Like every company, you want your organization to be the best among your competitors. And you’re absolutely right, corporate values are a good way to get there.

These values are not optional extras; on the contrary, they drive change, increase productivity and improve employee retention. But you may argue that putting them into practice takes time and energy, and you would be right!

Read on, and we’ll tell you why it’s worth it and how to create your own corporate values.

What is a corporate value?

Your company’s values are the key elements that govern the way you work, the way your colleagues work together and the way your employees feel.

Your company values set the standard for accountability and teamwork. Carefully considered, these values will accompany your employees for the duration of their presence in your organization.

Employee satisfaction and retention are sometimes affected by corporate values. These values can make employees feel valued, give importance to their work and set standards and behaviors for themselves and others.

Corporate values, like a vision statement, guide your team and get everyone on the same page when it comes to sharing and engaging with each other within your company.

Why are corporate values so important?

Clear corporate values make it easier to ensure that all employees are working toward the same goals. Your company culture is shaped by your core values, which also help support your vision.

These values should guide all business decisions made by the company. These values must therefore guide all business decisions made by the company.

Without core values, a company is not really a company. If your company’s values are not clearly defined and communicated to your staff, how can you inspire creativity, build great teams and provide excellent customer service?

Without core values, a company is not really a company. If your company’s values are not clearly defined and communicated to your staff, how can you inspire creativity, build great teams and provide excellent customer service?

Your company’s culture and business strategy are shaped by the values you have established. They help you create a sense of commitment in the workplace, build team cohesion and establish purpose.

It’s no surprise to you that your company’s values also play a key role in attracting talent: 46% of job seekers cite company culture as very important when choosing to apply to a company.

Values are not just one of those buzzwords, to which we dedicate a section in the “Who we are” or “about us” page in the website. Think again! You’ll see for yourself the benefits of having clear and concise values adopted and established in your company.

A recent study found that 71% of professionals would accept a reduced salary if they had the opportunity to work for a company whose mission resonates with their purpose and with which they share the same values.

Implementing strong corporate values helps to :

• Fostering team buy-in
• Set standards for cross-functional collaboration
• Build a healthy corporate culture
• Increase employee retention and commitment
• Giving meaning to each other’s work and a common team goal
• Strengthen decision making
• Foster better teamwork

Pentabell and its corporate values

Pentabell approaches its corporate culture and services in the same way: both require time, effort and investment. Like services, company values take time to develop; in order for them to remain meaningful to our team, we must constantly reflect on how to evolve and reaffirm them.

In conclusion, while these values are essential to a healthy corporate culture, it is not enough to write them on a banner and post them in our workplaces.

You need the support of your people to create powerful corporate values. For this reason, when Pentabell chose to review its corporate values a few years ago, it was not management that took the initiative, but the team as a whole that came together to decide on the values that we were passionate about and that united us. In the end, we decided on the following four values:

Team spirit

At Pentabell we support inclusion, we believe that an innovative team should not only include highly qualified executives. On the contrary, it is necessary to integrate different profiles in order to become a real proposal force.

Sometimes the most creative ideas come from the driver or from interns. For us, inclusion is very important as it allows us to aim for common goals and to cultivate a sense of belonging and therefore team spirit.

In our organization the team spirit is manifested in various aspects, we organize monthly activities of different natures: sports team building, artistic team building, adventure team building, workshops, seminars, themed evenings, it is really varied, it has contributed to improve productivity and strengthen the bonds between our employees thanks to the friendly atmosphere.

Our teams share fun and warm moments and experience positive emotions outside the usual context.

Innovation

At Pentabell, our people, processes and tools define our culture and are key to our success. Our own ATS, Hunter applicant tracking system, is one of the most innovative aspects of our HR process, allowing our recruiters to optimize the recruitment cycle, find the best candidates and make the right decision.

Our certificate of experience validation “Valid XP”, is a professional certification that serves to validate the experience acquired by our consultants within the framework of the missions accomplished on behalf of our customers, it allows on the one hand to our candidates to better value their competences and to obtain the best opportunities and on the other hand to our customers to benefit from a positive image with their customers and partners.

Engagement

Our committed employees are the cornerstone of Pentabell’s success. For this reason, we strive to create an environment where they enjoy coming to work, feel respected and trusted, and are given interesting and challenging responsibilities, as well as unlimited career growth.

At Pentabell, we foster employee engagement in several ways;

• Active listening: to encourage communication and the sharing of points of view, to bring out innovative ideas, to re-establish dialogue in case of conflict, to anticipate the material and human needs of the organization.
• Fairness: Workplace satisfaction and commitment are only possible if an employee is treated fairly.

We are transparent about our relationship with each of our employees and ensure that we do not favor one employee over another.

• Recognition: We are always grateful for our employees and their efforts, our managers do not hesitate to give positive feedback to their teams, and to give them rewards.

Quality

At Pentabell, we have made quality one of the key axes of our value system, in order to improve customer satisfaction and make the best use of resources.

We have always encouraged collaboration as a means to support the quality culture within our organization.

Regular cross-functional collaboration, including brainstorming sessions and working groups, is an excellent approach to generating ideas. This approach has proven to be effective in fostering a common vision and close-knit teams.

Our leadership spirit also plays a key role in creating a quality culture. We are committed, supportive and seek to empower our people through incentives and personal development.

How to define your company values

Clear and easy-to-understand core values serve as a compass for employees and promote loyalty to the company as a whole. In addition, they keep employees motivated and increase job satisfaction.

Recruiters can look for candidates who share the same values as the company, which increases their longevity. Combined with internal communication, this will increase the overall productivity of the company by engaging employees.

Align your core values with your corporate culture

Your corporate values should be unique to your organization, but unfortunately many companies try to adopt the values of their competitors, but this is a very big mistake to avoid. Since one company’s values may not be appropriate for another, yours must be distinctive and aligned with your organization’s goals.

Be passionate with a clear direction

One of the most important/relevant characteristics for employees is passion; it fosters an atmosphere of commitment and ambition. Employees who are happy and proud of their role in the company spend time understanding the company’s goals.

Passionate employees make strategic decisions and future changes in the company more fluid. This passion encourages teamwork, team spirit and collaboration between colleagues.

A solid internal communication strategy is the first step to cultivating a passionate culture. Listening to those around you and acting on any comments or feedback when appropriate creates the right balance. Giving employees a voice, whether through user-generated content or an employee survey, helps establish a culture where everyone belongs.

Aim for real values

Your company’s core values are ultimately what you want your team to represent and embody. Consider the qualities that your team holds dear, such as curiosity, honesty, trust, transparency, etc., to determine which values best fit you.

Make the values easy to understand

Try to avoid jargon and so-called buzzwords when creating your corporate values. These often don’t properly express the organization’s personality or tone of voice. Assess the company’s core beliefs and communicate them to all staff to maintain the same ethics and passion.

Communicate the values internally and ensure they are reflected in the day-to-day activities of the organization. From the writing style of emails to how colleagues treat each other in times of stress, values impact everything and should be accessible to everyone.

Think outside the box

You shouldn’t be afraid to be original if you want your values to align perfectly with your company’s culture. Think about what makes you unique and reflect that uniqueness in your values.

However, without good reason, you should not force this quirky aspect. Don’t make the effort to give your company “unique” values if your staff is satisfied with the classic nature of the organization. Otherwise, you risk making your staff question their place in the organization.

Get your team on board

For us, discussing our core values as a group is the best way to do this. Instead of imposing the values, brainstorm them as a team. You’ll find that this global reflection is much more beneficial than a simple management team meeting. By including all members of your team in the process of developing your values, you automatically gain their support and buy-in as well as improve team morale.

Examples of inspiring corporate values

Proprietary corporate values, such as puns and jokes that are difficult to understand, values that allude to certain product attributes, etc.

Proprietary corporate values

Proprietary corporate values are those that apply only to a certain company, such as puns and jokes that are difficult for non-experts to understand, values that allude to specific product attributes, etc.

Airbnb

Core Values

• Championing the mission: we unite with our community to create a world where everyone feels welcome everywhere.
• Be welcoming: caring and open-minded, we support everyone we work with.
• Participate in the adventure: curiosity, open-mindedness and a desire to see everyone grow are the values that drive us.
• Being an entrepreneurial cereal: we are determined to make our boldest ambitions a reality, and to be creative in doing so.

LinkedIn

Core Values

• Focus on members
• Build on relationships
• Be open-minded, honest and constructive
• Inspire excellence
• Take measured risks
• Take a cue from #OneLinkedIn bosses
• Be an ambassador for diversity, inclusion and belonging

Bold corporate values

The values in this second category are unique to the companies that adopt them. If you were to implement some of them in your organization, they might even be controversial. That’s also why they are critical to those particular companies, and why we’ve added them to this list.

Google

The 10 fundamental principles of Google

1. Put the user first, the rest will follow.
2. Better to do one thing and do it well.
3. Always do it faster.
4. Democracy on the Web works.
5. You can need answers at any time.
6. You can make money without selling your soul to the devil.
7. The amount of information continues to grow.
8. The need for information knows no boundaries.
9. You can be serious without wearing a tie.
10. You can always do better.

Pentabell

Pentabell’s values

• Innovation
• Quality
• Team spirit
• Commitment

Classic corporate values

Traditional or more established companies generally adhere to traditional ideals that are less complex and less eccentric than those we have seen so far. These ideals are no less intriguing; they have simply been modified to fit the culture of these companies.

Microsoft

Corporate Values

Respect: We recognize that the opinions, feelings and backgrounds of others are as important as our own.

Integrity: We are honest, trustworthy and value ethics.

Accountability: we accept full responsibility for our decisions, actions and results.

Salesforce

What brings us together guides us forward

• Trust
• Customer Success
• Innovation
• Equality

You have determined the essential values of your company: this is already a good start. Now all you have to do is contact us to find the rare pearls that will strengthen your teams and bring these values to life within your company.