Company Core Values: Strategies, Impacts, and Examples
During a company’s early days, it’s not unusual to prioritize the job at hand and provide the best work possible for customers or clients. As time passes, however, businesses will often look to define themselves and their brand by either establishing core principles or putting a name to those that have existed from the beginning. Below, we will examine some key aspects of developing and implementing core values for your company.
What Are Company Core Values?
A company’s core values are defined as the set of guiding principles that aid in decision making, outline expectations for employees, and communicate key tenets of the organization to its customers. As such, these values serve both internal and external purposes.
Once a company has determined its core values, it’s imperative that they drive the work they do and decisions they make. Straying from established values can confuse employees, upset loyal customers, and damage a brand. This isn’t to say that corporate core values can never be adjusted or changed, but doing so must be done carefully and with clear communication.
Developing Core Values for Your Company – Areas of Focus
Worthwhile core values should be well defined, but they can also incorporate diverse aspects of your business, so there are a lot of possibilities to choose from. Consider the following categories:
- Focus on progress – You may want to position your company as an industry leader that prioritizes innovation and experimentation. To this end, values such as curiosity, inventiveness, adventurousness, stewardship, adaptability, sustainability, and a dedication to learning and education may be prominent on your list. While these values could apply to many fields, industries in the tech world, or those closely tied to it, may find these more appealing.
- Focus on collaboration – While this focus would mostly apply to your internal team, your dedication to collaborative efforts would still reflect well on your business in customers’ eyes. Therefore, you might want to promote the values of teamwork, belonging, inclusion, and being more effective by working together.
- Focus on service – This option works well when paired with collaboration, as service is more external. Illustrating to your customers or clients that you are dedicated to their needs is typically a wise company core value. Key elements of service include operational excellence, craftsmanship, professionalism, quality and value, customer service, and your passion for the field.
- Focus on trustworthiness – Customers want to work with businesses that they feel comfortable with and that they believe will treat them fairly. Values you might develop to foster a sense of trust include accountability, leadership, responsibility, communication, integrity, fairness, and leadership. Instilling these corporate core values in your workforce can go a long way in forging a deeper, more lasting connection with customers.
- Focus on community – Building community takes time and effort, but the first step is defining the community you’re seeking to build and explicitly tying that definition to your organization’s core values. Some options include highlighting empathy, respect, a people-first approach, transparency, loyalty, diversity, honesty, or simply a dedication to doing the right thing.
Determining Your Company’s Core Values
Though some values may be clear already, other values may need to be “discovered” or worked toward. Some approaches to consider include:
- Survey those directly impacted – Customers, employees, upper management, shareholders, and others all might have different views of what a company represents or how it positions itself, but they may also have points of agreement. Better understanding your business can help you take it where you want it to be.
- Think about the future – Where your company is headed, or where you’d like it to head, may play a role as you attempt to implement core values. Study your industry and existing internal processes and structures to determine how you can combine aspirations with the realities of your business.
- Consider your team’s strengths – One approach worth considering is assessing what your team already does well and making these aspects part of your core identity. Likely, your customers already recognize these strengths so you will merely be reinforcing them, which will be a lot easier than fitting your team into a new box they might not be suited for.
Implementing and Communicating Core Values Efficiently
Once you have determined your core values, you will need to implement them in the workplace and communicate them to both employees and customers. Try the following:
- Be clear – Using vague buzzwords or getting too bogged down in industry language benefits neither employees nor customers. Instead, use clear, specific statements designed to have an impact.
- Be concise – Brevity is the soul of wit, so keep your company core values simple and easy to memorize. This will allow your team to quickly relay key attributes about your business and will also keep them front of mind for customers.
- Blend internal with external – While not every core value you select will impact your team and customers equally, highlighting ways that they intersect will help to show that you’re focused on the big picture.
- Get creative – Though you may possess some values that overlap with those of your competitors, you still want to set yourself apart in the way that you present your business, so use your team’s skills in developing a fresh perspective.
How Core Values Influence Company Culture
As stated previously, if your company does not adhere to the values you’ve chosen, it runs the risk of alienating customers and employees alike. So, you must choose values that are actionable and repeatable, since they will:
- Guide employee and interdepartmental actions
- Impact how your staff approaches customers, clients, and partners
- Create the foundation for accountability measures
- Put your business on a path of growth and success
Plus, strong and consistent company values are key elements in attracting and retaining talent, as employees seek out environments where they feel comfortable, as well as those that share their ideals. In fact, one Harvard Business Review article reported that 65% of employees would accept lower salaries, and 26% would forego impressive titles to work in a more favorable, values-focused environment.
Enhance Your Company Culture and Customer Retention
As you refine and implement core values within your organization, take matters a step further by utilizing incentive and reward programs designed to give your business a boost. QIC offers programs for:
- Years of service
- Employee safety recognition
- Internal sales
- Channel sales
- Employee recognition
- Customer loyalty
Our services are always customized to the needs of your organization, and we have decades of experience developing programs that drive tangible results.
Contact QIC for Incentive and Reward Programs
Are you looking to reinforce your company’s core values through strategic incentives or employee recognition? Let QIC’s experts help your organization. Reach out to our team today to discuss our tailored approaches.
