Defining company values and why they matter

Every great company culture starts with clear company values. These aren’t just buzzwords you see on cheesy posters and buried in onboarding decks. They’re the guiding principles that shape how people work, lead, and make decisions. 

When you start defining your company values, the workplace transforms. Your employee experience improves, integrity and honesty show up in everyday behaviors, and teamwork flows naturally. This is how your workplace moves from just talk to real commitment. 

While setting your company’s core values gives everyone direction, keeping them alive takes work. In this guide, we’ll show you how to define what truly matters. And more importantly, how to make it stick.

What are company values?

Company values are the core principles that drive vision, mission, and purpose, conveying how teams should show up in all aspects of their roles.

When you define your company values intentionally, they ripple across every aspect of your company culture. This impacts everything from the way you hire to the small, daily choices you and the people at your organization make. 

Defining company values also influences:

• Who you bring onboard (you hire for shared values, not just skill)
• How your organization’s leadership behaves (do they walk the talk?)
• How you make decisions (does this choice reflect company values?)
• How teammates treat each other (integrity, honesty, accountability) 

The numbers behind meaningful values

These recent stats prove just how important company values and culture really are:

• Workers in positive organizational cultures are almost 4x more likely to stay with their current employer (SHRM).
• Employees are 115% more engaged when they work for a business with well-defined company values (LeadershipIQ).
• Only 21% of workers say they’re engaged, which may be linked to poor company values (Gallup).

Why company values are important 

When leaders define their company values early and communicate them often, the results feel like magic. These core values align your workers and organization, boosting employee engagement and job satisfaction. 

Company values build a strong employment value proposition, helping to attract and retain talent and differentiate you from competitors. When your team believes in the value your company provides, they’re far more motivated to work toward a common goal. 

How to define your company’s core values

When defining company values, you have to dig deep to find out what makes your organization tick. Here’s how to turn vague ideas into guiding principles. 

1. Gather input from your leaders and employees

Host workshops, surveys, and casual coffee chats to find out what matters most to your employees at work. What behaviors earn respect? What moments make people proud?

When you collect insights from multiple points of view, you’ll uncover genuine company values, not just ones the CEO thinks are cool. 

2. Look for patterns 

Find common themes and priorities in what people are saying. If terms like teamwork, innovation, and integrity keep popping up, that’s your culture talking. Group related ideas and turn them into key themes. 

3. Align company values with your mission and goals 

Company values should reflect where your business is heading. For example, if your mission is creating sustainable solutions, add responsibility and curiosity to the list. If you aim for industry excellence, make ambition part of your guiding principles.

4. Draft, test, and refine 

Write your company values statement and keep it short, bold, and easy to understand. Then, test it. Share it with your team and ask, “Does this sound like us?” 

Ask for feedback and revise your values statement over time. The goal is capturing your organization’s unique identity, not sounding like every other company on LinkedIn. 

5. Aim for actionable 

If you’re wondering how to put core values into practice, remember to keep them actionable. If you choose honesty as a value, be able to describe what that looks like in practice. 

This may mean giving feedback directly or speaking up when it’s not the easiest choice. Your core values must be able to translate into daily behaviors. 

Company values: Examples from leading companies 

Curious to see what other organizations are doing? These three companies' values stand out as effective in shaping culture and aligning people. They prove when an organization’s core values are clear, specific, and actionable, they do more than just refine a brand. They help build a culture people actually want to be part of. 

Apple 

Apple’s core values reflect the same creativity and discipline that took them from a startup to a globally recognized brand. Their guiding principles reflect how they design, lead, and operate on a daily basis:

• Accessibility 
• Education 
• Environment 
• Inclusion and diversity 
• Privacy
• Racial equity and justice 
• Supply chain innovation 

Each of Apple’s core values is tied to action. Accessibility and education mean their technology opens doors instead of closing them. Inclusion and equity keep the brand accountable. Privacy reflects Apple’s integrity, and supply chain innovation shows their commitment to responsible growth and production.

Stingray

Stingray, a global audio and video brand, doesn’t just want people to tune in. They want their employees to feel in tune. Their core company values strike an excellent balance:

• Integrity
• Fun 
• Engagement 
• Excellence 
• Innovation 

Each one plays a part in shaping Stingray’s high-energy company culture. Integrity and excellence keep the team grounded and aligned, while fun and innovation bring out the curiosity. And with employee engagement at the center, people know they’re part of something bigger.

OPAL-RT Technologies

OPAL-RT Technologies builds real-time simulation technology that powers industries. But their company values prove they haven’t lost the human touch:

• Fast innovation 
• Caring 
• Performance 
• Cooperation 
• Openness 

This combination keeps their workplace kind and quick — a win-win. Performance and innovation push the boundaries of what’s possible, while caring, cooperation, and openness remind everyone that people come first.  

How to promote core values in the workplace

Putting your company’s core values down on paper is the easy part. The change happens when your organization lives and breathes them.

These four strategies will help embed those core values so they’re not forgotten after Week 1. 

Make values part of the welcome party

From the first day, your employees should know that your values statement isn’t just for show. Sprinkle them into every new-hire packet, orientation slide deck, and welcome email. Make “Here’s how we show integrity and teamwork” a line in the introduction presentation. When your company values are part of the onboarding process, new folks will see them as the standard. 

Celebrate your people

When someone lives your company values, call it out. Celebrate the employees who show honesty, innovation, and respect in your workplace. 

You can do this through small rewards, public shout-outs, and other types of employee recognition. When you acknowledge specific team members, this signals that your company values the effort employees make.  

Workleap Officevibe makes it easy to celebrate your employees through digital cards and thoughtful shoutouts. Plus, you can create your own custom recognition card collections based on your company values to reinforce the right behaviours. See how OPAL-RT Technologies used Good Vibes to do just that!

Build company values into performance reviews 

Integrate your core values into how you evaluate performance. With Workleap Performance, you can design review cycles that ask about your core values, not just key performance metrics. 

Keep a pulse on value alignment 

You can’t fix what you don’t see. Use Workleap Officevibe to regularly check in and see if your company values still feel real to your team. Our platform lets you run quick surveys and pulse checks to see how well your employees embody core values. 

Use the survey results to tweak, reinforce, or even completely redefine how your organization shows up. It’s more about progress than perfection, and these ready-to-use engagement surveys are bite-sized and automated to fit seamlessly into your team’s flow.

Bring your company values to life with Workleap

Defining your company values is step one. But living them is where the real impact happens. Your core values only work when they’re seen, felt, and measured, and that’s where Workleap comes in. 

Use Workleap Officevibe’s pulse surveys to track how well your team embodies and understands your company values. This quick, consistent feedback helps you tune into whether or not your guiding principles are really showing up at work. Officevibe makes celebrating values-driven behavior part of your every day. Your managers and staff can recognize each other for showing values like integrity and teamwork, boosting your company culture. 

Ready to bring your company’s values to life? Try Workleap Officevibe for free to see how easy it is to create a more engaged team.