Want your staff to support 'The Company'?

In my previous post I talked about how the company/corporate values matter and that you really should be seeking to fully engage your staff in setting those values. The reasons WHY are numerous and I attempted to layout those backing reasons. One of the items that I didn't discuss in that post - what happens when you ask the staff to 'hype' the organization in public forums.

At many times in my career - the companies that I have worked with have requested that I spend time using my personal online persona in supporting, retweeting, reenforcing the various interests (hint: and values of) of the company. They may request that I repost - like - or other wise 'bump' a specific post to enable it to have a larger reach and larger impact on the platform in question. This request has come to me in a myriad of forms over time and has involved one or more of the following platforms:

Linked In, Google Reviews, Facebook, Glassdoor, hiring/personnel sites, etc.

Here is the thing though, if I want to be seen and feel as if I am being true to myself AND in public be understood to be supportive of and aligned with a certain set of values, then I have to also believe that the corporate values and things that I would be 'bumping' for that organization also align with those values. e.g. I want to be seen and understood to be true to myself, and true to a certain set of values. If by supporting the company in bumping content and posts I am betraying those values because I feel the corporate values are either unaligned or are made empty because i was not offered the opportunity to buy into them... then I won't be doing any bumping. Being requested to 'help' the company doesn't help me if what I am supporting is contrary to who I am or the persona I am attempting to portray. In the best case scenario - I am granted the ability to essentially 'ignore' the request to support the specific company posts. In the worst case - the company makes supporting them a part of my review and part of the determination for raises and promotions. As I said in my previous post - how we win matters and if you couldn't bring me on board with the values of the company and work to get me aligned and involved with those then mandating I take an action that affects my personal / social credit is going to fail at best and be harmful at worst.

It should also be noted - that having the staff bought into the values will allow them to continue to be supportive of the organization long after they are no longer on the staff.  How the staff interacts with the Organization when they leave voluntarily matters. As a company writing and then having them sign documents when they leave that they will not directly impact the companies reputation is a cop out to the idea that you should be working to gain them as net supporters rather than net detractors while they are working for you. Not everyone will be a super supporter - but better to be over 50% of the staff supporting you then having the broom on the floor again and asking people to jump over it.

You want your staff helping the company grow? You want them singing praises to others about working there and how great a situation it is - GET THEM INVOLVED IN YOUR VALUES. Give them reason to support you, not commands to do so.