A concrete way to live out company values — translate them into behavioral standards
The company’s values have been defined.
Town hall meetings have been held to discuss the code of behavior and work standards by which employees are expected to live by within the organization as well as in dealing with external partners, customers, and other associates.
Posters and screensavers have also been put up as a regular reminder of the values that the company stands for.
But it is not quite happening. Employees do not seem to be internalizing the values, and they are not widely felt within the organization and by other stakeholders.
Some clients have approached us with this difficulty in embedding values — despite trying everything, they needed help in assessing why they are not seeing the values lived out, and how to make it right.
In most cases, the problem is not because employees don’t want to live out those values or that they don’t even agree with it.
The biggest and most common stumbling block is ambiguity — what employees usually need is just more clarity on how to actually live out the values in everyday dealings.
That is why there is an important step of translating values into behavior. Setting behavioral standards makes the values more real for each employee and the organization as a whole.
The pivotal business questions that clients ask us are: How do we ensure that the values will be lived out by employees? How do we erase the ambiguity of what they see as “lofty” values into something crystal clear? What are the desired behaviors in order to demonstrate that the values are being lived out on a day-to-day basis so that they can become a driving force in the achievement of the company’s purpose and ambitions?
Under Acumen’s frameworks and methods, we start out with retrospective workshops among employees of the company to define and really go over in great detail what each specific value means to them. We ask them to articulate their own thoughts and feelings in order to discover what prompts attitudes and particular actions.
For example, in the Philippines, malasakit is a value that is found in many companies’ values. It has no direct translation into English, but it implies caring, concern, compassion, or empathy towards others.
So, in a corporate context, what does malasakit really mean?
What we do is get into are detailed descriptions of behaviors that concretize the value.
It could mean, in a very simple form of behavior, practicing a clean-as-you-go motto in common areas such as the office kitchenette and conference room in consideration of other users.
Malasakit could also mean that when a colleague asks for your feedback on a certain work stream, you provide them with that feedback within 24 to 48 hours — or at least send notice as soon as possible on when you will be able to deliver the request.
Another example would be behaviors relating to entrepreneurship, which in the big picture is guided by a growth mindset — about looking for ways to expand and innovate.
A behavioral manifestation of entrepreneurship could be an acceptance of a faulty decision, learning from that mistake, and reevaluating strategies and direction after the mistake.
In one of our clients, the behavioral standard for an employee was something as fundamental as: “When I’m in my company uniform, I feel appropriately dressed and I go into work ready to face all the customers that come my way and I approach everybody with a smile.”
So, when we talk about behavioral standards, we must delve into things that are concrete, meaning it can be seen, heard, and done. They are actions, habits, and efforts that you can see, hear or do — these make the values alive and real.
After the retrospective workshops, we use the data gathered to create a set of behavioral standards, then develop a change management and communications program on how the company can roll out these behaviors across the organization.
We strive to make behavioral standards end-to-end with the employee experience — looking at everything starting from recruitment, which means answering the question: How do we actually adjust our recruitment protocols so that we attract and hire people who are really aligned with our values?
Then we take it all the way through onboarding, training, coaching and mentoring, performance management, and recognition and rewards.
Employees want to live out the company values, sometimes they just don’t know how. By developing behavioral standards and embedding them across the entire employee experience, they will be able to internalize and live out the values — and can be measured and rewarded for it.
Cherry Tantoco-Daniels heads Acumen’s Organizational Transformation practice area. She brings over 30 years of multinational expertise in management consulting, marketing and brand management, teaching, and training across Asia, Europe, and the United States.