Reputation Management Through People. The Case of the Romanian Banks

This article analyzes the involvement of human resources in rebuilding trust and building reputation in Romanian banks. Numerous researches in the field of marketing or communication emphasize the importance of reputation for an organization. In addition, modern theories of the “new economy” show the connection between human resource management and reputation. These encourage the transformation of employees into “ambassadors” of the company, although they recognize the challenges that arise with the implementation of this process. With the help of in-depth half-structured interviews with 30 employees of the main banks in Romania, we tried to investigate whether the reputation is an objective assumed by them. At the same time, we aimed to analyze the stage of involvement of human resources in reputation management. Although the study has a subjective character given by the type of research, namely, the qualitative one, we can conclude that the financial-banking institutions in Romania seek to build a positive reputation but fail to outline authentic, clear and efficient employee branding processes. Although employees in Romanian banks can become extremely valuable resources, they are limited and strongly controlled instead of being encouraged to become a voice inside and/or outside the company. This article contributes to the study of human resource management and makes the connection between reputation management and people management. At the same time, the article offers relevant perspectives that can be taken into account by Romanian banks in order to strengthen their reputation through their employees.