I was listening to a radio report recently about an industrial dispute at a lift company. (I’m not sure whether the description of the strike ‘escalating’ was deliberately tongue in cheek!). Workers were striking because the company had not used the criterion of ‘Last in, First out’ when making employees redundant despite this apparently being the recommendation of the Labour Court.
It got me thinking about how on earth we could ever have accepted this as a reasonable way to decide on redundancies when it is so blatantly inequitable. We certainly wouldn’t accept the hiring of someone on such an irrelevant criterion so why the firing? If we believe in fairness and merit it seems to me that we need to have a scoring system of relevant criteria for the job in question and keep the people who do the job best. If this is someone who has been recently hired so be it. Why should longevity in a job be the sole decider of whether you keep that job?
I’ve written here before of the need for organisations to be strategic in designing CSR volunteering programmes and to consider how such programmes can link with their core skills and core values. I never expected to be holding up a Hollywood (well sort of though he’s obviously stayed close to his roots) actor as a role model but a few weeks ago I heard Gabriel Byrne on the radio and it struck me forcibly that businesses should be emulating his behaviour.
Maybe you heard about the Gateway Ireland project on the news. It’s a website due to be launched for St Patrick’s Day 2011 which will be the first port of call for all things Irish. It’s looking to capitalise on the Irish Diaspora, make them feel more connected to Ireland and through that more likely to be interested in Irish culture, arts, literature and business and in visiting the country. I like the description of ‘electronic embassies’ which are easily accessible.
Having been appointed Ireland’s ‘cultural ambassador’ in March, Gabriel Byrne got involved in the launch of this project and through doing so undoubtedly attracted more column inches, interviews and photos than would otherwise have been the case. He has of course been very active in aiding the development of the Irish Cultural Centre in New York also.
Why do I think this works so well? He’s clearly passionate about the capacity of the project to help Ireland and feels it is something he can do for Ireland, giving back to the country of his birth. We’d all like to feel passion about the volunteering we do and in fact it’s probably a necessity in order to drag us through the obstacles and the days when it’s not going so well. He feels a connection with the audience for this project as an Irishman who has spent much of his life away from Ireland. There is a good fit with his brand image – a serious actor, interested in literature, theatre and the arts. He’s recognised as an Irish actor but one who’s gone international, just as this project wants to. Utilising his brand image brings attention to the project and his core skills of acting and communication can also be used to good effect in promoting this.
So, passion, connection, link with brand, link with core skills. Yes, I think that’s a good model for a CSR volunteering programme.
The release of the movie ‘The Joneses’ has generated a lot of commentary on stealth marketing. For those of you who’ve missed the hype a seemingly perfect family move into a new neighbourhood. They have all the newest gadgets and crazes but it turns out that rather than being a real family they are being paid to create interest in all the branded goods amongst their neighbours. This all seems removed from reality but a recent article in the Sunday Times brings it closer to home describing how jobbing actors are working on the promotional circuit. But worryingly it isn’t always clear that they are working in promotion.
Imagine you’re at the launch of a German beer for example. You get chatting to two friendly young German students. During the conversation they might tell you how delighted they are that this beer is now available in Ireland as it’s their favourite beer from home. How would you feel if you later on overheard them at the bus stop speaking with Irish accents? Foolish, annoyed, duped? – all this and more I suggest. While the beer launch is explicit marketing the chat seems like a chance encounter. We like to know when we’re being marketed to and most people would say we should know when it’s happening.
For me the most shocking part of the Sunday Times article is how surprised the actors are at the annoyance expressed by punters who’ve been taken in. Have they really lost all sense of ethical behaviour in relation to marketing?
What about the agencies that create these campaigns? This seems to me a pretty high risk strategy that could backfire. If people find out about such marketing and feel a brand has set out to dupe them are they really going to feel any loyalty towards that brand?
I was talking with a chap yesterday who works in the telco business. We were chatting about Google Buzz and both of us said the same thing – Who on earth could have thought this was a good idea?
In case you don’t know Google Buzz is a social networking tool set up to piggy back on gmail. There’s an interesting article about it by Karlin Lillington in today’s Irish Times. The problem with the system is that it draws in all the people you most frequently e-mail. I might e-mail my accountant or a business associate a lot but it doesn’t mean I want them in the same social network as my close friends or family. Seems pretty obvious doesn’t it so how come it wasn’t obvious to the Google bods?
Any Google people I’ve ever met seemed to be sound thinkers with a passion for their business and a real sense of trying to do things right. So what went wrong? Were they so desperate to get on the social networking bandwagon that they ignored common sense? Was there a boss pressing so hard for results that it was easier to give in? Were they so caught up with enthusiasm for the idea that they simply didn’t stop to think of the downsides?
I was talking with a business consultant last week who specialises in helping businesses where conflict between management and staff has escalated - he's a kind of human resources fireman. We agreed that when times were good businesses could paper over the cracks usually by throwing money at a problem or at least agreeing concessions to make the problem go away for the moment. They can't do this now and consequently this man told me he'd never been so busy. He also said he's been quite amazed at some of the poor management behaviour he has encountered.
It got me thinking. So many companies have cut their training budget and have cut back on the training suport they give managers when ironically they actually need to be offering more support. On the surface it appears to be an easy saving but it's probably costing these firms far more in terms of settlements and poor output. And paying for the 'fire crew' as well of course!
