Page 14 - Engage -- Summer 2018 -- no. 13

12 Summer 2018 FEATURE
Discover the Power of a
Core Values Statement
By Holly Lebowitz Rossi
every employee has a sense of professional identity, starting with what they create or build or with how
they help or serve someone in their job. But what inspires people as they arrive at work each day often has little to do with what they produce. It’s the core values of a company that can drive performance, commitment, and happiness among employees. When those values are clear, consistent, and integrated throughout the organization, both employee experiences and business outcomes thrive. Marketers hold a key responsibility with this culture-sustaining practice—core values should be at the very “core” of your internal marketing strategy.
Establishing a core values statement is “the number one thing all companies need
to do,” says Marissa Levin, Founder and
CEO of Successful Culture, a Washington, DC-based company that has helped more than 100 businesses craft and implement their statements. The stakes are high in
being intentional and clear in core values. According to a Society for Human Resource Management case study, 30 percent of mergers and acquisitions fail because of basic cultural incompatibility. Effective core values statements can prevent cultural missteps and save businesses.
But core values statements offer more than insulation against cultural implosion. Effective core values statements are powerful tools that can unify employees, clarify shared purpose, and inspire peak performance. Here are four examples of companies that have identified and implemented their core values in ways that have supported and sustained their business goals and employee satisfaction alike.
BRIGHT HORIZONS FAMILY SOLUTIONS (Watertown, MA)
Core Values Statement: The HEART Principles • Honesty
• Excellence
• Accountability • Respect
• Teamwork
Bright Horizons, a leading provider of child care, early education, and other services, distinguishes between the “what” of their business mission and the “how” of their daily
Marketers hold a key responsibility with this culture-sustaining practice— core values should be at the very “core” of your internal marketing strategy.
work. It’s the latter that informs the HEART Principles, says Ilene Serpa, Vice President of Communications for the company. “We always lived those principles, but naming them and describing them in words also held us—and those who would come after—accountable to them and accountable to our organizational culture,” she says. The HEART Principles infuse daily life for the company’s more than 30,000 employees in the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, India, and Canada. According to Serpa, “It’s not an overstatement to say that the HEART Principles are a touchpoint in every process, project, program, and basic human interaction we have within the Bright Horizons family and outside our family.” She adds that the company is very deliberate about referencing these values when welcoming new employees to the fold. “We stop and ask ourselves—in this moment—Do these principles resonate equally for those who are being welcomed and for those who are doing the welcoming? And if the answer is anything other than yes, we stop and reset.”