"The CEO is dead, long live the ceo" the Ian Buckingham column.A brand is nothing but a set of physical guidelines, a logo, strapline and empty promises - without employee engagement. Regardless of the cost of brand development, employees hold the answer to successful return on investment. The current global economic downturn is as much the result of a failure within leading brands to develop requisite culture as it is the result of inadequate regulation or misdirected financial practice. It's about time the HR community reinvented itself after decades of process management and cost control focus to rise to the challenge of proactively taking control of the internal culture and linking this to the development of the brand. 

We are entering an age when the lip service paid to employee engagement may finally be backed up with genuine empowerment and HR may even acquire a frontline role in the economic recovery. How can I make such an assertive comment at this time, when it's clearly an employer's market and even the best people are obsessed with subsistence rather than self actualisation? Well, I've seen the power of true employee engagement in practice many times and it not only drives income and cuts costs, but it saves lives.

But what is employee engagement?Employee engagement is an increasingly abused term, but for me it describes a state of deep understanding and active and passionate pursuit of the goals of the business as an act of free will. Engagement, unlike push communication, is not something that can be conscripted or forced. Engagement stems from involvement and is the product of people willingly listening, buying into, supporting and then initiating actions that are "on brand". They do that when they can relate to what is being communicated and the most likely way to bring that about is to connect with their values, aspirations and beliefs.

The importance of valuesIt is only possible to understand what "on brand" is if the behavioural aspects of a brand are at least as clearly articulated for the internal audience as the physical brand attributes. Traditionally these behavioural aspects include the brand values. However, the perpetuation of additional value sets by the HR and organisation development functions, for example, complicates the overall brand landscape. The notion of an employer brand that is somehow different from the brand represented to customers is a further complication and threat to effective brand development.

All too commonly, culture management and values and behaviour programmes operate independently of brand development initiatives. The result is the development of an internal organisation culture which is at odds with the image projected to the external market. It's the equivalent of officially sanctioned behavioural brand creep and can lead to the type of brand disasters we've recently seen in the financial markets.But if you're one of the avant garde, those courageous internal change agents who can rise above the "nay sayers", can see through the doom and gloom and who has an eye for the opportunities that these times present, why not try the following: 

5 steps to valuing your values

1. Make sure you promote an early alliance between the lead sponsors of the internal and external facing parts of the business (typically HR and Marketing)
2. Carry out a culture, values and behaviours audit to understand the prevailing way things get done within the business
3. While you're doing this work with the top team to build a profile of the type of culture, people and processes you're going to need to get things done in the future (this calls for a timeline of 3-5 years, not the 18 month rollercoaster we've become accustomed to)
4. Contract with internal and external stakeholders to re-negotiate expectations and re-frame delivery timelines according to this new 3-5 year plan rather than quarterly reporting cycles
5. Devise and implement a comprehensive organisation development strategy with key deliverables linked to the vision, strategy and brand and deliverables including:

-          identification and re-design of all key people processes

-          explicit focus on values and behaviours

-          revolutionising internal communication and basing the strategy around the values

-          adopting a values-led leadership model

Don't make the common mistake of trying to carry out some form of internal "coup de tat". Clearly this will all need to be owned by the CEO and senior team and will need inspirational change management. But one of the few benefits of a crisis is that the need for change is there for all to see. 

Although turnover may be under pressure this is just the time to focus on both doing things better AND doing better things, one of the best strategies for slowing the pace of the inevitable loss of confidence that comes from underperformance is to empower employees to work on strategies to prepare for the upturn. It's certainly not the time for doing nothing.

Working on the powerful intangibles, the behaviours associated with your brand can yield powerful returns for comparatively little cost. Let's face it - there's nothing attractive about the alternative, metaphorically crouching in a corner like the skipper of a doomed corporate submarine, desperately hoping the engine will re-start yet bracing for the messy impact of "rock bottom".

Ian Buckingham is a brand and employee engagement specialist and the widely published author of Brand Engagement - How Employees Make or Break Brands. He also runs, Bring yourself 2 work (http://www.by2w.co.uk/new.html a UK based consultancy of brand and engagement specialists.