While strategies give logic to a company’s goals and objectives, your company culture expresses these goals through values, beliefs, and ways of working. They guide the way in which everyone in the business works – from the CEO down – and the way in which the company wants to achieve its purpose. Without a strong set of values, you can’t expect to have a strong corporate culture.
WHY IS CULTURE IMPORTANT ANYWAY?
Happy workers mean better business.
Your employees shouldn’t dread coming to work. They should approach each day with enthusiasm, enjoy the challenges ahead of them, and relish the feeling of a task well done. Work shouldn’t cause undue stress.
Creating an engaged workforce isn’t as simple as holding a couple of town halls and putting beanbags in the break room. Engagement needs to be built through the company culture – the personality of the company. Culture is difficult to define as it isn’t something tangible or written down. It’s a feeling, anchored in unspoken behaviours, mindsets, and relationships. As Frances Frei and Anne Morriss from HBR put it “Culture tells us what to do when the CEO isn’t in the room.”
A high level of employee engagement – and a productive culture – is associated with revenue growth, higher profit, better customer satisfaction, higher productivity, innovation, and lower employee turnover.
REALLY? YES, REALLY!
The science is on our side.
- Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace found 60% of people are emotionally detached at work and 19% are miserable.
- However, the survey also found that business units with engaged workers have 23% higher profit compared with business units with miserable workers.
- The stats also suggest teams with thriving workers see significantly lower absenteeism, turnover and accidents; they also see higher customer loyalty
- A long-term study carried out by change communications guru, John Kotter, showed companies that had the best corporate cultures grew 682% in revenue. Over the same time, companies without a thriving culture only grew 166% in revenue. What can we take from that? A thriving company culture leads to more than four times higher revenue growth.
Google it, there are plenty of statistics out there which show that, as well as increased business performance, employee engagement is linked to better health and wellbeing, and fewer instances of burnout.
Happy employees are more productive. Productive businesses work faster, and smarter. Smarter businesses beat their competition. Companies with a clear culture have lower turnover and a team of loyal, motivated employees.
A strong culture will transform employees into ambassadors, turn a group of individuals into a team, and bring your customers into the heart of your business.
WHAT’S THAT GOT TO DO WITH VALUES?
Bear with me, we’re getting there.
Your culture is what you do, not what you say you do. Once your culture is defined, every subsequent decision, action, and communication should support that culture. From recruitment to performance reviews to leadership interactions to the layout of the offices.
And how do we know how to act? Enter our company values.
Think of your core values as a few behavior traits that are inherent in the organization. They lie at the heart of the organization’s identity, do not change over time and must already exist. In other words, they cannot be contrived.
Patrick Lencioni, The Advantage
Your values are a small set of enduring, essential principles which define your culture. They are who you are. Your values describe the ethos of your company. They are your behavioural compass. They define the way you work, support you as you make decisions, and are the foundation of your culture. Everyone at your company – from the CEO down – should live your values.
Every day. Not just when they feel like it. Every single day.
DO WE REALLY NEED VALUES TO BUILD A SUCCESSFUL CULTURE?
Um… yes.
VALUES ARE HOW YOU MAKE DECISIONS
- You can’t pick and choose when you decide to live the company values
- Your values should be part of who you are and how you work. They should guide decisions and define how the company operates
- They should be ingrained into every part of the business – from business hours to the layout of the office to how the company deals with customers.
VALUES ARE HOW YOU HIRE
- Your team is only as good as the people in it.
- Values ensure you don’t hire simply based on capability. While skills can be learnt, attitude and compatibility can’t.
- Your values allow you to hire team members who respect and reflect what the company believes – allowing them to blend seamlessly into the organisation
VALUES ARE HOW YOU BEHAVE
- With clear values, the whole team can work in one accepted way towards the same goal.
- There is no right or wrong – the way you act will be set out in your values
WHAT’S NEXT?
Organizations, companies or individuals without core values are exactly like a boat without an anchor; it can be easy tossed to and fro following any direction the wind blows.
Dr. Lucas D. Shallua
The good news is, most companies already have a set of values. It’s now up to you to make them work for your culture. Have a look at your current values.
- Do they actually tell the story of your company? Do they reflect how your company works in the day-to-day?
- Are your values just a list of words? Do they explain how your employees should act? Have you attached behaviours to your values?
- Are your values really important to you and your business… or are they just something you think you should say?
- Are your values unique to your company or could they apply to anyone? I’m looking at you “innovative”, “respectful”, and “accountable”.
Remember, your company values and culture are more than just words on your website. Your values should be authentic and truly reflect who you are as a business and as a group of people. Your employees should know, understand, and live your values and culture through everything they do.
Beaumont is a communications agency based in Lausanne, Switzerland. We work with clients all around the world to change the way they talk about themselves.