How to Embed Your Purpose and Values Into Your Company
You have launched your inspiring purpose that excites your employees. Check. You have clarified your values that authentically speak to what you stand for and your people are now aware of them. Check. Well, now what?
It’s time to start looking into ways to further embed them into your culture, policies and processes. It doesn’t do your company any good if they just sit on a wall or on your website. Your employees need to know you really see the importance of having your purpose and values and you’re not just giving lip-service to them. To do that, they need to always be at the core of your “why” of what you do and how you do it.
Instead of continuing to refer to both your purpose and values, I’m going to use a term from Ben Whitter, Mr. Employee Experience, and refer to them as Your Truth.
Your employee lifecycle covers numerous stages and each gives you an opportunity to tell your story and embed Your Truth. I’ll highlight a few of those examples here.
Employer branding
Share with your potential, future newbies what Your Truth is and provide examples of how your organization is living Your Truth. On your career page and other sites you use, share employee testimonials and highlight your determination and actual successes to bring your Truth to actualization. Job seekers will be searching for companies who inspire them and share similar values.
Recruiting
Have your hiring managers ask specific questions to their candidates on how they could see themselves contributing to your purpose and provide specific examples in their past where they have done so. The interviewers should be getting a sense whether the candidate can respect and honor your values by the examples they give. These answers should be put in the mix to decide who is the best candidate – and not just rely on their experience and functional capabilities. Skills can be developed. It’s much harder to change someone’s character.
Development
The first development opportunity you have with employees is during the onboarding process. Either online or in-person, you should be talking about Your Truth and encourage your newbies to find ways for them to connect with it in their way based on their own values and purpose. Get them excited about what your organization does and the impact your purpose is having both internally and externally.
Weave Your Truth into your development journeys to build the needs skills, shift needed behaviors and clarify expectations of leaders and employees in how they need to be champions of Your Truth. Provide them with tips, examples and development opportunities to build up their confidence and competence to lead their team and be a part of their own team to ensure the values are honored and their work is continually connected and contributing to your achieving your purpose. Employees need to be clear on what is expected of them and provided the opportunity to develop in order to step up and be champions of this work.
Performance Culture
You should be evaluating your people on how they are championing your values and contributing to achieving your purpose. Daily feedback should be given and requested in these aspects of their performance in addition to how they are achieving their objectives and goals while performing their functional role. As managers assess their employees for their annual performance reviews, they should be required to include their contributions aligned to Your Truth in their overall rating. If it doesn’t get measured, are your people going to take it as seriously?
Promotions shouldn’t be readily given to your employees who aren’t champions of Your Truth. Their pay raise shouldn’t just be based on hitting their objectives but also how they contributed to Your Truth as they did their work and supported others in your organization.
Team Dynamics
Teams should step away from their daily work throughout the year to assess how much of Your Truth is alive or not in how the team works together. They need to be evaluating themselves, discovering where they are succeeding and falling short within their team and create that action plan to further embed Your Truth into their team culture. They should acknowledge their improvements throughout the year and senior leaders should be providing feedback and celebrate those improvements with those teams.
Outside of the employee journey elements I’ve mentioned, there are other areas of your business that are opportunities to further embed Your Truth.
Strategy Development
If your organization leverages a strategic house to shape and communicate their strategy, or another tool, your purpose should be at the top and the values should be visible at the bottom. Every strategic pillar needs to support your purpose. How your organization will go after each pillar needs to be grounded in your values. As your employees see your 1-pager deck, they will be reminded of Your Truth and how it is linked to and embedded in your business strategy.
Brand Communications
As your Brand team develops its external stories to communicate to your consumers, they should also find ways to incorporate Your Truth into their strategy and executions. As they create their campaigns, are they honoring the spirit of your values? Have they found ways to showcase your “why” in their storytelling and campaigns?
Internal Communications
Your Truth should also be very present in your communications to your employees. As your senior leaders send out updates via email or host a town hall meeting, they should be pointing to Your Truth as rationale for why certain decisions were made or a reminder of who you are as an organization and what is expected of all employees in terms of how they behave and perform their functional duties. Ensure your internal sites have pages dedicated to Your Truth where it is explained and you have authentic and inspiring stories to promote the importance and impact it has on your organization and it’s culture.
Throughout the year, you and your leaders need to take a step back to assess how embedded Your Truth is in your culture and operations and engage employees to develop plans and take action to further embed itand bring it more to life. Celebrate the successes with your people and acknowledge the steps that were taken to make it happen. Explore why you are falling short in certain areas and map out a game plan to remix it so Your Truth is present and honored. Be authentic. Be innovative. Be solution-driven.