What Are Company Core Values?
Company values act similarly to personal, but on a much larger scale. They’re the principles by which your entire organization lives, breathes, and functions. With companies, core values are kind of a “sum of its parts” kind of deal.
In order for a company to truly embody each of its core values, every employee needs to follow them, and their collective devotion is what maintains the core of the company.
Your company core values play a vital role in your business growth plan because following them will largely determine how you move toward your goals.
via GIPHY
Core values play a significant role in how a company is run – they guide the business’s actions while defining the brand and uniting employees.
Core values essentially shape your company culture, as they ultimately determine what is most important to your business. They act as a criteria by which companies hire and fire people, and they ensure accountability from every team and every individual.
They also show stakeholders the direction in which your companies moves, and help teams steer through tough decisions during times of conflict and crisis.
What do all of these points have in common? They all revolve around making decisions – which is what core values helps you do both personally and on an organizational scale.
Developing company values should always be a team effort, and there are several ways to do it.
Put together a group of leaders and high ranking employees who you want to involve in building out your values, and brainstorm a list of all the important values that might be relevant to your company.
In order to spark brainstorming, try asking and answering a series of questions either to the group or individually.
Once you have a list together, then work together to eliminate the less essential values, and narrow the list down to a final set between five and 10.
If you need help whittling down your list, determine what is essential to your environment and what behaviors you encourage your team to stand by.
Once you have a strong set of values, test if each one serves a purpose with this checklist:
Core values should be structured using powerful key terms that define their value. That being said, sometimes this is easier said than done. To help you out, we’ve put together the ultimate list of 50 sample core values that you can use for your own.
Take accountability for the work you do, both the good and the bad. It builds better teams and a stronger, more reliable company.
Team members should always strive to achieve their goals and knock them out of the park.
“Adapt or die” is a commonly used phrase throughout society, but it’s also a powerful survival and success strategy for businesses.
A healthy amount of ambition keeps each team member and the entire company moving forward to continually strive for achievement.
Understanding the environment within which you operate and being able to anticipate important events, such as market shifts, technological developments, and even pitfalls, will help you to stay a step ahead of the tides.
Never underestimate the importance of appreciating your gifts and the success you have been able to achieve due to the work of each and every team member and your loyal customers.
Authenticity within your work is both refreshing and encouraging when building trust with clients.
Maintaining a healthy work-life balance ensures for happier, more productive employees and an overall more positive working environment.
Building an inclusive environment to create a sense of belonging both with your employees and customers makes your brand – and the whole world, really – a better, more friendly and accessible place.
Sometimes, being bold can take you great distances in achieving your goals, and even staying true to who you are. Boldness is often rewarded.
via GIPHY
Striving for brilliance in everything you do is an admirable value that often leads to your efforts paying off.
Character is everything. An individual’s character embodies everything about who they are as a person – just as it does with an organization.
Fostering a sense of community both within your work environment and throughout the greater reach of your brand creates a more inviting, positive space.
Effective collaboration is at the core of functioning and succeeding as a team, and as a company as a whole.
Each team member should be making a valuable contribution to the team, the goal you’re looking to achieve, and the overall organization.
Encouraging creativity within work is how ideas are born. Creativity builds success by driving companies – and our greater society – forward into the future.
Commitment to your work, your team, your company, and your customers enables you to deliver the very best products and service.
Strong communication is key to a healthy, thriving organization. It allows you to listen and engage with your audience, as well as within the teams that operate your company.
If you don’t have confidence in your own work and products, then neither will your customers. Inspire by leading.
Maintaining composure under pressure and in challenging, heated situations helps you navigate through trials toward a resolution and overall success.
Speaking with conviction about your products, services, and overall industry will establish you as a thought leader and bring authority to your knowledge base throughout your audience.
via GIPHY
The ability to decide and act in any situation keeps your team and overall company from becoming paralyzed in indecision – a deadly risk in the business world.
Working diligently ensures that your team takes well thought out steps and always puts careful considerations into their work. It’s the core of detail-oriented work.
Discipline can be an important tool in any industry, as it is the root of self control and ultimately good work habits.
No job comes without appropriate duties to fulfill. It may sound like a formal term, but taking on each and every one of your role responsibilities is what makes for valuable employees and a valuable organization.
Prioritizing education for each and every team member, as well as your customers, puts you at the forefront of your industry and drives the entire organization toward improvement.
Maintaining determination through even the most challenging work is one of the key pillars to building toward your goals.
It’s important to encourage every individual team member – whether it’s praise for a job well done, or some motivational words to give them a boost during a setback. Encouragement can go a long way in driving your team toward success.
Ethics takes the lead when it comes to values that determine decisions and actions. Business ethics has been a hotly debated topic for many years.
This might be a given, but people want to work with and buy from companies who are experts in their field. Nobody ever voluntarily chooses second-best. Neither should you.
via GIPHY
Being fair to your employees and customers creates a positive work environment and customer experience. Something as simple as reasonable benefits is a great way to create fairness throughout your company.
Generosity goes a long way in making the world a better place, and it’s a great way to foster loyalty within your team and customers.
Prioritizing growth is one of the most important pillars for success within organizations. Additionally, encouraging personal and career-oriented growth within each individual employee makes for a stronger overall company.
Happiness is a hugely underrated value that makes an impactful difference in all areas of business, from overall employee happiness to customer satisfaction.
Nothing gets done without hard work. Goals are never met with mediocre effort, and if they are, you’re not reaching far enough.
People value honesty through all walks of life. Transparency within your company’s teams and between your organization and your customers builds trust and makes for a stronger, more communicative business.
Similar to generosity, good hospitality simply makes the world a better place. Receiving people in a friendly manner and welcoming them into your space makes for a more inclusive environment.
There’s nothing wrong with being proud of your achievements and what you can offer to your customers, but humility goes a long way in maintaining a classy, respectable reputation throughout your industry.
Innovation is the core of fresh ideation. Being innovative not only allows you to be ahead of the game – it allows you to lead it.
Kindness in all things you do can make a major difference in how people respond and interact with you. It’s one of the most important elements of creative a positive work experience, and an overall satisfying customer experience.
via GIPHY
Nothing is ever achieved without motivation. The ability to keep your eye on the prize as a means to drive you forward through your work is a powerful one.
The world of business can be a challenging and sometimes disheartening environment. During these times, maintaining an optimistic outlook will enable you to tap into a productive mindset to keep moving forward.
There’s no two ways about it – being passionate about your work leads to happier employees and better results.
Remember that age old phrase “patience is a virtue”? That is applicable in pretty much every corner of life, but especially in business. Patience with yourself, with your employees, your customers, even sometimes the frustrating system of how businesses must be run will allow you to maintain composure and focus on what’s really important.
Living up to one’s potential is one of the greatest achievements a person can strive for, so why wouldn’t it be the same for an overall organization? Build your team and your company to be the best that they can be.
Productivity is one of the most important elements to achieving your goals and reaching your potential. An unproductive workplace won’t get much done, and will likely miss deadlines and quotas.
You’ve probably heard it a million times – focus on quality over quantity. It’s better to produce a small amount of highly valuable work, than a large amount of effectively useful work. This is strongly applicable to pretty much any situation in which a company is providing a product or service to a customer.
Reliability is one of the most important methods through which you retain customers and foster brand loyalty.
Respect isn’t just important within business, it’s a key pillar of our overall society. Respect for one another makes for a functional, positive world. Without it, things tend to fall into chaos. So why wouldn’t it be the same within a company?
Deadlines are one of the most important elements within business. If you’re constantly missing your deadlines, then you likely have an unhappy leadership team, investors, and a whole gaggle of unhappy customers.
Company core values are more than just lip service. They steer the entire direction of an organization, and there's plenty of top performing companies that exhibit their values in everything they do.
The world's leading search engine and technology company keeps their values fairly simple, as outlined in their philosophy, 10 Things We Know to Be True.
Everyone's favorite ice cream brand has established itself since the late 70s by creating consistently delicious flavors. Their values are built around a three part mission that steers their decision making – their product mission, their economic mission, and their social mission.
Self-proclaimed "America's Healthiest Store" built their empire on clear, impactful core values.
This leading website builder and hosting company has exploded in popularity, and a lot of their rapid growth is thanks to their straightforward values.
This massive online retailer stands tall thanks to their strong commitment to servicing their customers, which is guided by their set of values.
The coffee shop on every corner made it there by putting their strong values into action.
The best alternative to hotels, this online marketplace is founded on simple, straightforward set of values.
The top name in online vintage marketplace makes it simple with their values to deliver excellent customer experiences.
The leading name in business software empowers their employees with a strong set of values to delight their customers.
Since the early 80s, this company laid the foundation with their core values and are now the ultimate software company.
Their flagship product is their most well-known product, but this company does so much more, and that growth is a thanks to living by their values.
A leading online retailer for glasses is driven by four simple core values, which is what laid the foundation for their massive growth over the last few years.
This nonprofit is driven by mobilizing future leaders, and their values pave the road for success.
Animal welfare is the top mission of this nonprofit, an ambitious goal that makes the world a better place.
Founded on five specific value areas, this top clothing brand thrives on an empowered, passionate culture.
One of leaders of conversational marketing technology didn't earn their place through luck; they built a strong culture with a foundation of awesome values.
A leading voice in the SEO world, this company continues to dominate as a tech company, thanks to their principles.
The best place for affordable furniture and Swedish meatballs, they built an enthusiastic community, thanks to their culture.
Thier mission of making work life simpler is founded on simplicity in the way they communicate what their company is built on. As you can see, they keep their core values simple too.
Ok, we are a little biased here, but our core values guide everything we do to ensure that we are helping clients transform the way they market, sell, and service their customers.
Company values steer the ship of your business in both your day-to-day operations and your long-term, big picture growth strategy. So what drives your organization?