I have to thank one of our local churches once again for providing the ammunition for this post. They had on their electronic message board in the front of the church yesterday the message “Behavior is the mirror in which we show our image.” I fully understand to whom the message was intended; however when we dig deeper into the message the same concept can be brought to our organizations.

I have recently returned from the HR Florida state conference in which several presenters talked about being the preferred employer (i.e. Employer of Choice). That is in itself a worthwhile goal, but what does it really mean to the general public who are our customers? We become the preferred employer because of the image we present to the marketplace. We present the image that we are great place to work. We present the image that we are an ethical place to work. The problem maybe, that under the surface, we are not what we seem to be.

Just in the past few days there has been a case where a CEO told an employee that she was too fat and old to be with customers. As a CEO in today’s marketplace you are challenged to find good employees. Not by your view of wha tgood is, but ones that can perform the duties of the position. Since this has been all over the web, are they still lily to be the preferred employer?

I receive the RSS feed every day from the EEOC regarding legal actions they have taken and they read like every organization is a bad apple. We hear of examples of outright sexual harassment of employees; retaliation when the employee complains and outright discrimination in hiring. I understand these situations are not anything new. But the question it brings to the forefront is if our behavior is the mirror that show our image, then what does the mirror tell the marketplace who we are? What does the mirror tells us about whether we deserve to be the preferred employer in our industry? As an organization we need to carefully review our behavior towards our employees, our suppliers, our customers and to each other as human beings. We need to ensure that the behavior matches the image we want to present to our marketplace.