Most of us have personal values that we live by. Personal values influence every decision we make, both consciously and unconsciously. Alternatively, company values influence business decisions on many levels and affect every strategic plan, from recruitment to investment.
Company values are the principles businesses use to guide their decision-making. Additionally, these core values help organisations ensure that every employee is focused on the bigger picture and working towards the same goal.
Aligning company and employee values helps create purpose. When your employees feel like they are in sync with your organisation — you’ll see an increase in satisfaction, motivation, and engagement. This helps drive success since every employee is personally invested in your business goals.
Whether you need inspiration to build value for your new business or feel your current goals need a revamp — we’ve put together some helpful advice on developing strong company values that represent your people, business, and culture.
Strong company values help guide decision-making across every level of your business. They can assist in hiring staff and dealing with difficult customers, resulting in more efficient and effective processes.
To gain these benefits, your company values must be ingrained throughout your entire organisation — your employees must also live and breathe them when they work.
When this doesn't happen, your teams will operate independently from one another, meaning your customers will have a different customer experience every time they interact with a different employee.
This ultimately leads to customer dissatisfaction and a poor brand reputation.
When creating core values for your company — think back to why the business was started in the first place.
What dreams got the business off the ground? What goals are your teams striving to achieve? What does success look like to you? The answers to these questions will help you carve out the values that will help you achieve success.
Next, enlist the help of your employees. Involving them in this process is an essential step. Unfortunately, when employees aren't involved, the risk of developing insincere values increases.
This creates an environment where employees won’t feel aligned with your company's goals and missions, which ultimately defeats the purpose of creating values in the first place.
If you don’t have any employees yet, consider using your values as a guide.
If you need inspiration, looking at the values of aspirational companies is a great start. Research the values of companies within a similar industry or ones who’ve achieved the goals you’re striving towards.
But remember, only use these for inspiration. For your values to be effective, they must be unique and tailored to your company and your people. Example values from big brands include:
Finally, not to blow our trumpet, but we think we have a great culture at Perkbox — and we work hard to maintain it.
One of our favourite Perkbox values is curiosity. We’re hungry to learn and share knowledge. We ask questions, challenge conventions, and refuse to rest on our laurels.
As you can see, almost all these companies provide an example or more information alongside their values. Examples make your values more personal to your company and can help current employees understand how they should use them.
Here are some generic examples of company values to get you started. You can take these as a starting point and develop them into more meaningful values that are unique to your business.
They’re great company values — but only use them if they represent you, your employees, and your business. Don't use them if they don’t align with your business, as they won't have any impact. Worse still, mismatched company values can undermine your organisation's credibility if they don’t align with your actions.
As your company grows and develops, it’s important to keep developing your values. Although you always want to remain close to the originals, growth and development are important. We suggest re-evaluating your values every couple of years.
Values need to be actively practised for them to be effective. Otherwise, they won't contribute to your company culture.
If one of your values is quality, you could aim to improve the quality score on customer reviews each month. Measuring employee performance against company values reinforces their importance and ensures performance goes in the right direction.
Customer surveys can be a great way to determine whether your organisation is adhering to its values. Asking customers if they feel like the service or products they are receiving reflect a certain value — such as quality, helps you understand if your values are embedded throughout the customer experience.
Be sure to look for potential employees who understand and reflect your values. You can do this by listing your values in job descriptions and posting them on your website.
But the emphasis on values shouldn’t stop at the recruitment stage. Company values must be communicated and reinforced throughout the onboarding stage to ensure that those joining the company know how your values shape your company culture.
All elements of your business, such as working hours, employee benefits and even the workspace environment, should also represent your values. Design your policy in line with your values to create a culture that properly represents them.
For example, the value trust can be demonstrated through flexible working hours and remote working — if possible.
In a culture book, write down all the elements that contribute to your culture, including the business story, mission, and values. This is important for your employees and clearly shows where your organisation has come from and where it wants to go.
You need to remind your employees of your company values every day. Keeping your values fresh in their minds, keeps your company culture alive. A simple way to do this is to recognise and reward behaviours that align with your company's values.
With Perkbox, you can assign values to recognition, this reinforces behaviour that is in alignment with your values.
Plus, managers can attach points with each recognition they send. Employees can then redeem these points on thousands of rewards. The more points they have, the bigger the reward they can claim.
Celebrate and motivate your employees no matter where they’re working — in one building, remotely or across multiple locations.
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