MANY employees want more than just a salary. They are also looking to find purpose in their work, and they want to feel cared for.

To meet their expectations, your organisation needs to ensure its corporate values match at least some of their personal values. Wherever there is a match, there is also an uptick in employee engagement, retention and client care.

But how do you choose values that resonate? And how do you effectively integrate and communicate these values across your organisation?

The value of values

At their core, personal values are the guiding principles that influence the way we think, feel and act. They inform our choices and how we conduct ourselves. They even inform what brings us joy.

To discover your own personal values, ask yourself what matters to you the most — for example, financial security, justice, kindness, community, etc. There’s no limit to the number you can have. The most important thing is knowing what yours are.

Corporate values represent the guiding principles of an organisation. They set the tone for the way it does business, and how it treats its workforce and its clients. In turn, these influence the organisation’s reputation.

When corporate values are clearly defined, they serve multiple purposes:

• They provide meaning at work and a shared sense of purpose, increasing employee engagement and motivation for doing a job well.

• They enhance brand reputation, which attracts and retains high-potential individuals.

• They align key business processes, as the translation of nebulous corporate values into specific behavioural indicators (more on this below) enhances the impact of employee touchpoints — from hiring decisions to succession planning.

Values that resonate

Employers face a variety of demands from their workforce. Each generation expects something different. Older employees, ‘Boomers II’, seek stability, role-clarity and autonomy. Gen X, Y and millennials desire fair pay, flexibility and purpose. The youngest individuals in the workforce, Gen Z, want to feel connected, valued and cared for; they are anxious about the future and expect their mental health to be a workplace priority.

To ensure your corporate values remain relevant and help future-proof your organisation, consider the following:

• Do they accurately reflect what your business stands for?

• Are they inclusive and representative of your entire workforce?

• Are your leaders ready to meet these workforce demands?

There is an increased urgency to move towards human-centred leadership

Human-centred

The ‘future of work’ predicts ongoing technological advances, more automation and more flexible hybrid working practices. There is also an increased desire for purpose-driven work and a sense of urgency to move towards human-centred leadership. While this might sound obvious – organisational leadership is about leading humans — it emphasises the importance of authentic human connection.

We’re hearing the youngest generation of employees asking to feel cared for. In response, we’re hearing calls for leaders to be more caring, to be more human-centred.

So how can a leader be more human-centred? Successful leadership is underpinned by one competency: emotional intelligence. This is an umbrella term used to describe being able to recognise and regulate your own emotions, knowing what motivates you, being able to tune into others (empathy) and building healthy relationships.

Let’s zoom in on empathy as a core leadership skill. Its role in successful business performance is phenomenal. In practice, an empathic leader is inherently sensitive to others’ thoughts and feelings. They’re liked by colleagues and clients, and have a natural propensity to make everyone feel included and valued. They manage difficult conversations with sensitivity and feel more comfortable than most in diverse groups. All of this reinforces equality, diversity and inclusivity initiatives, and it’s great news for Gen Z employees.

The business case is clear too — empathic leaders lower rates of workforce sickness, absence and burnout. Because they treat their teams well, employee engagement and commitment increases. An organisation that builds a reputation for being caring towards its employees attracts the best people who won’t want to leave. Customer satisfaction and loyalty also increase.

Top tips

Here are some suggestions of how to embed values that matter.

1) Take a human-centred approach by including empathy as a value. More than simply communicating your corporate values on posters, in emails or on the intranet, make them practicable by identifying specific behavioural indicators you expect to see. For example, empathy: a colleague should ask open questions to understand perspectives, seek others’ opinions before making decisions, act with kindness and seek opportunities to support others.

2) Implement your values to improve performance. Using the specific behavioural indicators, incorporate your values into key business processes. For example, a sound assessment process will enable you to hire the right talent for your business. Performance conversations will become easier when everyone knows exactly what is expected of them.

3) Prioritise this cost- and time-efficient option. Most business psychologists would implore you to train all your leaders in empathy skills, but I’d recommend saving your time and money by first finding your most empathic employees and then supporting them into senior roles. This cohort will need tailored development. While their focus on others is compassionate, their attitude to themselves is prone to being overly critical. So consider supporting their self-belief to overcome imposter syndrome, offer guidance on strengthening weak boundaries, and encourage them to care for themselves as well as they care for their colleagues and clients.

By adopting human-centred values, companies are choosing to retain their best talent, enhance their organisational reputation and ultimately future-proof their business.

Author: Jess Baker is a business psychologist and leadership coach

Source: ACCA Accounting and Business magazine