For any company, finding a way to align company values with the employee’s personal values might be the key to become a great place to work for. This is something that some managers know and others don’t or completely ignore. In the article, when I refer to the company I actually mean the managers in that company, because they are the decision makers.

Company values

Why do big companies define values like “customer focus” or “ethics”, “collaboration” or “ownership”? How much do these values worth to the employees?
Most companies assume that the employees have to take for granted the defined values. They think that when an employee signs the contract, he or she also accepts the company values without question. Actually these values have to be presented to the employees, in a way that they understand; not just simple words, but real values.

Personal values

Each employee has personal, very important values. Some want to be great technical persons, some want to be good advertisers, others want to be good managers, others just want to be left alone while they work, and so on. We all have personal values which we use day by day and which are very important to us. These personal values almost always differ from the companies values. A good manager know that these values have to be aligned somehow to the companies values. And not to all of the companies values, but to a part of them. Even to one company value is a good accomplishment.

How do we align the company values with the employee’s personal values?

Most managers try to make the employees believe in all the companies values. Instead, they should try to align one or two of the company values with the personal values of each employee. The manager’s purpose is to create a great environment to work in, so if the employee feels helped and encouraged to grow in something he or she thinks it’s important, than that’s the way to go. This might be the key to having a good and motivated team.

What is a blog?

A blog (short for web log) is a personal web site where you write stuff on an ongoing basis. It can be used as a personal diary, a collaborative space, a political space, a collection of links or memos to the world. New stuff shows up at the top and your readers can read what’s new and they can comment on your posts.

How can a blog be used?

Blogs are used by all types of people, they are used by journalists, they are used by politicians, they are used by CEOs, they can be used by anyone and there are several platforms out there which offer free blogging services (blogger.com, wordpress.org) or payed blogging services
(typepad.com).

What companies use corporate blogging?

In 10/05/06, 40 (8%) of the Fortune 500 companies were using blogs. Either external or internal, blogs are not new to the corporate world. Some well known companies which use blogging are AMD, Amazon, Cisco, eBay, HP, Intel, Dell, Ford, Motorola, Nike, Oracle, Texas Instruments, Xerox, Verizon, Yahoo, IBM, Microsoft, Macromedia, Google, Disney, GM, Sun, etc.

They use it either externally (for customer support, PR) or internally for communication and collaboration.

What can corporate blogging be used for?

Corporate blogging can be used for Customer support, PR (media relations), Internal management, Recruitment, Knowledge Management. It can be used for communication between different departments, it can be used for communication between management and employees, it can be used for communication between HR and employees, it can be used as technical platform for developing ideas, collaboration, customer support. Many companies use email for customer support. But not all people are good at organizing emails. It might be hard to track down an entire discussion which extends on several emails. With blogging, you can see on a single web page the entire discussion. Several may jump into the discussion and
the solution may be found even faster.

So called risks?

Companies using corporate blogging expose themselves to their employees (when used internally) and to their customers (when used externally). This might be interpreted as a risk because it’s hard to control what an employee writes on the blog. That employee is the administrator of his own blog so he has the power to post anything he wants; he can write about his believes, his frustrations, his accomplishments, anything. So Starting to use corporate blogging might be seen as a risk because a company should start using it only if it’s prepared to handle the transparency brought by it. Otherwise it might become chaotic and hard to control. Though used wisely can improve a lot the collaboration and communication inside a company.

Resources

A very good book on blogs is Jeremy Wright’s Blog Marketing.
Also, you can see a nice article about corporate blogging here.
The Fortune 500 Business Blogging can be found here.