Meet The Team: Allison Gordon

With a passion for people and an interest in marketing, Allison Gordon is the perfect addition to our Green Apple team. In her role as an assistant client relations specialist, Allison supports the needs of our clients by managing many of the day-to-day responsibilities of implementing their marketing strategy. As a 6 on the Enneagram, Allison leverages her innate skills to complete tasks and meet all client requests. Her positive personality and her desire to overcome any obstacle make her an incredible asset at Green Apple.  Allison joined the team in 2022 while pursuing her MS in Marketing from the University of Alabama. After multiple years in the hospitality industry, Allison recognized the impact marketing could make and decided to pursue further education. She found Green Apple through a family friend and quickly realized this was the perfect place to add real-world experience to what she was learning in school. “I love that marketing is universal,” Allison explained when asked about what sparked her interest in the field. “No matter what industry you’re in or what type of message you’re trying to convey, you’re going to need marketing. It provides an opportunity for companies to get creative and be strategic in how they introduce and express themselves to the world in order to grow their business.” As a native of Franklin, TN, Allison enjoys spending time with my friends and family during her free time. Whether she’s trying new restaurants, exploring Nashville, going on walks, attending Titans games, or eating Jeni’s ice cream, Allison is up for just about anything as long as she has good company!

How to Get Your New Hire Up to Speed with Company Culture

team-meeting
We all need someone in our corner. Someone to go to bat for us, to vouch for our character and pure intentions. In the business world, you need an entire team of these people on your side—your internal team.  You might be thinking, We already provide a livelihood for our employees—of course they’re on our side! Sure, money is an instrumental source of encouragement for employees; however, company culture has been proven to be the most significant influence on employee engagement and productivity.  Internal marketing is a brand-building strategy to embrace as your company strives to build brand awareness and strengthen employee trust. Remember: external marketing efforts are only as strong as the confidence and sincerity demonstrated by the employee pitching these services. Here are a few helpful ways to immerse new hires in your company culture to create a productive and cohesive work environment.

A Personalized Experience

The process of job searching, applying to a company, undergoing the interview process, and then accepting a new position, is a very personal experience resulting in life-altering effects in a person’s professional and personal life. Any given employee has different reasons for seeking a position at your company; it could be their dream job that they have used significant resources to finally reach; it could be a much-needed source of income after a time of unemployment; it might even be a complete career-pivot to a new industry in which they’ve been building confidence to take the leap. Whatever an individual’s reasons for accepting a position at your company are, it should be clear that they deserve a personalized onboarding experience, (i.e., not just a quick review of a one-size-fits-all Powerpoint to be reviewed alone in a meeting room). A new hire should be celebrated. They should be individually introduced to other team members, specifically noting who might be a direct resource to them throughout the training process.  Have a virtual team lunch, or maybe send a company-wide introductory email. Your new hire should leave their first day on the job feeling that they are part of something personal and special.

Incorporating Storytelling in your Company Culture

Write down your company’s origin story and share it often. Your employees need to know why leadership is passionate about the work they do, why the quality of their work matters, and why the primary motivating factor of the success of the business is not just monetary. The heart of most every business is the well-being and happiness of the customer—their satisfaction and confidence after conducting business with your company.  Engaging with and improving the lives of other people should always be the foundation of your company’s vision and mission statements. These statements, along with the company origin story, should be regularly referenced within employee onboarding, employee reviews, company-wide email, and social apps.

Employee Trust = Employee Engagement

It’s a no-brainer that the more an employee feels seen and valued, the more engaged they become with the company goals, often becoming brand ambassadors as they speak about the job they enjoy at the company that supports them within their daily interactions.  So, how do you establish this beneficial symbiosis between employee and company? Communication! Specifically, creating multiple two-way channels of management-employee communication is key.  New hires should be able to immediately identify the multiple channels of communication to leadership that are available to them. These channels could take many different forms including:
  • Regular quarterly reviews in which feedback is encouraged
  • Weekly check-ins, especially during the first 6 months of employment
  • Encouraging communication via social apps such as Basecamp or Slack
No matter the mode of communication in place, feedback should always be encouraged during the employee onboarding process. This is a fool-proof way to immediately establish trust with new employees. Internal marketing might initially sound like an extra step or a redundant effort, but we assure you that creating a company culture in which employees feel valued and proud is worth the time and effort. Not only will internal marketing efforts improve productivity rates, but employee retention and satisfaction rates will be organically shared on employee social media and daily interactions. Are you looking to make an internal marketing plan for your business? Contact Green Apple Strategy today to schedule a consultation.