Why your "best place to work" badge won't survive your next restructuring.

Every so often my LinkedIn feed shows up with one or more of these kinds of announcements:

"We are thrilled to be recognised as a great place to work… or … Proud to be named one of India’s best workplaces" (Before someone comments… I'm guilty of using this corporate spiel too, with many companies I've worked with before :) ). 

Photo by Xavier Praillet on Unsplash

Next, the brand team gets to work, with the badge going up on the careers page, social media being updated, and the signal being sent out to the market that we are credible.

But six months later, come the painful cuts. X% of your workforce is getting laid off. Within hours, posts about the severance appear on Glassdoor, Fishbowl and WhatsApp are peppered with messages from the internet. People become wary of the opportunities from your organisation. Your badge no longer matters.

I’ve seen this happen across sectors for the better part of a decade. But I still see that companies are investing confidently in these signals as some sort of insurance policy against the messy forces of human capital management. I believe they are sorely mistaken.

Though many of India’s prominent employer awards are PR efforts, funded by the very companies they recognise, based on self-selection, run on opaque pricing and function as employer branding products.

I don't think workplace awards are meaningless. Not all; some of these programmes have fairly robust methodologies. For example, few top global certifications combine employee feedback through its Trust Index with an assessment of people practices. Organisations must meet a defined employee-feedback threshold to be certified. 

But the issue isn’t whether companies pay to participate, but what does it tell potential talent?

The snapshot conundrum

At their best, these awards are a snapshot of the culture at one point in time. They are just a signal. Culture is dynamic and can change dramatically over even short periods of time. When layoffs occur, as Glassdoor's pattern analysis noted recently, scores drop drastically and remain down for up to a year, in some cases longer.

If you take the example of 'best' places to work, fourteen of them that dominated and ranked in the top lists for years disappeared, e.g., Nordstrom and AT&T. A CHRO I admire put it best: 'I don't need a list; I need to know what's going on.'

The real question your HR leader needs to ask is what's happening in our culture when the spotlight is on and off.

What does potential talent look for?

It is mentioned across much research that 86% of candidates research your reviews before applying and do so extensively, checking an average of 6 reviews before making a decision. They want to know what it's like to work there, what your peers in the industry are saying, what your employees are saying, and what your former employees are saying on LinkedIn.

They are looking for patterns.

They want to make sure it is the right choice; the bigger thing that they are searching for is 'trust' in your credibility as an employer brand. They want to know your people are treated over time, what kind of culture, and how you react during the period of restructuring or major changes.

71% of job-seekers report that it has positively influenced their perceptions when companies reply to negative reviews. Not because there was a solution, but because you listened. Not the award or the badge, but showing credibility with responses. 

The trust collapse

Something happened in 2025 that will reshape employer branding in the coming years.

In 2025, the Edelman Trust Barometer registered a three-point drop in employer trust, which is significant in the universe of institutional trust. This metric has been one of the most consistent indicators of institutional trust for the past decade, and this is the first draw-down we've seen in employer trust in the history of the barometer's existence.

It coincided with a period of layoffs, return-to-office mandates, and adoption of transformative AI. There was a noticeable increase in 'disconnect' in employee sentiment towards senior leadership, up 24% year-over-year in 2025.

The layoffs happened, and the trust collapsed. None of it was prevented by the awards, none of it was insulated by the badges, and none of it is going to be undone by the next round of executive speeches on culture.

Essentially executives discovered the same lesson that employees had known all along, that there's often a huge disconnect between what the leaders say and employee experience and that culture can change with terrifying speed.

What matters

Like I said earlier, I’m not suggesting that these awards don't matter. They do, but they shouldn't be your priority investment. It can support building one part of a credibility pattern but cannot stand alone to build trust.

Let me tell you what matters and build credibility:

Employees who refer candidates to the company are 4X more likely to convert than other sources. But they also are a trusted source of information; the candidate they have referred has been informed by someone they know and trust. That person knows what to expect because they heard it from someone they believe.

This credibility is earned by building a workplace that your employees are excited to talk about, that they are willing to refer to their network, and that they believe in even in the face of adversity. It means that when your restructuring begins, their willingness to refer doesn't change, because they know that, ultimately, they trust in the long-term vision of your company.

It means during such challenging times, it is more about the people's experience than marketing messages. How you treated people, whether you communicated clearly, offered support, and were honest about difficult choices. These are what matters.

The transparency playbook

When it comes to your own approach, my suggestion is to treat your people as stakeholders, not as spokespeople. The difference between the two is great and defines everything you need to do to recalibrate your approach to employer branding.

Be open and transparent with your people and don’t shroud your strategies in secrecy, especially as you undertake difficult transitions.

It means being real and candid with them about your intentions, even when they are unpleasant, and learning to acknowledge mistakes in the past and changes you are making to course-correct.

It means investing in building a visible employee experience, not a curated one, the kinds of stories your employees tell each other about your leadership during the darkest hours matter far more than the shiny pictures that your marketing team posts on social media. It means investing in your employee advocacy program, with the same level of seriousness as you'd invest in a campaign to win an award.

The inescapable question

Here's the question I want HR leaders to think about honestly and without hedging: If your employees are not referring candidates to your company, are not encouraging their network to apply for jobs at your company, and are not remaining loyal to your company even as you undertake difficult transitions, what exactly is an award certifying?

I think you know the answer.

The credential is what your people believe, and it's the one that ultimately drives your ability to attract talent... that should matter the most.

So, the question isn't whether you can get an award, but whether you are building the culture your employees would actually recommend.