The brand-developing process centers on the messages the organization sends and the processing of those messages in its employees’psyches.

Employee branding is a process by which employees internalize the desired bran dimage and are motivated to project the image to customers and other organizational constituents. The messages employees take in and process influence

• the extent to which they perceive their psychological contracts with the organization to be fulfilled
• the degree to which they understand and are motivated to deliver the desired level of customer service

In so doing, they drive the formation of the employee brand. The messages employees receive must be aligned with the employees’organizational experiences if the psychological contract is to be upheld. Therefore, the conscious development of organizational messages is the fundamental building block in this process.

The messages must then be delivered through appropriate message sources.The following guidelines provide a starting point in this process:

1. Organizational messages should be carefully thought out and planned in much the same way mission and vision statements are thought out and planned.
2. The organizational messages should reflect the organization’s mission and values.
3. Messages directed toward external constituencies must be in line with the messages sent to employees.
4. Messages directed toward external constituencies should be sent internally as well.
5. The design of recruitment and selection systems should incorporate messages that consistently and frequently reflect the brand and organizational image.
6. The compensation system should incorporate messages that consistently and frequently reflect the brand and organizational image. For instance, managers in organizations that value training must be held accountable when they fail to train and develop their employees.
7. Training and development systems should help managers and employees internalize their organization’s mission and values and help them understand how the mission and values pertain to their roles in their organization.This should enable them to more effectively articulate messages that consistently and frequently reflect the brand and organizational image.
8. Advertising and public relations systems should communicate messages that consistently and frequently reflect the brand and organizational image.
9. Managers should be taught the importance of communicating messages that are consistent with their organization’s mission,vision, policies, and practices.
10. Performance management systems should address inconsistencies between practices and policies to minimize violations of employees’ psychological contracts.
11. Accurate and specific job previews should be given to new employees so that realistic expectations are incorporated into their psychological contracts.
12. Corporate culture (artifacts, patterns of behavior, management norms, values and beliefs, and assumptions) should reinforce the messages employees receive.
13. Individual output should be measured and analyzed to determine if there are message-related problems at the departmental, divisional, or organizational levels.
14. Individual messages should be continually examined for consistency with other messages.
15. Message channels should be examined to ensure consistency of message delivery.
16. In the event that messages need to be changed or psychological contracts altered, organizations must take careful steps in rewriting the messages.
17. Measures should be used to assess outcomes such as customer retention, service quality, turnover, and employee satisfaction and performance