Bring Your Culture and Values to Life
Learning Objectives
After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:
- Define your culture-and-values story.
- Identify ways your company can bring its culture-and-values story to life.
- Explain how leading by example reinforces company culture and values.
Define Your Culture-and-Values Story
The first step in bringing your own workplace culture to life is defining your culture-and-values story. Doing this allows everyone at your company to align on a common goal and identify actions that everyone should take to achieve it.
Develop the most compelling story of who you are as a company, what you value, and how you work together by first finding out how employees feel and are talking about the company. Get the ball rolling by following these steps:
1. Start a dialogue with well-respected high performers, and ask:
- What words describe us as a company?
- What are we trying to achieve?
- What do you enjoy most about working here?
- What would cause you to leave?
- What do you think we value?
- What characteristics do we look for in the people we hire?
2. Describe the company’s purpose and vision and identify the cultural characteristics and values that your company must demonstrate to fulfill that purpose and vision.
3. Socialize your story with small groups to gather feedback, but remember that the goal isn’t to reach a consensus.
4. Get approval from senior leaders before you communicate the final version of your culture-and-values story.
As you’re developing your culture-and-values story, you also might consider key words or themes that consistently emerge in company reviews, employee engagement surveys, and focus groups.
Here are a few more tips for making your culture-and-values story stick:
- Ensure that your company’s story is concise and includes clearly defined values.
- Enforce company values consistently, and be willing to hire based on them.
- Uphold the company story in good times and in bad.
The most important step is next.
Bring Your Story to Life
Now that you’ve defined your company’s culture-and-values story, how can employees bring it to life in their day-to-day work? It’s as simple as implementing measurable programs and tools, along with communications, campaigns, and events. Here are some ways you can empower employees at every stage of their journey.
Attraction and Advocacy: Encourage employees to share and champion the company’s culture-and-values story. |
|
|---|---|
Recruiting: Integrate culture and values into the hiring process. |
|
Onboarding: Immerse new hires in your company culture and values. |
|
Spreading the Word: Consistently tell stories about company values in action. |
|
Experiences: Build programs that reinforce your company values. |
|
Goal Setting: Include company values in individual goal-setting practices and measure progress. |
|
Performance Evaluations: Include company values in performance assessments and promotion criteria. |
|
Recognition: Integrate company values into recognition programs. |
|
Measure and Evolve: Regularly follow up to gauge how well your company is demonstrating its values. |
|
Lead by Example
You’ve talked the talk about culture and values; now it’s time to walk the walk by personally living your culture-and-values story both inside and outside of your company. If you’re a people leader, it’s even more important that you lead by example. Your employees are watching your every move, so remember to ask yourself, “Does my behavior reflect our company values?”
It’s up to you—not HR, executives, or the marketing department—to bring company culture and values to life. Communications campaigns and formal programs all have a purpose, but the most powerful way to reinforce company culture and values is to model them yourself.
At Salesforce, we know what we stand for, and our customers, employees, partners, and communities do, too. You’ve seen how we’re intentional about our workplace culture and demonstrate our values in everything we do. Now it’s your turn to build and nurture a workplace culture that’s built on a solid foundation of core values!