Whether they like it or not, businesses are now answerable to far greater expectations than the bottom line. Once, their obligations were limited to increasing profits, keeping down costs and satisfying shareholders. Now they are accountable to a diverse range of stakeholders on issues that previous generations of business people would never have imagined could be included in the phrase "the business agenda".

Driving this revolution in accountability is reputation. Recent corporate scandals have added to the sense that the most precious asset an organisation has is its standing in the eyes of the public. Reputations are painstakingly built and quickly destroyed. But their importance can never be understated. The value of companies in both Britain and the US is more than three times the value quoted on balance sheets. How are we to account for this discrepancy? By intangible assets – by the reputation, brand and emotional capital of an organisation.

Reputation is a matter of steady, determined, intelligent "living out" of certain fundamental values and having the governance structures to support them. Yet how those values are communicated in key markets is a vital part of creating effective employer brands. Reputation involves presence. It involves carrying values to certain key stakeholder constituencies.

Based on our experience and specialisation, we believe that our brand-building has certain fundamental ingredients.

First, it is about listening. One of the challenges organisations face is to ensure that the investment they make in people policies is perceived to be of value by the people themselves. Organisations hoping to position their employer brand need to listen to and engage with what their people tell them. The messages they receive may not be palatable. But they are the first step towards positive change in rapidly evolving work environments. The best way, too, to avoid falling into a "thinking rut".

From listening, comes dialogue. Dialogue is about encouraging stakeholder groups to define the brand issues – not merely comment on a company’s norms and values. To be serious, organisations have to be willing to modify their stance based on what their stakeholders tell them. They are, after all, the ones in the best position to know. Cosy assumptions and "greenwashing" are the enemy of honest reputations.

Which leads on to the third vital ingredient in brand building: honesty. Our role is the honest communication of honest values. The process can backfire if it is no more than window dressing – if the employer’s heart is not in it. Serious brand building involves working with consultancies that are frank and honest and that can challenge shoddy thinking. The engagement of internal and external stakeholders is too important to squander on half-baked spinning operations.

As Sir John Egan and Des Wilson put it in their recent book on the rise of stakeholder companies, Private Business, Public Battleground: "It is about the values of the company, the kind of people in it, the kind of ethical and other beliefs at its core. A company that loves its work and loves the people it works with will prosper."

This is simple truth of our message in a complex field: over the long term, and with the right advice, good companies succeed and bad ones fail.