Leslie Gaines-Ross, chief reputation strategist at PR firm Weber Shandwick, has emailed me three tips for companies that want to escape the general revulsion felt for big business in a recession.

I paraphrase:

• Handle job losses fairly and transparently;
• Emphasise how safe your products and/or services are;
• Engage with bloggers and those who post comments on blogs.

To illustrate tip number one, she cited as a model of straightforwardness Howard Schultz’s recent memo to Starbucks staff announcing layoffs.

Hmm: I’ve seen worse, but his prose didn’t exactly strike me as a model of plain speech, particularly when it talked of the need to “aggressively re-architect our cost structure” (he does, at least, spell out elsewhere in the memo that this means cost-cutting).

When I raised these concerns, Ms Gaines-Ross stood by her initial judgment:

He coupled the corporate-speak with attention to why the company needs layoffs, how he intends to keep the company’s founding values and employee benefits.

She said it was also interesting that the internal memo was published on the internet for the world to see, meaning that there was no need for leaks or innuendoes.

Any thoughts from the floor?

February 27, 2009 11:24am in Governance/CSR, Hard times | Comment