How Do You Identify Your Company Values and Ensure Everyone Can Lean Into Them in 2026?
So Why Do Companies Create Values?
1. Brand polishing
Corporate values often function as a kind of moral window dressing. They let a company present itself as principled, ethical, and human centred, even when the day to day reality is more complicated.
It’s reputation management, values become a marketing asset as much as an internal compass.
2. Employee alignment
Values give leadership a way to shape behaviour without issuing explicit rules.
If you can get employees to internalise “We’re all about innovation” or “We put customers first,” you can steer culture
and performance while making it feel voluntary. It’s soft power disguised as inspiration.
3. Risk insulation
When something goes wrong, - a scandal, a lawsuit, a PR disaster, - published values can act as a shield. Companies can say, “This incident doesn’t reflect who we are,” even if the behaviour was entirely predictable. Values become a pre built defence strategy.
Whatever the motivation might be to create company values, all too often they’re built from the boardroom with a view of what is believed the customers will want to see.
But that’s all a bit cynical right?
Not really, go and ‘walk the floor’,. A ask employees at all levels what the company values mean to them and how do they live the values, - often the response is either blank, negative or reference to “they don’t live the values”!
So why is this often the case?
It comes back to the motivation of why values are needed, are they a ‘corporate shield’ or are they really the way the company wants to behave?
How the values are communicated and how the behaviour of the management structure manifests also determines how people judge the values of the company, and when not aligned mistrust can grow.
So how can this be avoided?
This, while not necessarily easy, is simple to achieve, involve the people in the creation of the values!
Gather understanding of what motivates the workforce, distil out the ‘noise’ that is likely to appear and translate the outcome into the values that support the motivators. Ensuring when the values are presented back to the employees, they are able to relate to them from the feedback given helps to bring them to life for everyone and ultimately increase the likelihood they can live the values.
So, what if money comes out as the key motivation?
The reason for asking this question is because it’s fairly likely and it’s worth addressing. Firstly, it’s important to understand that unless an individual enjoys sitting and counting their money, it’s not a motivator, it’s an enabler. Once you recognise the difference, you can then work to identify the real motivators, - family, friends, holidays, nice clothes etc.
Once the superficial element of money is removed from the equation, the real motivation and values are much easier to identify, and while money is important to most people, it’s what the money gives them that motivates them to go and earn it!
But what about the customers, the corporate image?
Once you start to identify the values of the employees, it quickly becomes apparent that they are often the exact same values just dressed in different clothes.
With careful consideration to the language used and clear communication back through the business structure, you can create a set of values that are not only naturally occurring within your business, but your customers are more likely to see these values being lived through the interactions they have with the people.
In summary
When company values are built from the inside out, not crafted as corporate wallpaper, they become something employees actually believe in and live every day. By involving people, stripping away superficial motivators, and translating real human drivers into shared principles, you create values that feel authentic, relatable, and naturally reflected in customer experience.
If you want values that genuinely shape culture rather than decorate a website, start by listening to the people who make your business what it is.
Ready to turn your values into something your teams can actually stand behind? Start the conversation, your culture will thank you for it.
Dave Bownes
Director,
Haynes Oliver Limited
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