Lisa Shuster, MBA, SPHR, SHRM-SCP, is the Chief People Officer for iHire, an industry-specific recruitment platform.
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In 2015, I participated in a Zappos company culture boot camp, one of the most impactful learning experiences in my HR career. The boot camp emphasized how culture is critical to creating an engaged, empowered and productive workforce that, in turn, positively impacts your entire organization and your bottom line. However, cultivating such a culture requires one key ingredient: core values.
I brought this notion of a values-driven culture back to iHire and presented it to our leadership. If we wanted to fully embrace our people-first philosophy, we had to identify a set of core values. Core values are foundational principles that guide everything we do, including how we hire, evaluate performance, set expectations, ideate new products, interact with customers and one another, and much more.
Today, the core values we developed—growth-focused, collaborative, transparent, accountable, innovative, committed, optimistic and inclusive—remain the cornerstone of our company. We know that everyone must act in accordance with these tenets if we want to enrich our culture and grow.
How To Select And Define Your Core Values
Identifying your core values is not as simple as selecting words or phrases that look nice on a poster in your break room. Perhaps Zappos puts it best: “Core values are more than just words. They’re a way of life.”
No matter if you’re starting from scratch or refreshing your existing values (yes, your core values can change over time), involve your employees throughout the effort. Kick off the process by inviting your team to a brainstorming session, in person or virtual. If you are a large business, smaller focus groups work just as well.
When you communicate the importance of this exercise, stress that everyone is responsible for your culture. How you scale and evolve your culture is achieved through your values, which influence decisions and actions at every level of the company.
Ask associates to come to the session with five behaviors or mindsets they believe every employee should demonstrate. Consider the following:
• What are some behaviors or tenets that make your organization successful? For example, because your company is innovative, you keep up with the competition and retain customers.
• Which behaviors are essential to work for your organization? For instance, employees need to be collaborative, as working together is how you maximize efficiency.
• Which behaviors would you hire, fire and manage performance on? For example, if someone wasn’t being transparent and providing enough information to a client, their manager would address it with them.
During the brainstorm, break attendees into groups to discuss the behaviors they brought to the table and why they chose them. Afterward, compile and consolidate employee input (some people may have said the same thing in different ways). Then, work with your HR team, leadership or even a designated “core values committee” to pinpoint five to seven values from that feedback. To narrow down your list, ask:
• Is this value observable? Could you see and feel it walking through your office?
• Can it serve as the basis for every decision you make?
• Does it evoke emotion and is it meaningful to employees?
• Does it hold up to the “would we fire on this” test?
The next step is defining those values. Engage your workforce by sending out a survey asking what each word means to them. Once again, review and combine feedback to develop clear, concise definitions for every value (no more than two sentences long).
Here’s an example: “We are optimistic: We look at challenges from all angles with an emphasis on the possibilities. We propose solutions when identifying problems and actively work toward them with confidence they will be achieved.”
With your core values defined, present them to your staff. Consider sharing them in a larger “all-hands” meeting and following up with an email so that you adequately convey their importance, set expectations and explain their role in the future of your organization.
Integrating Your Core Values Into Your Culture
Begin weaving your core values into your day-to-day and long-term initiatives, large and small. Here are a few ways to get started:
• Publish them on your website, careers page and social media channels and include them in your job postings and onboarding materials so that they become central to your employer brand.
• Weave your values into candidate interviews. Form questions around them, explain their significance to the applicant and ask which value resonates most with them. For example, you might ask, “Can you describe a time you held yourself accountable during a major project?”
• Encourage managers to cite your values when communicating with their teams, holding one-to-one meetings and conducting performance reviews.
• Get employees excited about your values. Think about setting up a social recognition tool that allows them to recognize one another for demonstrating core values. Gamify the program by giving a prize to the person who receives the most recognition every month.
When developed with employee input and buy-in from leadership, defined clearly and promoted effectively, your core values establish a behavioral code that forms a rewarding, engaging, people-first culture. And when you put your people first, treat them well and foster relationships, your entire company is more agile, resilient and innovative.
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