How to Embed Values Within Your Organization: A Blueprint for Success

As we previously discussed, values are an integral part of defining an organization's unique culture. A values-driven culture is a key factor in sustaining employee retention and enhancing productivity today.

But what happens after you've defined those values that are unique to your organization? Now comes the hard part: How do you truly start to embed these values within the organization, so that your people not only understand them, but authentically live out these values every day?

To us, there are two critical inputs to consider:

1. Understanding the Employee Journey

To start, it's important to take a step back and understand the journey that the employee goes through in their time with the organization from start to finish. Mapping and understanding the employee journey, especially highlighting those 'moments that matter', can serve as opportunities to re-energize the working experience and reinforce our values. These stages of the employee journey, while they may slightly differ for each organization, typically include: onboarding, role clarity, developing training and skills, getting education and support from managers, career growth, and the important life events they experience at and outside of work while they are with the organization. From there, we can start to identify the key moments at which values can show up and integrate into the employee experience.

2. Layering the Employee Experience

Once we've understood the employee journey, we can layer on and consider all the facets of the employee experience that can create a holistic picture from which to live their values by. Research by McKinsey & Company indicates that there are three core areas of employee experience — social, work, and organization — that contribute to how positively or negatively employees view their journey with their company. Within those core areas, nine elements are essential to getting the experience right. See McKinsey & Company's framework below:

Social Experience:

1.     People & relationships: Am I seen and treated by my leaders as a significant contributor to the organization?

2.     Teamwork: Do the people I work with every day trust and care for one another to create a collaborative and innovative environment?

3.    Social climate: Am I welcome in this community and do I feel like I belong?

Work Experience:

4.    Do I have clear responsibilities, interesting work, and the resources I need to be successful in my role?

5.    Work control & flexibility: Do I complete my work efficiently, with flexibility and positive integration in my life?

6.    Growth & rewards: Am I given incentives and opportunities that help me learn, grow, and provide for my family?

Organization Experience:

7.    Purpose: Does my company have a purpose that aligns with mine, as well as processes to which I can contribute?

8.    Technology: Does my company’s technology enable me to work efficiently and without friction?

9.    Physical environment: Are my surroundings safe, comfortable, and human centered?

By examining each of these areas of employee experience and mapping these nine elements to each stage of the employee journey, we can start to pinpoint specific tactics to seamlessly integrate values. Considering each of these areas can help direct us in identifying where values can naturally show up in the organization, and when they can authentically integrate into the employee journey in the most impactful ways.

Embedding values throughout all stages of the employee journey allows organizations to build a strong, values-driven culture. By adopting an approach that ensures values are woven into every aspect of the employee experience, employees will not only understand these values but will be given the means to live them out authentically every day, creating a dynamic, powerful workplace.

💡 How do values show up in your organization? We’d love to hear more!