Living your core values is essential to a successful company culture. These are steps you can take to make sure your actions speak as loudly as your words.
Core company values are key to a company’s identity, but they’re not just aspirational ideas. A business that talks the talk but doesn’t walk the walk risks alienating employees and customers alike.
Strong core values are meant to be actively demonstrated in every aspect of an organisation’s operations, including decision-making, employee behaviour and customer interactions.
Embedding your core values isn’t a one-time exercise either. Many companies forget it’s an ongoing process that needs constant reinforcement, regular reflection and adaptation as your organisation grows and evolves.
In this article, we’ll delve into the most effective strategies to successfully integrate core values into your business.
This article will cover:
Identifying and defining your core values
Core values are fundamental to your company’s organisational culture. Therefore, it’s important to clearly define what these values are. They need to be specific, meaningful, and aligned with your organisation’s mission statement and vision. They should also be easy to remember and understand so that they resonate with employees and can be consistently applied in daily operations. Here are a few steps you can take to effectively identify and define your core values:
1. Define your company’s purpose
To do this, ask yourself the following questions: “What is important to the company?”, “How do we normally behave?”, “What kind of actions will help us move forward as a company?”. This will help you get a clearer picture of your company’s meaning and future aspirations. You can also refer back to your mission statement and vision for help.
Let’s take a new tech company as an example. Defining its purpose might involve recognising the importance of technological advancement and customer-centric solutions. Here’s how they might answer the previous questions:
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What is important to the company? Innovation and customer satisfaction. We aim to stay ahead of technological trends and deliver solutions that meet or exceed customer expectations.
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How do we normally behave? Approaching work with a collaborative mindset, valuing transparency and open communication. Our teams are known for their adaptability and commitment to finding creative solutions.
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What kind of actions will help us move forward as a company? Investing in cutting-edge technology, building a culture of continuous learning and maintaining strong customer relationships.
2. Brainstorm potential values
Write down your answers from the previous questions and make a list of potential core values. Try to aim for a minimum of 20-25 ideas. You can also ask current employees what they think the current core values are and what kind of values they’d like to see in the future.
After reflecting on your company’s purpose, your list of values might include:
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Innovation: Continuously seeking new and creative solutions
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Customer focus: Prioritising customer needs and exceeding expectations
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Integrity: Acting with honesty and transparency in all business dealings
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Collaboration: Encouraging teamwork and open communication across all levels
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Continuous learning: Promoting ongoing learning and skill development
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Sustainability: Operating in a way that’s environmentally and socially responsible
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Accountability: Taking responsibility for your actions and their outcomes
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Quality: Committing to excellence in every product and service you provide
3. Choose and refine your core elements
Look at your list of values and narrow down your ideas to your guiding values, around a maximum of 10. Your list shouldn’t be too long, as having too many core values can risk confusion in your company’s decision-making, actions and desired behaviours.
From your list, determine which values are essential to your company’s success. This can range from upholding strong ethical principles and honesty and focusing on environmental, social and economic sustainability to prioritising customer experience and promoting teamwork and collaboration across all levels of the organisation.
4. Draft a values statement
Once you’ve got your final set of values established, the next step is to draft your core values statement. This doesn’t have to be super detailed – most statements include bullet points or a numbered list. It’s important here to get the balance right – not overly detailed or too vague – and you’ll need to write a few drafts to share with others to select the best one.
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Integrity: We conduct our business with the highest level of honesty and transparency, building trust with our customers, partners and employees.
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Customer focus: Our customers are the heart of everything we do. We are committed to understanding their needs and exceeding their expectations.
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Innovation: We strive to stay at the forefront of our industry by continuously exploring new ideas, technologies and solutions.
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Collaboration: We believe that teamwork makes the dream work and that collaboration and open communication are key to success. We foster an inclusive environment where diverse perspectives are valued.
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Quality: We are dedicated to delivering products and services of the highest quality, ensuring excellence in every aspect of our work.
5. Finalise core values
The next step is to gather feedback on which draft of the core values statement best represents your business. You can do this through a focus group with upper-level management, employees, customers or clients. From there, you can use the feedback to select and refine your final statement.
During a focus group session with employees, you present the draft statement and ask for input on each value, including whether it resonates with their experience of the company and how well it aligns with its mission.
Participants might suggest refining certain values to better capture the company’s identity, such as adjusting “customer focus” to “customer partnership” to emphasise the collaborative relationship you aim for with your clients.
After collecting and analysing the feedback, you make necessary adjustments to the core values statement before sharing the revised version with the focus group for their final approval. This ensures that the statement truly represents your business, and the feedback-driven process will foster a sense of ownership and alignment among those involved.
6. Communicate your statement
Now, you’ll need to communicate your core values to your employees and customers effectively. Make sure to clearly articulate your values through all customer-facing channels, such as your website, marketing materials and service interactions. For employees, make these values visible through internal communications and regularly reinforce them in team meetings and employee evaluations.
Once your core values statement is finalised, you can begin by updating your company’s website to prominently display these values on your “About Us” or “Mission” page. They can also be incorporated through your social media profiles and advertising campaigns (eg email marketing), ensuring that customers understand what your company stands for.
For employees, you can introduce the core values in an all-hands meeting, where leadership explains their importance and how they align with the company’s mission. You can also follow this up by distributing the values statement through internal communications, like company-wide emails and an internal newsletter.
In team meetings, encourage managers to reference core values when discussing goals, projects and performance, so that the values are a regular part of conversation. Moreover, you can integrate the values into employee evaluations, using them as criteria for assessing how well they demonstrate these values in their daily work. For example:
“Sarah consistently demonstrates integrity by being upfront with clients about project timelines and by quickly addressing any issues that arise.”
“Kemi frequently goes above and beyond to understand customer concerns, resulting in higher satisfaction scores in his department.”
“Amit’s attention to detail ensures that all deliverables meet the company’s quality standards, receiving minimal revisions”.
Integrating values into everyday operations
Simply having strong core values isn’t enough. Now that you’ve identified and defined them, it’s time to implement your values.
Core values are crucial in everything you do as a company, so it’s important to live by them in your daily operations – from your hiring process and employee onboarding to your decision-making and customer interactions. The ways you can incorporate them are through:
1. Hiring and onboarding
Incorporate your core values into your job descriptions, interview questions and candidate evaluation. Hire people who not only have the right skills and experience but are also aligned with your values. You can also introduce new employees to the company’s values during the onboarding process, such as giving examples of how they’re demonstrated in day-to-day work.
Job description
When creating a job description for a customer service role, you’ll need to highlight the core value of “customer focus” through a statement like:
“We are looking for a customer service representative who not only has excellent communication skills but also shares our commitment to putting customers first. Our ideal candidate will be someone who understands the importance of building strong relationships with our clients and who takes pride in delivering exceptional service.”
Interview questions
In the interview process, you should incorporate questions that assess alignment with your core values. For instance, to determine a candidate’s commitment to your “integrity” value, you could ask:
“Can you tell me about a time when you had to make a difficult decision that required you to choose between doing what was right and what was easy? How did you handle it?”
Or if “work smart” is one of your values, you could ask:
“Can you give us an example of how you improved a process in your previous job?”
And finally, if “collaboration” is a core value, you could ask:
“Describe a situation where you had to work with a team to achieve a common goal. How did you ensure that everyone’s input was valued, and how did you handle any conflicts that happened?”
2. Decision-making
Encourage employees to refer to your core values when making decisions, as this will ensure consistency with your company’s mission. You should also ensure that leaders are demonstrating value-based decision-making and setting a good example for the rest of the organisation.
A company lists “sustainability” as a core value and to ensure that this is consistently reflected in decision-making, they would need to consider the environmental impact in every business decision. For instance, when choosing a supplier, they should choose partners that adhere to sustainable practices, even if their costs are slightly higher.
If a project involves product packaging, they should weigh the environmental impact of different packaging options against other factors like cost and aesthetics. For example, choosing biodegradable packaging to prioritise sustainability and align its actions with its mission to minimise environmental impact.
3. Performance management
This involves implementing your core values into employee performance reviews, key performance indicators (KPIs) or SMART targets, such as assessing how well employees embody these values in their work. Recognise and reward employees who exemplify these values as well, as it’ll reinforce the importance of living by them.
You might start by including a section in employee performance reviews specifically dedicated to evaluating how well individuals align with your values. For example:
Customer focus: You could include a KPI such as “Customer Satisfaction Score” in performance evaluations. During reviews, you can assess employees on how effectively they meet or exceed customer expectations, using metrics like feedback scores or client testimonials. You could also consider qualitative aspects, like how well they handle customer complaints or whether they proactively look at ways to improve customer experience.
Innovation: You can set a SMART target for employees to contribute at least one new idea or improvement each quarter. In performance reviews, you can evaluate their creativity and the impact of their suggestions on your company process or products.
4. Internal communications
Core values aren’t something to just tick off and leave behind. Instead, you should constantly remind employees of these values, whether it’s through internal newsletters, meetings or emails. You can also share stories of how employees are living by them or display your core values visually (eg posters or digital screens).
There are a few ways you can keep core values at the forefront of everyone’s mind, including:
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Internal newsletters: Include a dedicated section in your monthly internal newsletter that highlights one of your core values, showcasing how it has been demonstrated in recent projects or by individual employees. For example, the “teamwork” value could feature a story about a team that successfully worked together to overcome a challenging project, with details on how their collective efforts led to a positive outcome.
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Team meetings: Regularly include a brief segment where managers or team leaders can discuss examples of how core values are being lived out across different departments. You can also use these meetings to recognise employees who’ve made significant contributions aligned with the core values for positive reinforcement.
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Emails: You could send bi-weekly emails spotlighting a specific core value and providing tips on how employees can apply it in their daily tasks. For example, practical advice on fostering creativity (eg brainstorming sessions), encouraging experimentation and sharing recent successful innovations within the company.
5. Customer interactions
Ensure that customer service policies and practices are aligned with your core values and train employees to handle customer interactions that reflect these principles. Regularly gather customer feedback to determine how well the company’s values are demonstrated in their experience.
If good customer service is a core value, ensure that your policy emphasises personalised attention and quick resolution of issues. Train employees to handle customer interactions with empathy and professionalism, encouraging them to exceed expectations and turn every customer touchpoint into a positive experience.
For example, implementing training programs focused on active listening, problem-solving skills and proactive service. Create scenarios for role-playing to help employees practice applying these skills in real-life situations.
Gather feedback from customers regularly through surveys or feedback forms to assess how well your core values are being reflected in these interactions. From there, analyse this feedback to identify areas for improvement and recognise specific teams or individuals who demonstrated good customer service.
6. Daily operations and processes
This includes frameworks, project management approaches and team collaboration. Make sure your values are considered in routine tasks and strategic initiatives.
Let’s say “integrity” is one of your core values. This can be woven into your daily operations and processes through:
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Project management: Prioritise transparency by maintaining open communication with all stakeholders and ensuring that all project details and decisions are documented accurately. Implement regular audits to review adherence to ethical standards and address any discrepancies.
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Team collaboration: Encourage employees to act honestly and openly in their interactions and decision-making processes. For example, creating a culture where feedback is given constructively and sincerely, and where ethical concerns can be raised without fear of retaliation.
Maintaining your core values over time
As your business grows, it’s important to maintain your core values over time to ensure they remain relevant and impactful within your organisation. This includes changing or refining these values at regular intervals to properly represent the evolving nature of your company, industry or market conditions. Here are some strategies to help sustain your core values:
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Ongoing training and development: Offer regular training and refresher sessions that reinforce the company’s values, helping employees understand how to apply them in different situations. You can also facilitate workshops and team-building activities that focus on these values, encouraging employees to explore and discuss their importance.
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Regular reviews and refinement: Review your values consistently, and if necessary, update them so that they remain relevant as the company evolves. Make sure to engage employees in this process too, and allow employees to provide feedback on how the core values are being upheld and suggest ways to better integrate them into daily operations.
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Engaging employees in value-driven initiatives: Encourage employees to take part in initiatives, projects or volunteer opportunities that align with the company’s values. You can also promote collaboration between departments to develop creative methods for sustaining core values across the organisation, such as cross-functional workshops, interdepartmental projects or joint training sessions.
Challenges of embedding core values
While keeping your core values in practice is crucial, it isn’t always a walk in the park. Challenges like resistance to change, inconsistent application and changing organisational needs can make it difficult to maintain a strong alignment between your values and actions.
These are some common obstacles to embedding your core values and tips on how to overcome them:
1. Lack of leadership commitment: For core values and culture to work effectively, leaders must constantly demonstrate and reinforce them through values-based leadership. But when they fail to show commitment to these values, it can undermine their importance and employees may feel sceptical about them. Solution: Provide leadership training to reinforce the importance of values. This will help ensure leaders are fully committed to the values and visibly establish them in their actions and decisions.
2. Inconsistent communication: Without clear and efficient communication, employees may not fully understand your core values, let alone work with them effectively. This can lead to misalignment between individual actions and organisational goals, lower employee engagement and a weakened company culture.
Solution: Develop a thorough communication plan that includes regular updates and reminders about core values. Make sure to use multiple channels to reach all employees, such as internal newsletters, social media, emails and company meetings.
3. Resistance to change: There’s a risk that employees will resist change, especially if they don’t see the benefits of adopting new core values or are comfortable with the existing culture. Resistance can stem from a fear of the unknown, perceived threats to their current roles or scepticism about the authenticity of the new values.
Solution: Involve employees in the process of defining and refining core values. This includes effectively communicating the reasons for the changes and how they will benefit both the organisation and its employees. This will help mitigate resistance and foster a smoother transition.
4. Low employee engagement: Employees may not engage or fully embrace core values if they feel disconnected from them or if they perceive them as superficial. If employees see your values as merely slogans or empty words, they’re not likely to uphold them. Solution: Improve your employees’ engagement by actively involving them in initiatives that reflect core values, such as value-based projects, employee-led workshops or recognition programs, to acknowledge their contributions and reinforce the importance of these values.
5. High employee turnover: High turnover rates can disrupt efforts to embed core values, as new employees will need to be continuously taught about them. This constant cycle of onboarding can risk inconsistencies in how core values are communicated and applied, making it challenging to maintain a cohesive culture.
Solution: Focus on creating a strong, values-driven onboarding process so new employees can join the team effectively. If you’ve noticed a higher turnover rate, you should evaluate your current culture, including what’s going well, what needs improvement and how core values are being communicated and implemented.
6. Measurement and accountability: It can be difficult to track the progress of embedding your core values or holding individuals accountable for upholding them if you don’t have clear metrics and accountability mechanisms. This lack of measurement can lead to losing focus over time.
Solution: Develop specific KPIs and SMART targets related to your core values and regularly assess how well the organisation is adhering to them. Make sure to include values-based criteria in performance evaluations and hold individuals and teams accountable for demonstrating these values in their work.
Conclusion
Living by your core values requires more than just declaring your principles. It involves integrating these values into every aspect of your organisation, from hiring and decision-making to performance management and customer interactions. By actively demonstrating and reinforcing your core values, you not only cultivate a strong company culture but also drive employee engagement and satisfaction.
While difficulties like resistance to change, lack of commitment and high turnover can strain these efforts, addressing these obstacles with thoughtful strategies will help to ensure that your core values remain a vital part of your organisational identity.
Ultimately, a values-driven organisation creates a cohesive, motivated and resilient workplace – positioning its company for long term success and meaningful connection with both employees and customers.
