If you’ve ever watched the hilariously awkward TV classic, “The Office,” then you probably remember the smattering of ironic corporate values posters like the one above. A key lesson from the sitcom’s dysfunctional leaders is that values mean nothing unless you actually believe and uphold them. 

While most work settings aren’t quite as painful as seen on TV, inspiring and engaging employees today is often a challenge. In a recent poll, Gallup learned that 70 percent of American workers are either “not engaged” or “actively disengaged” on the job. This disengagement can wreak havoc on a company’s culture — and ultimately affect the quality of the services or products that employees deliver to customers each day. 

FLIPPING THE SCRIPT

But what if there were a better way to define your values and to build an engaging workplace culture — where employees buy into, live out, and ultimately pay off your brand’s position and purpose in their day-to-day work?

Customers — and your bottom line — would stand to benefit, as everyone on your team would be working more productively and happily to carry out your business goals. In fact, the same Gallup study found that engaged workplaces were about 21 percent more profitable than their disengaged counterparts.

“A Gallup study found that engaged workplaces were about 21 percent more profitable than their disengaged counterparts.”

At SIR, we believe the key to this brand cohesion is a leadership-backed research strategy. The idea is to first assess the expectations and desired values of your employees and customers. Then, see where those two sets of values align. If underpinned by the commitment of your leaders, this approach defines values from the bottom up, rather than the top down.

We’ve learned that a sweet spot emerges when your brand is shaped around your core values — where each piece of your positioning statement is tied to a value that research has shown to mean something real to your stakeholders. Now, when employees are out interacting with customers, they can really live out the brand. It’s all aligned. Employees are walking the talk. The brand is walking the talk. 

WHAT DOES THIS REALLY LOOK LIKE?

We recently had an exciting opportunity to do just this for ColonialWebb, a large commercial contractor. ColonialWebb’s leaders recognized an opportunity to reinvigorate its regional brand and to re-engage its workforce — all aligning with the latest best practice to let hard data guide business decisions.

SIR was brought in to help, along with workplace culture experts at Pure Culture Consulting. For our part, we interviewed staff to understand what drives them most at work. We surveyed customers and employees to understand their expectations and desired values. The result was a newly defined set of values that drove the company’s new positioning and purpose statements.

We also developed a video to tell the story and engage employees across ColonialWebb’s large operating footprint. The CEO’s visible role as the brand-values champion was critical for gaining staff buy-in during the rollout.

By investing in getting the values right and telling its story effectively, ColonialWebb successfully found a data-driven brand position that maximized its market impact.

What’s the best news of all? These values still make for great posters — but this time people actually believe what they read.