Company core values are more than words on a wall—they’re the operating system of your culture. When they’re clearly defined and consistently lived, they drive measurable business outcomes: stronger alignment, higher engagement, better hiring, and improved retention.
Organizations with strong, authentic values see 4x revenue growth, higher employee engagement (65% of employees who understand company values are highly engaged), and stronger recruiting and retention outcomes. Conversely, misaligned or unused values erode culture and accelerate turnover.
The most effective values are:
Motivosity customers with the highest eNPS scores consistently anchor their culture in five value categories: Integrity, Customer Focus, Teamwork, Innovation/Growth, and a Positive, Supportive Environment.
Motivosity makes values real by making them visible. Recognition tied to values reinforces the behaviors that move the business forward. When employees see peers living the values—and are rewarded for it—values shift from “poster material” to cultural momentum.
Bottom line: Defining your values sets the direction. Embedding them in daily recognition and behavior is what actually transforms culture. Motivosity helps companies do exactly that.
Company core values, sometimes called company values or core values, are typically the foundational beliefs that your business uses to shape culture, policies, goals, and more—providing the guiding principles to make decisions and steer the company in the right direction. For many companies, these core values are a blueprint for the way the company operates, who they hire, how they treat employees and customers, and how they prioritize new ideas or products/services.
One thing to note: Identifying core values at your company and truly integrating them into the day-to-day are two very different scenarios. While the first is a solid start for most businesses, if you don’t follow through and implement core values into every area of the business, you’re missing out on the benefits.
Company values are the central point to the culture at every business. Done right, reinforcing company values can help increase engagement, improve hiring and retention, and unite employees toward a common goal.
Here’s how:
Business revenue is often tied to productivity, and productivity is directly tied to the culture of the business—this makes perfect sense. When everyone is aligned on 3 - 5 main goals/a common purpose, it’s easier to get things done. Plus, the data agrees—when companies have a strong culture, they see a 4x increase in revenue growth.
Company values drive higher employee engagement for a simple reason—most people want to work with a business that aligns to their own personal beliefs/goals/standards. When you're aligned with the business on general values, it’s easier to show up to and live those values at work. And as a bonus, 65% of employees who understand the business’s values say they are also highly engaged at work.
When prospective employees are searching for a new workplace, company values play a big role. More than 1 out of every 5 new hires report that a company’s values influence whether they accept a job offer.
Company values directly impact how long employees stay at your business. Once new hires join, at least half of all employees say they would quit if the company culture (including the values) doesn’t align with their personal values.
While the company values a business selects are critical for the specific culture at that workplace, most company values fall into a few main categories.
Here are the most common core values, organized by category:
Note: At Motivosity, we found that among our customers with the highest eNPS scores (above 50), company values are selected from these five categories: Authenticity and Integrity, Customer Focus and Service, Community and Teamwork, Innovation and Growth, and Positive and Supportive Environment.
At Motivosity, our core values are at the center of what we believe and what we stand for as a company. They impact who we hire, how we interact with one another, our product innovation, and the entire culture of our business.
Check out our core values and why we picked them:
We believe everyone has a superpower. Part of letting your superpower soar is loving what you do! We want everyone at Motivosity to be engaged and excited about their work.
We believe in prioritizing customer needs and always showing up to provide excellent service to all stakeholders—both internal colleagues and Motivosity customers.
We believe the key to staying innovative and relevant is staying young. Curiosity drives the next great thing and we want everyone to be included.
Struggling to identify your company’s core values? Here are a few ideas on how to figure out what core values work for your business:
Start at the top by looking at your mission and vision statements—they can help you see what your company values and where you want to go.
Consider sending an employee engagement survey or an open-ended questionnaire to your employees to find out what values they believe align with their current work or those that they’d like to see made a higher priority by the leadership team.
Get together in a room with all of your key stakeholders and work through a productive brainstorm. Consider using a ‘brainwriting’ approach—asking everyone to write down their ideas and then pass those ideas to the next participant who then adds to the list.
Building your company culture around your core values starts with picking the right values. Here are some tips to consider:
Try to avoid any overly generic terms if you plan to only focus on a small set of values (or you don’t intend to write out a phrase or sentence that better describes the word). For example, if you select honesty as one of your core values, everyone will benefit from a slightly long description so they are clear on what you mean. This could look like: Honesty—We always strive to do what’s right.
Don’t leave your core values up for discussion—pick words or phrases (or write descriptions) that help everyone understand exactly what your core values are and what they mean. Whether you’re rolling out new core values or reminding your employees what your current values are, use an example to illustrate each one. Share what it means to live that value at the business and why it’s helpful to your company culture.
As you select your new core values, strive to pick values that people actually embody at your business—not words that are too aspirational or hard to live up to. If your current culture isn’t focused on innovation, perhaps curiosity is a better term to help you take the next step.
It’s important to get leader buy-in when you’re selecting your new core values. Without leadership support, employees will be left with no clear example of how to live each value at work. Once you’ve selected your values and leaders have approved the list, make it a point to act on each one. For example, if one of your core values is to be customer-focused, it’s probably not a good idea to sunset features or products that you know customers love.
The right core values can help your business build a culture that aligns with the company’s mission and vision. But company values can’t do that work if they’re only mentioned at company-side meetings or listed on a poster in the breakroom. Instead, consider these ideas on how to integrate core values throughout the entire employee experience:
The best way to integrate core values into your culture is to recognize and reward employees who are living up to the values of your business. Structure your recognition program so it’s easy for peers and leaders to highlight colleagues who embody any of the core values (or select recognition software that already does this). Pro tip: when you offer peer-to-peer recognition, recognizing employees who are practicing the core values at work becomes so much easier and you can do it every day. See how recognition is built-in to the culture at Big Leap and how they use the Motivosity platform to improve company culture.
With Motivosity, it’s easy to integrate your company values into your culture by recognizing employees as they live up to each of your core values. Simply input your company values in Motivosity and then peers and leaders can highlight employees as they display each value.
Find out more about how Motivosity can help you with recognition here.
