The Employer Brand of England post Cameron’s veto

Any great employer brand depends on clarity of direction and unity among the top team which is not something we saw at the Brussels conference on the night of 8/9^th December. David Cameron’s veto of the proposed treaty reminded me of three business workshops where I have seen an individual separate themselves from their colleagues. In each case you could see it coming – a talented exec behaving in a way which was bound to put them outside the stockade and not really being ‘one of us’ anymore. The first time was on an ad agency offsite where a senior colleague could not cope with the then Chairman and made no secret of it. A week later he announced he was setting up on his own. A second was at a Nabisco meeting where a senior executive calmly stated that he was to be part of a group buying a competitor. His words were met with awed respect.  A third was at an oil and gas explorer where a talented renegade’s behaviour meant he was clearly also heading for the door en route for independence.

I thought of those individuals when I saw Cameron’s news and the body language and expressions of the other leaders. Later came the verbatims like ‘he was never really with us’. However,our PM was unlike my three business people in that they already had a clear alternative destination. I am not sure Cameron did.

My point is that you can take an independent line in a group session when you have an ace up your sleeve and have chosen the moment to play it. Yet in Cameron’s case the talk since has been about rebuilding bridges and remaining in the 27. No actual change to protect the City has been won.I am not an economist and I don’t know what the future of the eurozone is likely to be. However, I do know about relationships at work and anyone being the one veto out of twenty seven is putting themselves at risk if they want to stay on the team. That is particularly so when the big topic is a macro one and highlighting local concerns is out of line. That behaviour has weakened the trust and respect England commands. I say England rather than the UK because somehow the Scots, the Welsh and the Irish are not in the same boat - it is the employer brand of England which has been damaged given the English sceptics and the English media. I fear that business values here maybe tarnished in the eyes of our partners as being more like those of Bill Cash than Martin Sorrell (who I was glad to see stating that he would prefer us to remain ‘inside the tent’).  It is good to see that similar observations have been made by many Brit business leaders over the past 12 days.

A day or so after the veto I got an email from a Belgian friend regretting the line our Prime Minister had taken and fearing for the future of a country of which he is very fond. Next time I talk at a conference across the channel I bet I get a question on this topic and any Brits doing business there from now on can expect the same. I would prefer to be asked about something else but in replyI shall say that big business and the sceptics here are very different.  What the veto has done is to prompt business Brits to rally support for continued UK/ European teamwork because it remains critical for all of us. There is no alternative (as Mrs Thatcher used to say in a different context)

Simon Barrow

simon@pib.co.uk

Why an Employer Brand project can be demanding, yet transformational, for HR

Everyone likes to pigeon hole everybody else and in particular about what you do. While I have for years stressed the importance of coherence across an organisation as a critical ingredient for Employer Brand success, any conversation about what I or People in Business does often concludes with “so you’re part of HR then?”

Well yes of course we are (and proud of it) but we are also part of marketing, of corporate identity, communications, line management and senior management thinking. However ‘pigeon holers’ don’t think that way and so, if pressed, we are indeed part of the supply side to employers when it comes to the management of their people.

If that is the case, what makes the purchasing and project management of Employer Brand assignments different to most of the goods and services bought by HR?

I had a look at the constituents of the people industry looking at the list of exhibitors at the UK CIPD’s annual exhibition. What a varied crew of suppliers to the world of work starting with Alcoholics Anonymous and including Eye Care, Language teaching, Relocation, Mental Health, Equality and Human Rights, Child Care, Incentive Planning, Pensions, Employee Assistance, Employee Research, IT Services,  Internal communications, Mediation and then of course every form of Recruitment service with the interesting exception of top end head hunters (what does that tell you about the relationship between Executive Search and HR?)

What in the main do these suppliers have in common for the HR buyer? I believe it is as follows:

·         The rest of the organisation will clearly look to HR to provide this external help when it is needed

·         HR’s advice on the choice will be trusted and will get rapid approval (if indeed sign off within an existing budget is required)

·         HR will not need to undertake extensive cross functional discussion before proceeding

·         The service exists to address an immediate need and is transactional rather than part of a long term strategic plan

·         The supplier does not need to ask questions outside HR in order to provide the service

·         There is little internal political risk involved. A supplier who fails can be replaced 

Let’s now look at the services which HR should in my viewbe critical to, yet tick NONE of the above boxes e.g. Organisational Development, Change Management, M&A planning and integration, senior management teamwork and leadership and the development and management of the organisation’s Employer Brand.

It is impossible to create an effective Employer Brand without the involvement of other functions e.g. Marketing, Internal Communications and Corporate Affairs plus of course Operations and Senior Management. 

Furthermore, an Employer Brand project maybe a catalyst for change in several aspects of the working experience and the ‘touch points’ where people see the truth about the organisation at first hand. If all it does is alter the artefacts of communication it is unlikely to succeed.

No one but HR should initiate Employer Brand projects since they demand an intense understanding of your people and the processes which affect them. However, HR must have the confidence, persuasiveness, commerciality and breadth to engage all the other critical internal partners to plan, deliver and maintain a distinctive, compelling Employer Brand which is rooted in reality. This is the sort of HR which a restless and ambitious CEO should demand. If the HR department does not have these qualities that is ultimately his or her responsibility.

Employer Brand projects can be transformational not only for the organisation but for the reality of HR at its best.

Simon Barrow

29^th Nov 2011

People in Business, 200, Aldersgate Street, London EC1A 4HD

Employers don’t tell the truth about work

We know how Employer Brand Management OUGHT to work but one of the issues it must overcome is that so many employers do not truly represent the essence of what it is like to work for them. Most of the 401,000 pages on the subject of ‘employer branding’ on Google are about identity and communication not content about the reality of the workplace.

Business people have known for 80 years that the heart of good marketing is based on understanding the truth of the customer experience and then memorably communicating it. Yet in the world of work employers too often don’t tell the real truth but kid themselves with internal and external communications which are bland, samey and risk free (and don’t kid anybody else).

The tragedy is that most organisations have some great unique features (some of which certain candidates should steer clear of) but you don’t see that in their communications . Read even what some household name organisations say about working for them and you just don’t get the real essence - the flesh and blood of the brilliant successful businesses they are. The truth is often submerged under what is still a play safe, politically correct bureaucracy and, because it’s regarded as ‘internal’, they don’t have the energy or will to change it.

Yet think of the range of sources employees can access: Glass Door, Vault, Student Room, Milk Round, You Tube, Google Search and of course Facebook. All of that information is uncontrolled by employers. You can’t escape the truth so why not tell it in the first place?

It’s when you are inside an organisation that you see the real thing as I did when working with the late but formidable Arthur Andersen, then at the height of its powers. Here is what I heard a senior executive say to a group of potential accountants:

Come here and you will work with clever clients.

Come here and you will work with clever colleagues.

Come here and you will qualify faster than any of our competitors.

Come here and you will be a partner by age 32 or you probably won’t be here

Understand that this is an up or out culture and that applies throughout your career.

However, if you do leave us this is a great springboard – just look at our alumni.

But finally, DONT come here if you are not an argumentative character who will challenge others in meetings and being challenged. You’ll be miserable.

 

With the benefits of hindsight you can see the seeds of Enron in that speech – the ambition, over confidence and arrogance which ruined them. However, that was the truth about Andersen but you never saw it in the well designed, well written prose they used about themselves as an employer.

News Corp has been much in the news this year. Getting under the skin of Rupert Murdoch does not happen easily but Michael Wolfe’s book on the man gives you an indication of what News employees I have known have felt over the years. Consider:

• Reject the idea of a higher calling in journalism. It’s about competition and winning.
• When he’s not there he’s there as palpable absence. You never know when you’re on his mind.
• Every second working for Murdoch is a second spent thinking about what Murdoch wants. He inhabits you!

News Corp has inspired enormous dedication, creativity and loyalty from its people. You will get the real thing when you talk to them but not when you read or view what the company formally says about itself.

My message is that Management need to be courageous and be themselves - a person is never more effective than when they are really telling the truth.

Consider what Steve Jobs said. Is not this the essence of Apple for its people?

Technology alone is not enough –it’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the result that makes our hearts sing

Yet so much of people management does not aim this high - the avoidance of risk is more important than the creation of inspiration. And that comes from the top – if senior management puts more pressure on HR to be distinctive rather than risk free we would see more great Employer Brands emerge.

Simon Barrow


Look out for my next three blogs – a) Great EBs mean busting the silos, b) Changing the DNA of the people industries who serve employers c) the life changing opportunity for HR in EB management

Simon Barrow
simon@pib.co.uk
44 (0) 203 375 4156
People in Business, 200 Aldersgate Street, London, EC1A 4HD, UK

Two meetings with Rupert Murdoch - both with a major EB insight

It's not often that two brief conversations with a CEO give you an immediate insight into the heart of an Employer Brand.

Both my brief meetings with Rupert Murdoch twice were conversations to remember. A good start for any insights into the News International employee experience.
The first was just after he had bought the Times in 1981 at a lunch he gave for six ad agency CEOs including Ogilvy, WCRS, Allen Brady and Marsh, TBWA, McCanns and me representing Ayer Barker. Murdoch did not say much and watched the typical barbed banter of competitors supposedly off duty (but not really). I was seated two down from our host at an oblong table and to get him talking I asked him how much of his money was now invested in the UK. He replied ‘just over 55%’. I then said ‘Mr Murdoch you could invest anywhere why such a big percentage here?’ He replied ‘Most places you have to work hard and be very smart – in this country all you have to do is work hard!’. We all laughed but he meant it and it confirmed his role as the outsider, the restless challenger and the change agent with an anti establishment view of the UK. The move to Wapping and the breaking of the newspaper unions was yet to come.
Twelve years later I met him again. People in Business was up and running and I was in the canteen at Wapping as the guest of Les Hinton. I was telling him about the trip I had just had round the Nissan plant near Sunderland and the productivity of the local work force in crisp blue overalls. Geordies welded together as a company team in a way they never were as riveters, coal miners or in the other lost occupations of the north east. It was not the new plant, Linwood and Ryton had that too, it was Nissan’s focus, innovation and certainty that created an EB which those other new UK plants never had. At this point Murdoch ambled up with his tray and asked if he could join us.
I reminded him of what he said at the post Times lunch to which he replied ‘that was a long time ago’. Les then asked me to finish the Nissan story and I said that it was then the fastest automotive production line in Europe. I had asked my guide there what the average age on the line was and she told me ’27 but we want to get it down to 24’. At this point Murdoch said to Hinton ‘ Get up there and see it’ and asked if I could arrange that which I subsequently did with Peter Wickens the Nissan HRD (and the first employee of Nissan UK)
That was typical Murdoch the opportunist – sounds interesting, may be something for us, act on it fast. That’s his style when in trouble too. Closing the 168 year old News of the World and losing its 2.7m circulation was an example. He had to make a big move that would surprise everyone .Yet In my view he could have achieved the same impact by firing Rebekah Brooks and kept a profitable paper. As it was she left a few days later but her exit did not then improve his position.
From an EB standpoint, I can see little difference between News International and Rupert Murdoch himself. Relentless energy and opportunism, not much in the way of direction and vision. The perpetual outsider and challenger with no need to be liked. Yet News has many outstanding executives and journalists and inspires great loyalty not only to the group but to some great papers which have benefited from its ownership.
Michael Woolff captures the essence of Murdoch in his brilliant book ‘The man who owns the news’ – consider these observations. Woolff may not have gathered them from an EB standpoint but in the search for an EB which is distinctive and compelling for the right audience these are hard to beat:
-the elite at News Corp must prove they have shed any hint of elitism or even a desire for respectability.
-Rejection of the idea of a higher calling in journalism. It’s about competition and winning
-when he’s not there he’s there as palpable absence. You never know when you’re on his mind
-to work for him is to do his bidding, to follow his line
-every second working for Murdoch is a second spent thinking about what Murdoch wants. He inhabits you
The hacking story has become a global one and probably and has more to run. However, put that to one side and consider the implications of the 80 yr old Murdoch’s eventual exit. News International has powerful media properties and will become like other major companies in the sector. As the Economist says this week ‘The suits are firmly in control’ though it also believes that its feistiness will continue. Somehow I doubt that since suits are seldom feisty and unpredictable in the way Murdoch is.
Describing News’s EB point of difference a decade from now will be harder work and I suspect many of the current employees will miss the management style they have lived with for so long. This blog was prompted by just two short conversations but think what tales News International people will have to tell – and I think you will find that most of them will be positive.

Simon Barrow

Social Mobility as an EB attribute - the vital missing ingredient in diversity

Readers of JD Salinger’s ‘Catcher in the Rye’ may remember Holden Caulfield’s description of the American school he went to – "it was one of those schools that advertised in the back of the National Geographic showing some hot shot guy on a horse. I never saw anything like that at Pencey Prep."
I had an exchange scholarship year at a school a bit like that 30 miles east of Philadelphia. I had done my A levels in the UK and started at the Hill School, Pottstown, PA when I was still 17. I was lucky to go there, it broke the mould of England for me and focussed the direction my life was going to take thereafter.
Reading about the apparent reversal in UK social mobility, now apparently decreasing when it was increasing, made me think of that time and wonder what steps UK employers are taking to increase social mobility within their own organisations. Universities have to worry about social mobility, should not employers also demonstrate that they care about it and sharpen their descriptions of diversity in their Employer Brand management? Employers are pressed to reveal gender and ethnic figures but how about the percentage of people they take on by type of secondary school which is a broader challenge? Universities have to answer that question, why not employers? Employers of course are meritocracies and are blind to background in their search for talent but this conceals educational facts which will add important themes to any discussion on what UK education needs.
In America, private prep schools (that is secondary schools aiming to get students into US Colleges of their choice) are just a pin prick in US cultural life. Secondary education carries little of the baggage which all forms of UK secondary education has to cope with. Few Americans are remotely interested - in contrast to the furious debate it prompts in Britain where some leading Universities contain over 40% from fee paying schools, a category which only produces 8% of the nation’s school leavers yet 54% of FTSE 100 CEOs, 51% of top medics and 70% of High Court Judges (Source HM Government). Many of these universities want to change this yet they face two obstacles:
a) They must to keep their high standards competing as they do on in a global market, particularly for academic faculty members, and they cannot act primarily as social engineers. I can hear employers making the same point.
b) Some feel, Oxford and Cambridge for example, that they cannot attract the very brightest of the state sector given their elitist reputation. The Vice Chancellor of Oxford has stated that this is one of his top two issues (the other is attracting world class academics)
This is a double whammy and the British press regularly runs stories showing that alumni from fee paying schools continue to make up large percentages of top jobs given that there are fewer Grammar schools. Small wonder so many UK parents feel they have to take on the crippling burden of fee paid education which most parents in the rest of Europe are happy to escape. I wonder what the comparable figures for fee paid alumni percentages by job category are in the US and in other European countries? I do not think that Brits do fee paid education for social reasons, it is about getting qualifications and skills which will provide better chances of a high earnings and career advancement.
This situation is made worse in the UK by the influence of London as a place to work since many of the career options above are centred there. Geography can be an important merit and demerit in EB management. The daughter of neighbour is a trainee accountant in a global FMCG company’s London office. In September the employer is moving her to Preston as part of her development. Her first reaction was to leave and get herself into a City accountant practice but to her credit she is going to make the move. It may transform her.
What do I think UK employers should do to demonstrate their contribution to increasing social mobility? I have these suggestions:

1. Redefine ‘Diversity’. Britain has treated diversity as an American import where the topic has been informed by the various US ‘rights’ movements and so the focus has been on Gender, Minority Ethnics, Sexual orientation and the Disabled. This is why it ignores social class which is the biggest cause of exclusion in UK as numerous studies have concluded.
2. Recognise social mobility within their corporate and HR communications. It is not enough just to make the usual equal opportunity commitments none of which capture social mobility
3. Make sure everybody applies on line even for intern jobs. Be seen to make it a really level playing field
4. When an executive is asked to help potential candidates referred by clients, suppliers, friends or relations, ensure that all know the organisation’s stance. Nick Clegg benefitted from personal contact in getting an intern’s job and, while he should have said so, was right to highlight the inequalities of the system. A good message ruined by perceived hypocrisy.
5. Record the school categories for their graduates in the same way that Universities do. Indeed, why don’t University Careers services record graduate employer destinations by secondary school? They have the data and it would save employers the extra bureaucracy
6. Publicise the results. I think we will find that some employers have a very limited balance in secondary school profile and others will be very broad. There is an interesting subject for analysis here – does that balance correlate with corporate performance?
7. Ask recruiters to track secondary education profile on their short lists aspects.
8. Encourage relevant Government departments eg Fast Stream Recruitment to do the same.
9. Persuade the state education establishment to change its aspirations, standards and opportunities it offers all families including those buying private education. Where is the pitch to the latter group?
10. The big one, make private education unfashionable (in many countries the decision to go private is often for non academic reasons and can imply family challenges rather than ambition) and do so by changing state standards. Will David Cameron’s children, who have started in a state primary, continue in the state system? If so, will his government encourage more of his peer group to do the same? Consider the impact on the UK state system if the parental pressure of every FTSE 100 director, journalist, judge, and doctor was focused on it? How would existing school management react? It would redefine the definition of the ‘pushy mum’! A university class mate of mine headed a comprehensive school in North London for some years. He told me how much the school would have gained if he had been able to attract a broader profile from the fee paid day school competitors he faced.

Finally, it is tempting to consider employers who have already built a reputation for both outstanding performance and improving social mobility. Top of my list would be Tesco whose culture has long targeted bright and energetic people with nothing resembling a silver spoon in their mouths. It is an unstated but powerful aspect of their EB

Simon Barrow

Employer Brand Management must work beyond an HR and Communications framework it needs senior management involvement -

Recently, I ran an Employer Brand Management morning workshop in Amsterdam prior to speaking to an EB conference there in the afternoon. The morning session attendees – about 25 in total – were a knowledgeable group of HR, Resourcing and Talent Management professionals with extensive EB experience working in major European and multinational companies.
It became clear from a discussion on achieving brand activation that some EB road blocks existed for this group and I list below the major concerns they had. Here were the top five issues:
1. Lack of strategic intent and common purpose at a corporate level which should drive overall EB thinking and action.
2. Insufficient measurement by management of the key dimensions of the working experience. As one delegate put it 'we are not showing enough evidence of pain in order to achieve the change we need'
3. Continuing disconnect between HR, Marketing and Operations when it comes to the delivery of necessary improvements to ensure that brand activation is implemented
4. Lack of HR leadership and influence on senior colleagues. One verbatim 'who is ultimately responsible for the Employer Brand of our organisation? The HR Director or the CEO?' The CEO is clearly seen to be responsible for the corporate brand (with investors, the media and a major advisers/suppliers etc) and the EB is surely a vital ingredient of that.
5. The widespread perception that senior management usually faces bigger issues than the EB and EB Management at any one time and is driven by short term priorities.
As I said above, this group knew the theory of the EB in that, however important it is to create the messaging and positioning resulting in a stance which is distinctive, compelling and true (easy to say but hard to do), EB branding is only one element of Employer Brand Management. The effectiveness of the latter depends on the ability and influence of the Brand Manager to bring measurement, planning, innovation, change and coherence to the management of the overall employment experience.

To achieve that needs trust, respect and involvement outside any one department. It requires confidence and influence to argue the case for changes which will improve the working experience and which will demand alteration to attitudes, behaviours and processes over which HR has no direct control. That influence needs the direction and support of the whole management group and in particular the CEO. It is this top group who need to ensure that HR actions are integral to the strategy and plans of the whole business. HR is not a race apart.
I learnt this lesson very early in my career when I was a Colgate brand manager. I may have worked hard on the plans for my brand (Colgate Fluoride Toothpaste) but European and later New York management had to approve them having tested the financial, marketing, production, R&D and distribution thinking in demanding and inquisitorial meetings which I have never experienced since. However, all that resulted in an approved budget plan which the whole company had to get behind. The chances of a 27 year old brand manager successfully influencing change are vastly improved when his or her plan has become the approved company plan.
What I believe lies behind the frustrations I listed at the start of this blog is the feeling that Employer Brand Management ought to be like this too but HR ( the obvious place for this approach) is restricted to creating and delivering on projects which can be managed within HR itself. Recruitment marketing and communication is an important part of that remit and the development of an Employer Value Proposition is an important output. However, that is not Employer Brand Management and, while the EVP will result in a more focussed, joined up and improved communications, it will not bring the best of real brand management into a place where it can really make the difference. While some organisations we know are truly demonstrating this way forward, too many are concentrating on what to say rather than what needs doing.

Simon Barrow
Chairman
People in Business Ltd, London

Why are bankers not defending their bonuses better? -an Employer Brand viewpoint

I have not yet been asked to work with an investment bank to assess the impact of the bonus debate on existing employees, potential recruits, investors and other stakeholders. Why are they not using every argument to demonstrate why substantial bonuses are vital and show that successful bankers are heroes rather than greedy ogres?

To date most bankers seem to use just one response to their critics namely that unless restraint is global they will lose their talent to other financial centres. I don’t buy this – successful bankers who have set down roots in London have a full and varied life living in the finest urban property in the world and enjoying the social and artistic life of this great city. Any confidential research amongst bankers and their families would indicate that London is a very hard place to leave.

Why don’t they use much more powerful arguments? All I can conclude is that they do not exist and Sir Philip Hampton’s TV message last week was correct ie yes there are some brilliant people but the rest are journeymen. If so then small wonder that obvious rebuttal points do not get made. Yet, if this is a trade worth defending then they should form a key role in the defence.
Here are a few I have simply made up which if true would make quite a hard hitting defence eg

1. The colossal margins eg such as those which enabled Morgan Stanley to afford $16bn in salaries, bonuses and benefits in 2010 are only achieved by a few outstanding firms. The majority of bankers do not deliver results like these and the corporate and personal career risks are great. As with sportsmen and musicians there are only a few outstanding performers amongst the thousands who take part.

2. The competition for customers is intense. If all bankers earned these margins then the self correcting principles of capitalism would ensure that new competitors would rapidly enter the market and bring margins down.

3. To be a successful banker requires quite extraordinary and rare qualities eg professional skills like accountancy, an MBA, a first degree First and outstanding commercial and interpersonal qualities. This evidence only gets you an interview – the rejection rate is over 90%

4. This is not a long term career and top talent must make money when it can. There is a long time in education and training and then perhaps only 15 years of really productive work. ’50 on Wall Street is old’ really is true.

5. The burn out/drop out rate for Bankers is crippling. The employee turnover rate for qualified bankers is over 35% pa.


If the above were true Bankers rewards would be understandable but presumably none of it is otherwise the average rewards for a large investment bank would be nowhere near the £269,000 per head which Goldman Sachs paid out in 2010. I have just read a glowing report on the level of engagement and commitment in Goldman’s UK business. With such a level of average earnings that is not surprising yet don’t these talented employees sometimes wish that their leaders could defend what they are paid rather better? In the meantime I’d be interested to know what they say to friends and family.

If there are powerful arguments based on the realities of this market then let us hear them - otherwise observers will fill the vacuum with the thought that they really are just overpaid journeymen in a category ripe for change.

Simon Barrow

Why can't Waitrose run our public services?

Now here is a blog about a real Employer Brand


On Christmas Eve, I succeeded in getting a rubbish skip removed; the driver, noticing a Waitrose wine case, said ‘Ah, you’re a Waitrose man’. I mentioned free delivery and competitive prices. `Fair enough’ he said, adding that three members of his family worked for them at Saxmundham; ‘they’re all happy – Waitrose is a good employer.’ When I said I was going there that afternoon, he said `say hello’ to his son Ben in the wine dept.

That visit gave me five positive experiences stemming from helpful advice given in a warm, spontaneous, natural spirit by people who really seemed to be enjoying their jobs. True, it was Christmas Eve, but that’s no guarantee of a benign, constructive response. I remember once doing a student job delivering drink, working with a driver who described the season as ‘nothing more than a f….g booze up ’.

So: why were they all so positive?

- they were working for a successful business – well, so are lots of big retailers but there was something else about working there;
- perhaps because, they are part owners of the business, Waitrose being part of the John Lewis Partnership?
- perhaps because there’s a greater sense of fairness with everyone getting the same percentage bonus on their basic salary? Plus rewards at the top, though handsome, are not at the stratospheric levels in other organisations;
- perhaps, being decently managed, they pass on that sense of decency and work as team players? With Waitrose employees bringing out the best in their customers and vice versa;
- With people like this most of us would think twice before raising a bad tempered voice – you don’t easily lose it with people doing their best. In any case the management's careful planning and implementation probably means there is little to cause rows. This is a disciplined place.

If I had to select the key Waitrose attributes they would be a) the basic human qualities of the people they recruit b) the sense I get that how Waitrose management behave is how they the partners want to behave c) the clarity and expectations of the actual employment experience and the confidence in the strategy on which it is based

As I drove home I wondered why more organisations don’t prompt me to feel this way. If Waitrose ran the railways, local government, education and health would not their employees and their customers be a lot happier? In addition I can think of several commercial businesses where the bedrock of the actual experience does not stand out for all it touches in the way it does here. If you need to spin your way to an Employer Brand you’ll never make it.

Simon Barrow 5th Jan 2011