I've just started the book Punching In by Alex Frankel. It's subtitled "The Unauthorized Adventures of a Front-Line Employee" and it's a typical US-airport-business-book, lots of short chapters and personal anecdotes. However, the central premise is a very interesting one for internal communicators. It may not have the rigour of an academic book, but it is a rare example of someone taking the ethnographic approach to corporate culture. Frankel took front line jobs with some famous service companies (e.g. UPS, Starbucks) and lived the employee experience, attempting to understand the nature and power of the corporate culture and experience the employee engagement.
This is very important to internal communicators who often deal with the internal brand and justify communications programs in terms of employee engagement. We all talk about these things and there are measurements made and descriptions written for management, but I'm not aware of many descriptions of engagement from the point of view of the employee at the coalface.
As such, I would highly recommend this book, although I would point out a few caveats:
1) It's not just an ethnographic story, it's also about the author finding a deeper understanding of himself. He's quite a sympathetic character, but he does seem a bit spoiled in his life up to this point and his reactions to "life at the coalface" can feel a bit banal, especially for those of us who can remember working in such roles.
2) It is an American book about American companies and American people. Engagement isn't the same breed of bird in the UK, but I still think it's interesting.
3) If you read a lot about culture, you'll wish the author spent more time on details. This is a set of quick sketches more than a comprehensive expedition.
4) Frankel is relentlessly positive about culture and service work. It might be wise to balance the "boosterism" with a glance at Hochschild's book, The Managed Heart to remind yourself of the more difficult side to service work.
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