler begins the article with an assertion that “most career sites are designed to repel the best and attract the worst.” There’s definitely truth in that statement, though in most cases the effect is probably not due to design, but to lack of design. And lack of attention. So a very good question would be:  Is there a dedicated resource for coordinating and maintaining the design and functionality of the Careers site? And if so—does that person have the requisite skills to do the job, and enough time to do it?

The other question I’d suggest (and I would make it the very first one) is:  Can you state the mission of your Careers site? Different companies have different recruiting needs and strategies. Sometimes these are well-defined, sometimes they are not. And even if there is a definition, sometimes it is intentionally and skillfully utilized to create a “just-right” Careers site, more often it is not.

And that sets up another post. In the meantime–let me know if you think there are other questions begging to be asked!

The Bully Media Want Bloggers and Online Journalists to Go Away

Why?

Because they are cramping their style.

Google has been approached by the mainstream media to give them preference in the search engines for content-driven traffic. Here is an excerpt of the story, drafted from the Ad Age site:

Major media companies are increasingly lobbying Google to elevate their expensive professional content within the search engine’s undifferentiated slush of results.

They want first dibs, first choice and to be recognized first with top stories, news and developments, entertainment, etc. – – you name it. It seems that the mainstream media do not feel that they have enough of the pie and they want more. They want the pieces that the bloggers have too.

Bloggers and online journalists have a pretty exciting job writing on topics that are of interest to sparse sections of audiences online. They have the unique ability to act as sort of “rock stars” in the media world. Bloggers who are pretty popular even have their own groupies and people who hang on their every word, doing or trying whatever they say. Almost cult-like in a way. Right now, it’s pretty darn cool to be a blogger because your opinion, well-researched and fleshed out of course, can rank you right up there at the top of a Google search result. These rankings are giving the mainstream media a virtual headache. Why? Because they feel like since they are the “real” media source, that they should of course be first. Kind of reminds me of my kids and that whole “line-leader” business.

Of course mainstream media does have the advertising dollars and the resources to rank wherever they want, but is that good for the online user? Moreover, is it good for the media companies? Sure, it’s great for Google’s purse, but what does that for the discriminating online user who’s looking not for the most popular information, but the most accurate information? Do online users want to read “paid”, biased content or do they want good reads? What would you want?

What I find disturbing about the whole thing is the bullying that the online media (as a whole) is doing by throwing their weight around and saying that they should be more recognized than a lowly blogger. Says who?

 “You should not have a system,” one content executive said, “where those who are essentially parasites off the true producers of content benefit disproportionately.”

Why, I don’t think I’m a parasite at all! I simply feel that the role of an online journalist is to further research and capitalize on the information that is already out there. Are we “taking” anything away from anyone by doing this? Does this make our work sub-par? Part of me does understand and agree with the big media folks in that there are content millhouses and lazy bloggers who will regurgitate what they’ve read and not bother to investigate or put their own spin on a story. Those types get no points with me either. But good bloggers aren’t doing this. Good bloggers are opinionated, well-read sources who offer their readers a direct light into a story without the fluff, the “paid spin” or the salesy type of material that you will read in some places.

huffington-post

Ariana Huffington of the famed Huffington Post runs quite a controversial blog on her site. There are many, many bloggers over there who deftly report and blog on politics, news, business and even gossip. Does that mean because the site is full of regular bloggers and not professionally paid journalists that they should not be recognized in Google’s search engine as much as a designer media’s name?

And then there’s my former colleague, Darren Rowse who I had the pleasure of working with for a while when I probloggerblogged for b5media. The man is a gold mine of knowledge and information when it comes to blogging and making money from it. In the online world, he is the go-to person for whatever you need to know about professional blogging. Darren started his whole blogging gig as a hobby and has built it into a leading, multi-business online venture. Since he doesn’t blog for any of the mainstream media, should his opinions on “how-to” be ignored? In addition, should he rank lower in the Google search engines for “pro-blogging”, “online entrepreneur” because he doesn’t have the backing of media dollars and resources?

There’s a place for the mainstream media and there’s a place for the blogging journalist in the online world for both parties to be a cohesive unit together. There is a way for everyone to get along and be successful in whatever venue they choose to find their way into Google. It’s called competition, and it’s doing quite well, thank you.

If the mainstream media wants to really be recognized, then they should do what it takes to be recognized. Throwing their resource weight around does nothing but make them virtual bullies. In a healthy dose of good old-fashioned competition, the search engines will pick up content that is relevant, pithy, original and unique. If that’s coming from the media folks, great. If that’s coming from the blogger journalist, great again. But the media has to understand that they can’t be greedy, they can’t have it all with resources, money and paid rankings and search results. Play fair and let the “best” content win. Readers deserve that. Message to the mainstream media: You can’t have your cake and eat it too! It’s not that type of party.

Dell Named Leading Green IT Brand

green-factorAccording to a new study called Green Factor (a joint program from Strategic Oxygen and Cohn & Wolfe), IT managers and executives believe that Dell is the greenest brand.  3,500 CIOs, and senior IT managers in 11 countries were given 26 enterprise IT brands to choose from and asked to select the greenest.  Dell captured 30% of the votes.  Hewlett Packard came in second place with 26% of the votes.

The more interesting part of the survey is the criteria that IT professionals used to evaluate companies in terms of their “green-ness.”  According to the survey, IT professionals look for companies that have: [Read more…] about Dell Named Leading Green IT Brand

Lexus Loses J.D. Power and Associates Dependability Survey Top Spot – Three Brands Take the Lead

Since Lexus hit the luxury vehicle market, the brand has been extremely popular and closely associated with quality and reliability.  Those brand messages were supported year after year (since 1995) when Lexus took the top spot in the J.D. Power & Associates annual ranking of auto brands based on reliability (problems experienced by consumers after three years of ownership).  That is — until 2009.

The newest ratings from J.D. Power & Associates show the Lexus brand not only dropping out of the top spot in terms of reliability but actually dropping to #3.  So which brands stole spots #1 and #2 — Jaguar and Buick, which were up from #10 and #6 in 2008, respectively.  Bet you didn’t expect to see Buick there.  Other brands that followed behind Lexus were Toyota (who owns Lexus), Mercury, Infiniti and Acura.  And which brand came in dead last?  Suzuki.

This J.D. Power & Associates dependability survey rating is for the vehicle brands overall and includes all models under that brand name.  J.D. Power & Associates rates a wide variety of factors related to the automotive industry, and companies often use the ratings in advertising and promotions throughout the year.  Of course, we can assume Lexus won’t be releasing any ads this year that say, “Look — we dropped from 1st to 3rd in the J.D. Power & Associates dependability survey.  Now is the time to buy a Lexus!”  And the new tagline – “Beat by Buick” – now, that has to hurt the brand ego. [Read more…] about Lexus Loses J.D. Power and Associates Dependability Survey Top Spot – Three Brands Take the Lead

Bad news, transparency and the corporate website

It’s not often that my two lives intersect: work and domestic … but late last week they did exactly that.

free-fromAlerted by email from the Food Standards Agency that one of our major supermarket chains had recalled an own-brand product due to a labelling error resulting in a potential allergen risk, I wanted to find out more. The Food Standards Agency site was down (no, probably not because of massive public interest in this particular allergy alert) so I went to the supermarket site.

Nothing. Not in the press release section, nor in the customer-facing sections.

I know this is a very small issue from the supermarket point of view, but the impact on the individual shopper can be significant.

I also know that very many companies would deliberately not post bad news about their product on their own site.

However, many companies have a page in their media section that provides coverage of the company in the papers, which could be good news or bad. A few (very few) companies post information about recalls too. The one that comes to mind instantly is HP, who have a page about recalls and replacement programs.

Since the supermarkets are sending information to the Food Standards Agency to let them know about a product recall, you’d think it would be easy to send the same information to the web team – and an easy job for them to post the information online when it arrived. And it’s not as though the information is secret, either, as the supermarkets usually put this information on posters in the shop, and on the shelves, as well as online at the Food Standards Agency.

Think how you could spin it: Supermarket X keeping you informed about the safety of our products; Supermarket X keeping you healthy and safe; Supermarket X is honest enough to tell you when we make a mistake.

That’s not so very far from the recent announcement from SC Johnson of their new website informing consumers of the ingredients of their cleaning products. Very transparent …