Are company values worth having?
Only if you’re prepared to live and breathe them…
As an internal comms agency we’re often approached by companies who want to communicate their values to staff. Some need help figuring out what they are, others have them already but feel they’re not working as well as they could be and, sometimes, in the case of a merger or acquisition, two sets of distinct values need to be meshed together. What that means is we’ve seen and worked on a lot of ‘values’ over the years. So, do we think they’re worth having? Well, whilst a big part of me is tempted to say no, the right answer is more of a qualified ‘yes, but…’ And here’s why:
When a company’s values fail it’s because they’re meaningless. Harsh but true, I’m afraid. And lots of companies are getting it wrong. According to Gallup, only a quarter of U.S. employees strongly believe in their company’s values and even fewer say they can apply them to their everyday work. Why? Because they can see their company’s values are just for show – painted on a lobby wall or on their website to make them sound like a nice place to work. In fact, the value of having ‘values’ has become so degraded we recently had a client tell us they’d decided to avoid using the word altogether. What they chose instead was to come up with a set of behaviours, a manifesto, if you like, of how to live at work. It wasn’t that they didn’t think values were important – they still wanted employees to know how they were expected to operate and interact with each other – but they felt the word itself might do more harm than good.
So why do we think companies should bother with values at all? Because done right, values can make you more successful. Seven in ten consumers now actively choose to buy from brands they believe reflect their own values. Not only that, your company’s values can give you a competitive advantage as they let potential clients know what you’re about and how they can expect your employees to behave. Internally too, they help staff understand what the business stands for and they encourage them to work towards achieving your overall company goal or mission.
How, then, do you make sure your values or behaviours are worth having? There’s a lot to learn from organisations that do them well. Take, for example, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Yes, I know you might be thinking it’s easy to come up with great values when you’re a foundation set up to do good by two people who can afford to only take on projects they believe in, but that’s not why their values are also good. They’re not vague, generic labels – they genuinely mean something to that organisation. From being the measure by which they decide whether to take on a new project all the way through to employee schemes which help staff invest in causes they believe in, they live the values they espouse. It’s an example which goes to show that, in order to work, values need to be authentic, strategically sound and specific to your organisation. Avoid bland words and phrases which could apply to any number of places, choose attitudes instead – and words to match – which are fundamental to your direction and success. Of course doing this well takes time. It also needs to be led by those at the top, because if the leadership don’t embody the company’s values, why should staff?
Once you have some words that mean something to the leadership you’ll need to get feedback and input from employees as their buy-in is key. You also need to consider how embodying these values would play out in the business and, if it applies to you, whether they might mean different things in different markets.
Having accomplished that, you’ve done the easy part. To really ingrain your company values will be a whole lot harder – and this is where the living and breathing comes in. Once you’ve communicated your values clearly to all employees (whether in the form of posters, emails or workshops will depend on your type of organisation) you can’t stop there; management will need to continually reinforce the importance of your company’s values with actions.
Your values will need to become woven into the fabric of your organisation. Make them part of the recruitment process and you’ll attract and employ people who are a good fit. Make them part of your performance reviews and they’ll be a benchmark against which staff know they’ll be evaluated. Find examples of staff whose work has embodied your values and celebrate them, ideally through an employee reward and recognition programme (see our last blog for why they’re a good thing), and more staff will be motivated to do the same. In short, embed your values in the day-to-day operation of your organisation, all the way from that very first interview to someone’s last day. Then and only then will it be worth you having that set of values painted on your lobby wall.
