How An Employee Can Destroy A Company’s Reputation

In business, your reputation is everything. If you do anything to tarnish your reputation, not only will you bring yourself into disrepute but you may ruin the image of your company too. 

This is something you will likely understand already. But what about your employees? They could destroy your company’s reputation with their actions, even accidentally. 

Consider the following ways in which an employee might destroy a company’s reputation and then speak to your employees to ensure they don’t damage your business. 

#1: Breaking the law

If your employee breaks the law outside of your business, your company might not be affected by their criminal activity. But if they break a business law while working for your company, there is a strong chance that your business reputation will suffer if this law-breaking becomes public. 

How could your employee break the law? Well, they might accidentally destroy an important business document that could one day be needed as evidence in a court case. Or they might come up with a product idea that you take on board and later discover that it has already been patented.

Your employee could also break the law if they play background music in your office space or store if you haven’t obtained a music licence. For more information on this point, we recommend this article on how to legally play music in your workplace.

These are just some of the ways in which an employee could break the law. Our advice? Speak to a lawyer so you’re au fait with business laws and pass on the information you have learned to your workforce. 

#2: Publishing harmful comments/posts on social media

Social media is a great way to form positive relationships with your customers online. But if an employee gets annoyed by a customer comment and responds aggressively, your business reputation will suffer when the customer in question and their network reads what has been written. 

Your business reputation will also suffer if your employee posts distasteful pictures of themselves while wearing a company uniform, or if they create a marketing post that offends a particular minority. 

To avoid these scenarios, give your employees best practice tips on handling negative feedback on social media and have policies in place that rule out certain kinds of online behavior. 

#3: Offending clients

If your business is reliant on the clients you work with, the last thing you want to do is offend them. But an employee might get on their bad side if they constantly turn up late for client meetings or if they say something that is likely to get a bad reaction from the client.

It’s important to give your employees a list of do’s and don’ts when dealing with clients so they don’t do anything that could damage the reputation of your business. 

Finally

A bad reputation could lead to business failure so it’s important to be mindful of your actions when running your company. As we have discussed here, it’s also important to consider the actions of your employees. They could damage your business reputation so to alleviate the chances of this, consider the suggestions we have made in this article.