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The speed with which one employee's bad behaviour can taint an entire brand means it pays to consider all employees as ambassadors, according to an executive coach and communications specialist.

"Every single human represents a company now, and they hold the company's brand in their hands," Leora Givoni tells HR Daily.

And when internal and external behaviours don't match, "companies are deeply at risk", she says.

"We used to imagine a tidy wall between the individual and the institution; that wall is gone. Every employee now carries a publishing platform in their pocket, and a personal reputation that travels with the company logo stapled to it."

It's a fact the big professional services firms are now well aware of, Givoni says, referring to recent high-profile issues such as KPMG's audit leaks, and the EY graduates sacked for allegedly accessing the Prime Minister's personal banking details...