For most business owners, maintaining a brand identity is a concern during an acquisition or merger. This is obviously important from a consumer standpoint; however, brand identity also has an effect on employee retention according to recent research.
One study showed that the most important factor of brand identity for employees was consistency between a brand’s claims and its actions. For example, if your business positions itself as a family-oriented firm, inflexible work hours or other contradictory policies will be the most important factor in employees’ perception of the brand. For anyone who has been in business, this is a pretty obvious observation.
What’s really notable about this study, besides its cursory observations on the importance of the various elements of a brand on employees, was its findings that these attitudes towards brand elements had an actual impact on employee retention rates. While this is something people might be skeptical of, the study did show a correlation between intentions to quit and actions that went against company branding.
For more information, see Tony Edward’s and Martin Edward’s “Employee Responses to Changing Aspects of the Employer Brand Following a Multinational Acquisition” in Human Research Management vol. 52 issue 1 (2013).
