Employees are the brand

In a recent British Airways’ employee magazine, the cover article featured a story about the new boarding pass system for mobile phones. Unfortunately, it was not the new system that caught global media attention, but instead the cover image. This blunder may make people think this new system isn’t safe, or that British Airways is not an alert airline, or perhaps they are just incredibly insensitive. British Airways says it may have been sabotaged internally by a disgruntled employee, which is no excuse. Bottom line: employees are your brand, in good times and bad; and no matter what, expect all communications including your company name or brand could appear online. All companies go through hard times, but taking the time to align employees and communicate internally may save a lot of headaches moving forward.