Brand U people operate under a new set of priorities and protocols. If a customer or employer has dissimilar principles, then Brand U workers often bail. Employers once would guarantee lifetime employment for loyalty. Well, that’s pretty much gone. So the critical question facing all employers is how to establish a new psychological contract with Brand U employees and contractors especially when they must transform themselves frequently.
Brand U’s are especially sensitive to the signals of change. When companies transform themselves, old paradigms and rules are replaced with new rules, expectations, values, and behaviors. Denise Rousseau in the Wall Street Journal called this the “psychological contract, the informal undertaking between worker and employer which is very similar to the informal paradigm for conducting business.” Brand U’s understand and know how to position themselves in the Brand U paradigm shift: