free-range communication » crazy things companies do

you can be as thin as a holocaust survivor: health promotion gone horribly, horribly wrong

fran — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 17:45:03 +0000

in an unbelievable and deplorable stunt, a dubai gym used this image in an ad campaign.

on their twitter stream, you’ll see them explain that “the creative guy has been told where to go.” and “the campaign remit was to provoke…not upset.” and my personal favorite, “it was posted without being properly checked.”

i’m struggling to comprehend what this campaign remit included that would lead anyone to make a connection between weight loss and the holocaust.

the circuit factory moved rapidly to make amends, but some things should never happen in the first place.

laid off by phone? believe it.

fran — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 13:35:50 +0000

“All 16,000 employees of Everything Everywhere, the mobile phone company created by the merger of Orange and T-Mobile, were told last month whether or not their jobs were safe at mass meetings across the country.

Up to 1,200 middle managers and back office staff who could lose their jobs by the end of the Christmas holidays were shown a red light and told they were ‘at risk’. Other staff saw the light go yellow, which meant they must re-apply for their existing job. Some 30pc of these roles face the axe under current proposals.

A blue light indicated their job had been ‘mapped’ into the new business plan and were being kept on. A green light showed the creation of a limited number of new roles.

The presentations were made in public in front of between 30-60 colleagues. Some employees are thought to have had no idea that their jobs were at risk before the humiliating public meeting. One employee said: ‘Some of the people got up and walked straight out of the room, others sat there crying, others were absolutely dumbstruck.’

Everything Everywhere said: ‘Wherever possible, members of our senior management team explained the proposed changes at face-to-face meetings to ensure teams received the information consistently and had the opportunity to ask questions.’”

some things can’t be made up— or believed.

are you up for the challenge? BP’s careers tagline says it all

fran — Tue, 25 May 2010 10:22:51 +0000

thanks, BP, for perfectly demonstrating the concept behind the saying “everything communicates.”

just three years ago, BP unveiled a new logo to exemplify their passion and commitment for the environment. yet here we are today, with BP’s oil jeopardizing our waterways, fish, jobs, health. their logo and status as impassioned protector of the earth have become a joke, even if it’s no laughing matter. that’s because there’s a serious breakdown between what they want us to believe about them and what they’re doing.

what they’re doing

in case you’ve missed any of the woeful tale, i’ll run down the basics:

the spill took place on april 20, 2010. first reports were of 1,000 barrels a day leaking into the gulf of mexico. latest estimates are 5,000. and even that’s being questioned.

on may 6, BP admitted they were looking for good solutions, and it appears they still are. they’ve gone from sucking the oil into a ship to using a toxic chemical to clean up the toxic mess to now trying something called a top kill, since hair wasn’t going to cut it. they’ve set up a site to crowdsource ideas (one of the first times I’m leery of crowdsourcing), and others have jumped in as well. the media may have laughed, but BP graciously (graspingly?) accepted kevin costner’s offering of his ocean therapy machines. each new idea seems increasingly preposterous, so much so that jon stewart and stephen colbert don’t need to add punch lines. the ideas, or lack thereof, stand as one.

rather than standing up, being frank, and taking the hit (see zappos), BP’s wasted time and trust pointing fingers at their partners and offering fisherman work in return for relinquishing their rights to future legal action and to speaking out on what they see.

what they’re communicating

for the sake of argument, let’s say BP eventually stems the flow of oil and fashions a cleanup that rectifies some of the damage threatening louisiana’s marshes and wildlife, plus surrounding gulf states. what then? their PR, marketing, and leadership team have been feverishly making the rounds to ensure that customers’, investors’, and employees’ loyalties stay with them, and that we continue to see BP as the careful steward of the earth they imagined themselves—or willed us to believe―when they created their new image.

guess what? the jig is up. not only do all their above actions communicate their true culture and interests, but so does this gem from an in-depth report:

“The lack of available technology, however, was forewarned in multiagency reports following the training exercises—reports that cautioned the oil industry would not spend the money to develop new containment solutions unless mandated by the government. The recommendation went unheeded, according to officials and experts.”

everything communicates. and what BP’s communicated is that they don’t care about the earth. they don’t care about the communities where they work. they don’t care about investing in proper planning and preparation, which could’ve potentially prevented all of this. i won’t comment on their people, other than to express sympathy for the family and friends of the eleven who’ll be memorialized this week.

BP’s troubles have nothing to do with social media spilling their poor leadership everywhere. their troubles are the age-old ones of message not matching actions. that logo BP so painstakingly refashioned is now the emblem of their missteps and misdeeds (witness greenpeace UK’s BP logo redesign contest). i wish BP good luck cleaning up this branding mess, and i hope it goes better for them than the physical one they’re currently mopping up. i also wish them well in attracting new talent. their “are you up for the challenge?” tagline is no exaggeration.

crazy things companies do #2: let hr policies drive away customers

fran — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 13:09:13 +0000

karen works in the post office four blocks from my house. she’s an institution in my neighborhood. she’s friendly. informed. incredibly patient. she has a brother, and loves prince and roller coasters. i don’t visit her often, but when i do, it’s always a pleasure.

the reason i know so much about karen is because her slot at the homely post office is chock-a-block full of her personality. there’s the photo of her at dorney park, screaming while on a rollercoaster. the purple needlepoint tissue cover with prince’s emblem. another photo of her and her brother hamming it up with celebrity wax figures. and many other personal effects.

and truly, i’m not so daft as to enjoy going to the post office. the lines are agonizingly long and the environment—excluding karen’s cheery spot—miserable. but somehow, karen rises above all of this. every day, day after day, she stands within her carefully crafted haven and guides mail-challenged people like me (should i send it certified, express mail, insured mail, or registered mail?!) to the right solution—no more, no less. and amidst the anger and irritation that accompanies any post office experience, she maintains a level disposition i’ll never know.

if you were her boss, what would you do: cheer her on? instruct her to train others? give her a raise?

here’s what her boss did. he told her to clean up her act. literally. box up that tissue cover. strip down the walls. pack away those photos. seems the policy manual frowns on personal effects as unsuitable décor for a government institution.

i don’t visit karen anymore. turns out what made visiting her worth the extra blocks and the wait was her flair. now i visit the independent competitor a half block from my house, the one that never has a line, lets me drop off boxes and, if i’m in a hurry, come back to pay when it suits my schedule. they call my house when they receive a package for me and provide other concierge-like services that help me get over the premium they charge.

imagine. all this time i added hassle to my life because of karen’s uniqueness.

here’s the point: we think our hr policies affect only those within the company’s walls. but these policies also create barriers between companies and their customers, stripping them of that little sumthin’ sumthin’ that keeps customers coming back.

ciao, karen. tell your boss it was real.

crazy things companies do #1: miscalculate who’s on the interviewing roster

fran — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 12:09:40 +0000

dedicated to my friend, whose story sparked the idea for an ongoing telling of unbelievable workplace blunders.

a few weeks back, one of my friends ran the interviewing gauntlet at a global hr consultancy that aims to be the high priestess of employee engagement.

my friend was midway through the endless interview process when the next person in the lineup came in. things kicked off normally enough, with some informal banter leading into what it’s like to work there.

which is precisely when the interviewer burst into tears.

she wailed about how horrible things were for her at the firm. how she’s overworked and stressed. how management’s unsupportive. how she’s not liked by her team. and how deadly the office environment is.

was my friend saved by this woman’s honesty? or was the firm’s high priestess reputation unjustifiably tarnished by one unhappy soul? we’ll never know. my friend maintained her composure until she could hightail it out of there.

that’s more than can be said for me. i’m still LMAO. as, sadly, would be any candidate.