Most businesses talk about values. You may see their values written up on their website, or in brochures or displayed around the office. Company values are at the core of what a business stands for, how they conduct themselves, and can give an insight into why potential staff would want to join the organization.
However, talking about values is one thing, but how do you get from having a printed set of ‘corporate values’ as an intangible idea, to truly ensuring that all who work in an organization not just understand but really emulate the values that you stand for?
Firstly, it’s a good idea to offer new starters a thorough introduction to your corporate values during the induction process. Actually show examples of times where someone has demonstrated one of the values by way of case studies, video, or story-telling.
But going beyond induction, how do you instill your values across an organization, so that you have buy in across different teams, in different locations, and in many instances coming from different countries and cultures?
As a leader, it’s very much your role to demonstrate the values of the organization within your day to day interactions with, not only your customers, but your workforce too.
For example, perhaps one of your values is transparency – if this is the case, you should be demonstrating this by way of being open and honest with your team. Model the behavior of being straight with your clients too. If you see or overhear one of your team being economical with the truth when speaking to a customer – call them on it!
At Avis – one of our key philosophies was ‘’We try Harder’’. This meant that in everything that we did, from coming up with new products to make life a little easier, to offering the best customer experience, we were continually looking for ways to improve our service offering.
As Director of Licensee Relations and Franchise Operations, my role was to ensure that this value was instilled in those working for ABG across over 700 locations!
So how did I do it? Firstly, I produced an ancillary sales training and product management program for our licensee/franchisee community. This was very much built around our core values, and the sales process training gave specific and actionable examples of how to go about daily business in a way that really showed that ‘We try Harder’.
I also empowered our franchisees by delivering our ‘Voice of the Licensee’ system that improved support to our licensees. This meant that everyone felt valued and able to contribute to the continuous improvement of our service offering.
Giving your workforce a real voice to contribute to the direction of the business is key to making sure that you gain buy in to your value proposition. Without a way of making a difference, your staff and teams will struggle to truly commit to the values of your company.
In conclusion – don’t just talk about values – be the values.
Angela Barbato is an award-winning Change and Transformation specialist. Having held a range of senior leadership roles at Avis Budget Group, Angela is a foremost expert on the topics of leadership, transformation and customer experience. You can find out more about Angela at http://www.abarbato.com.