The Best & Worst of Employer Branding: August 2022
Welcome to September. It’s my birthday this month and that’s all that matters. OK, and maybe employer branding. Let’s look back on a hellaciously temperature-hot August.
The best
Public-sector employees have new developments to celebrate. In August’s employer brand rankings, I highlighted four areas where public employees gained purchase.
In Richmond, VA, teachers got signing bonuses and coverage for moving costs, a small school district in North Carolina opened an on-site childcare center with fees below the market average, employees in the state of California are about to help the state prepare to (possibly) pay reparations to descendants of enslaved people, and in Houston, TX, city employees are getting emergency preparedness training to help protect themselves and the community in the midst of public disasters.
Government-endorsed changes like these are so important. Though it’s valuable for private employers to provide things like paid leave and higher wages, it’s even more valuable when those benefits and perks come from the government. Though these developments benefit only public employees at the moment—it indicates government support for better labor practices. If we can get state, city, and municipal governments on board, we’re closer to better legislative regulation for the private sector as well.
And for everyone out there: Consider worker protections as you vote in midterm elections this November.
The worst
Could a rotten public persona take down a company?
Dan Price, social media celebrity and founder of Gravity Payments, resigned as the company’s CEO in mid-August after several different women accused him of sexual assault. Price says these things never happened.
Karen Weise reported for The New York Times that Price was charged with reckless driving, assault, and assault with sexual motivation in Seattle earlier this year. The latter charge has since been dropped. Price hasn’t gone to trial yet.
Weise’s article on Price’s purported behavior is damning, and includes detailed accounts from several women, including Price’s ex-wife, who say he assaulted them.
Stories like this one illustrate the danger of making a company leader the face of the employer brand: At best, humans make ugly mistakes that make themselves and the company look bad. At worst, they commit terrible, violent crimes, as it looks like Dan Price has done.
The cult of personality can fell a company quickly. If Gravity Payments is to survive this blow to its reputation, the company will have to quickly and bluntly divorce itself from Price’s persona. This may prove difficult because the principles Price espoused on social media were good ones. His fair pay, anti-corporate greed, and pro-worker messages have been the foundation of the company’s employer brand. His posts have always seemed progressive, albeit a little canned (they are ghostwritten). The problem is that they now sound chillingly hollow.
Not that we’re getting a sense of who this person really is, it’s hard to read those ideas as anything but manipulative. It will be hard to not hear messages that come from Gravity Payments in Price’s voice.
Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza writes about workplace culture, DEI, and hiring. Her work has appeared in Fast Company, From Day One, and InHerSight, among others.
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