Archive for the 'Branding' Category

Tomorrow is Earth Day.  In honor of it, today, Ben & Jerry’s is having Free Cone Day.  (Okay, it’s more than likely just a coincidence, but the company is very environmentally conscious, and I’d be remiss not to show my support for that by eating some free Chunky Monkey.)

In actual honor of Earth Day, however, CareerBuilder released the results of its latest survey, which found that one in ten employers say they’ve added environmentally focused positions to their companies in the last 12 months.  

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• Posted by: Mary Lorenz on April 21, 2009
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• Categories: Branding, Employee Attraction, Employee Engagement, Going Green, Survey Results

Anyone want to tell Michael Setzer and Kristy Hammonds that Pizza Hut is hiring? No? Just a thought…

On Friday, Pizza Hut announced its opening for a ”twintern”…That is, an intern who uses Twitter and other online networking tools to “be our social media journalist, chronicling in 140 characters or less what’s going on at Pizza Hut,” the company’s VP for marketing communications told The New York Times.

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• Posted by: Mary Lorenz on April 20, 2009
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• Categories: Branding, Employee Attraction, Employee Engagement, Social Media

A co-worker recently pointed me to a very interesting blog post by Phil Johnson, president of PJA Advertising, who writes on Ad Age’s “Small Agency Diary” that his office recently renovated and changed from a closed-office environment to a a completely open floor plan with no private offices, with the goal of creating a truly collaborative work space.

With this, of course, came a bit of a new dilemma: With no doors and no high cubicle walls, everyone could suddenly see what everyone else was doing on the computer. Shoe shopping, twittering, gawking at Facebook photos — the works. So Phil came up with a very clear policy on employees’ Internet usage at work, and shared it with his employees.

The statement? I don’t care what you do on the Internet.

It may seem bold, but he explains his reasoning in this post. And I have to say, he has some great points.

In contrast, Helen A.S. Popkin stresses in a recent MSNBC post that “the Internet is not your BFF,” relating the recent story of a would-be Cisco employee who tweeted post-interview:

• Posted by: Amy Chulik on March 24, 2009
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• Categories: Branding, Economy, Employee Attraction, Employee Engagement, Employee Retention, Events, Generational Hiring, Social Media, Survey Results, Technology

You don’t like to brag, but you do consider yourself an expert interviewer. When mingling with friends at cocktail parties, people tune you out you regale guests with tales from the “Interviewer’s Chair,” as you (and only you) like to call it. Your questions are thought-provoking, revealing, on point, and even witty (two out of five of last night’s dinner companions agree!).

But wait just a minute. What happens when the tables are turned? Are you prepared for the dozens of questions swimming around in job seekers’ heads — many of them questions you are not in fact prepared to answer? Are you ready for the moment a potential future employee asks the question that makes your head spin as you slump dejectedly in your Interviewer’s Chair, searching for the answer?

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• Posted by: Amy Chulik on March 9, 2009
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• Categories: Branding, Employee Attraction, Employer Advice, Interviewing, Leadership Development, Survey Results

So I noticed Fortune gave its annual “Most Admired Companies” list a bit of a facelift this year: What was once “America’s 50 Most Admired Companies” is now (drumroll) “The World’s Most Admired Companies”! (You heard right, Leichtenstein-based businesses – this year could just be your year to shine.)

Pretty exciting stuff, eh? Sure, until you realize that the company they picked as the most admired company on the entire planet is none other than Apple. As in, the American company Apple.  As in, the American company that was number one last year Apple.  Not that I don’t buy it, but…yeesh, talk about an anticlimax. (Maybe next year, Leichtenstein businesses.) 

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• Posted by: Mary Lorenz on March 6, 2009
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• Categories: Branding, Employee Engagement

It’s 7:45 a.m. on Tuesday morning. As you’re drinking your double espresso and fumbling through a slew of new e-mails, your phone rings.

“Hello?”

“Hi, boss. It’s Steve.”

“Steve, your voice sounds really muffled. Everything okay?”

“Um, not really. You see, I’m locked in my car trunk. That’s right – I am calling you from the inside of my car trunk. I’m not going to be able to make it into work until I get out of here.”

Hmm. You’ve never got that phone call from an employee? Well, chances are you’ve heard a similarly outlandish excuse at some point. Workers have a slew of crazy excuses for being late to work, and “I got locked in my car trunk by my son” tops our most recent survey of over 8,000 workers. According to the survey, 20 percent of workers arrive late to work at least once a week, up from 15 percent in last year’s survey. One in ten (12 percent) said they are late at least twice a week.

The most popular “standard” reasons for running late are due to traffic (33 percent); lack of sleep (24 percent); and getting the kids ready for school or day care (10 percent). Public transportation woes, wardrobe issues (not of the Janet Jackson-malfunction kind), and dealing with pets are also also common reasons.

But mixed in with those “common” reasons are those that are, well, a bit more odd.

• Posted by: Amy Chulik on February 24, 2009
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• Categories: Branding, Generational Hiring, Leadership Development, Survey Results