Staff members don’t work with devotion or expend energy on something they do not believe in or agree with. If there is an effective match between their interests and those of the company, or if their values and the company’s values align, they will be engaged and will work with greater commitment and dedication towards realizing the brand objectives. Identification with the corporate mission is the most important motive for them to dedicate themselves actively to corporate objectives and to maximize their potential.

When an employee’s personal brand is compatible with the corporate brand, the results will be higher brand equity, brand loyalty, and happy stakeholders. Doing work related to your personal and corporate brand that is interesting, exciting and provides learning opportunities has become a key personal driver. The emphasis here lies in intrinsic motivation, which is inherently pleasurable and arises from within; most people do something because they enjoy doing it and love it.

Aligning personal brand with the corporate brand has an impact on organizational bonding of the employees. This energizes them and gives them the proud feeling that they count, that they are appreciated as human beings and that they make a useful and valuable contribution to the organization. Employees are stimulated to commit and focus on those activities that create value for customers and shareholders. This will create a strong foundation of peace and stability upon which creativity and growth can flourish, and life within the company will become a more harmonious experience. This has an important impact on employee engagement. Lack of engagement is endemic, and is causing large and small organizations all over the world to incur excess costs, underperform on critical tasks, and create widespread customer dissatisfaction.

There are 22 million actively disengaged employees in America, according to Gallup. Their dissatisfaction is manifested in employee absence, illness, and a variety of other big and small problems that occur when people are unhappy at work. Gallup statistics show that unhappy workers cost the U.S. business economy up to $350 billion annually in lost labor productivity, and that earnings per share increase 2.6 times more if employees are engaged.

By aligning and synchronizing employee’s ambition and brand with their corporate ambition and brand you can realize the ‘best fit’ between employee and company. Matching the personal brand with the corporate brand has to do with reaching a higher degree of compatibility between personal and corporate objectives and mutual value addition (as shown in Figure 1). A 2007 study by CO2 Partners found that 30% of US workers’ values are out of sync with their employer’s values. In 2005, Towers Perrin found that instead of matching the right employee to the right position for long-term success, most U.S. companies and HR departments put the emphasis on simply filling the position as quickly as possible. As a result, American businesses are losing money as fast as they are losing employees.

It has become essential to get the optimal fit between the personal brand and the corporate brand in order to enhance labor productivity and to stimulate engagement, commitment, love, and passion in the company. This has to do with reaching a higher degree of compatibility between personal and organizational objectives and mutual value addition. People do not work with devotion or expend energy on something they do not believe in or agree with. Clarity and uniformity of personal and organizational values and principles are therefore essential for the active involvement of employees.

Towers Perrin also found that while many employees are keen to contribute more, the behavior of their managers and culture of their organizations is actively discouraging them from doing so. It shows that there is a vast reserve of untapped "employee performance potential" that could drive better financial results if only companies could tap into this reserve.

Managers and employees should be encouraged to articulate and formulate their personal brand and to let them reflect about the balance between their own personal brand and the corporate brand. Consider holding a personal branding meeting between a line-manager or superior and employees. This could be an informal, voluntary and confidential meeting, at least once every two months, preferably more often. The outcome of these informal meetings should be highly confidential and should be kept out of the personnel file and not be used against the employee.

The line-manager or supervisor plays a crucial role in worker well-being and engagement. During the alignment process, the manager should act as a trusted and informal coach and provide social support to the employees by being a good listener, providing help, and being someone the employee can rely on. This will help employees clarify if their personal brand and those of the company or brand are in harmony, and where they are in conflict and there is an opportunity to forge a stronger connection to the brand values and goals.