How To Embed Corporate Values And Remove “Pebble In The Shoe” Moments

Many companies really get and understand the importance of defining corporate values, however, many teams struggle to actually embed values and make them stick. Why is that??

The fact is - culture is defined by our attitudes, our beliefs, our values and our actions. The reality is that posters and documents alone don’t shift culture, people do! That’s why I believe culture design should be conscious, deliberate and human-centred.??

Our People Team spends a lot of time working with clients to not only select and define corporate values but also creatively embed those values internally.??

So where do you start? And, how can you breathe new life into your corporate values in a way that gets everyone aligned and gives you the ability to stand back and honestly say - “yes we live our values inside and out?”?

If you haven't developed your corporate values - set out to do it now. Your team and your bottom line will thank you for it. For the purpose of this article, I will assume you have developed your corporate values and now need to either revisit them or think about how to better embed them.?

Step 1. Develop Your Brand Manifesto?

A Manifesto is not just what you say but how you say it. That one-page document that your people will read and instantly connect to and be raring to ‘get on the bus’. Your manifesto should be grounded in what you do and explain the highest-level emotional impact of why that matters.? You should be asking your team “what does the world look like if we realize our company’s vision and mission?”??

It’s still ownable; it’s still you – it’s just the best, most impactful version of you possible.? Your manifesto should inspire your current and future employees, connect your customers, and inspire every single stakeholder to come on your journey.?

Step 2.? Develop Your Company's "Go To" Corporate Playbook.??

This should never be a dry, 50 slide HR Induction presentation. Yes you may be smiling -? we have all seen them, or worse still had to sit through that on the first week of joining a new company.?

Your playbook should be a document that oozes who you are and what it means to work in your company. Every client is different? - however, I have found keeping it to some strong, concise, practical things and signposts that make your onboarding more engaging, impactful and improve early engagement is the way to go.?

Get creative - (don't use Powerpoint slides - there are so many other more engaging ways to deliver this). Really take your time to reflect your brand personality. This document should be the key reference and ‘go to’ document and something that can guide, inform and inspire. I encourage many of our clients to start inspiring and onboarding colleagues way before the first day of employment. Let’s not have your new colleagues glazing over in the induction training on day 1, or worse still, 3 months later they are heading for the door because the way you presented the company during the interview stage is so far removed from how it really feels to be part of your company.??

“I used to believe that culture was ‘soft,’ and had little bearing on our bottom line. What I believe today is that our culture has everything to do with our bottom line, now and into the future.”

– Vern Dosch, author, Wired Differently

Step 3 - Values Alignment Sessions?

These sessions are really powerful. They hold a mirror up to the good, the bad and in some cases the darn right ugly.?The first thing we usually do is work with the executive team to ensure we have alignment and consensus on the bigger challenges and opportunities to shift the needle when it comes to living the company values.? We then conduct Values Alignment Workshops - short-high-impact (90 Minute) sessions with every department, this ensures the team's ideate and to challenge ‘what you do’ and ‘how you do it’ really does reflect your values. It is vital to create a safe space to identify the ”pebble in the shoes” moments across current processes, systems, inter-departmental and stakeholder interactions.

Then get the team to identify quick wins and medium-term changes to better align to your core values.? Then get to work and start removing those pebbles!? Stay the journey some of those decisions will meet with resistance.?

Step 4 - Employee & Customer Experience Is King?

Once you have digested everything from the above work, it’s time to work with your human capital and internal comms and CX teams to map out how you translate that into reality. How will you consistently measure how you live the values, reward, recognise and celebrate.?

Step 6 - Measure, Manage & Support?

In some cases, this stage also leads to deploying HR technology around measuring the employee experience (we love and use WeThrive with our clients). Setting up a mobile-friendly reward and recognition platform to make it easy for managers to reward the right behaviours in real-time (we use our Tastahel Platform) or provide coaching for your managers and leaders to ensure they know what values-based leadership is and how to lead the charge.?

The important thing to remember - is you need to have visibility and meaningful ways to reinforce your values for every level of the company.?Approaching your corporate values project in this way can be a hugely rewarding experience for the entire team and one that will definitely set solid foundations for a values-based culture.? I hope it has given you some ideas to ponder.?I would love to hear your thoughts on this article and your own experience.

Finally, if you would like to chat over a coffee or brainstorm how any of the above could be right for your organisation please do drop me a message or email me at karen@thestoreygroup.com?

About the author:?I am the CEO and Founder of The Storey Group

About The Storey Group:?

For purpose-driven organisations around our globe, The Storey Group is a change-maker that creates and delivers programmes that make our work lives and planet a better and more prosperous place. ? We believe that when strategic logic is blended with the magic that comes from curious creativity anything is possible.? By working together with our clients, partners and community we can deliver against the most daring challenges facing how we connect people, the planet and profit and have fun while doing it.? https://www.thestoreygroup.com/