If your values could belong to any organisation, they belong to none
“Our values are fine.” If we had a dollar for every time we heard that phrase, we’d be running Employer Branding Australia from a beach house in Byron Bay.
Having values is easy. Slapping a list of noble concepts like Integrity, Innovation and Teamwork on your careers page takes mere minutes. But when a candidate reads those words, they’re unlikely to feel inspired, connected or any of the other warm, fuzzy feelings you’d hope they feel from your values. Instead, they’re more likely to feel indifferent. After all, those words could belong to any organisation. So what sets yours apart?
To actually inspire your people, to make them want to come into the office on a rainy Tuesday morning after negotiating a breakfast-table truce between fighting children, your values need to do two key things:
Guide how your people perform in their roles
Inspire how they show up and contribute to your culture
Ask yourself: how hard are your organisational values working for you right now? What do they tell your people about how to act - on the best days and especially the most challenging ones?
Five ways to get your values refresh right
We asked our team of employer branding experts on what they think is most important to get right when it comes to organisational values.
1. Anchor values in behaviours
A single word like Care or Excellence is too broad. To make the intangible tangible, attach behaviours to each value. For example, instead of simply saying, “We value excellence,” define it through action: “We share mistakes openly, ask for feedback and keep raising the bar.”
“It gives people the guardrails to know what good looks like. Everyone wants to know that they’re performing well in their workplace, so knowing what good looks like and how people can pull together is a clear sign that values are working.” Eden, Employer Brand Manager
2. Get granular and team specific
Your values should be relevant across your entire organisation, but how they show up daily will differ between teams. What Safety or Collaboration means for a site crew will look quite different to a clinical team. And different again for someone in a corporate role or a customer-facing role.
Encouraging individual teams to articulate how your core values translate into their specific workflows makes your values more personal and actionable.
“Shared values give an organisation a common compass, but every team has to navigate their own terrain. When you give teams the room to translate values into their specific environment, they stop feeling like words on a wall and start driving real, positive behaviours and better outcomes.” Lauren, Employer Brand Manager
3. Test them against your hardest days (and most cynical teammates)
It’s easy to live your values when you’re popping the champagne and celebrating a prosperous quarter. The true test comes during tough times - like tight deadlines, difficult decisions and major organisational changes.
When refining your values, cross-check them against every perspective across your business. The fresh faces, the long stayers, the happy campers, and especially your most overworked and cynical team members. If a value makes sense to them on a difficult, stressful day, you know you’ve found something authentic and resilient.
“You have to think about the most cynical person in the organisation. Will it ring true to them? Is it going to make sense on the tough days when things are hard, and act as a compass that guides you through any scenario?” Marci, Head of Employer Brand Strategy
4. Strike the balance between authentic and aspirational
Your values must reflect who you genuinely are today so people recognise themselves in the words you choose. However, it’s completely okay for values to have a healthy element of stretch. Every organisation grows over time. Good values should be evergreen - reflecting your current truth while inspiring your people toward the organisation you are striving to become, together.
“It’s okay if there’s more of an aspirational element to your values. They still need to be believable. They need to be lived every day, certainly. But it's not a bad thing if there's an element of, ‘This is who we want to be,’ and it should inspire people to show up as that.” Amy, Employer Brand Manager
5. Bring your people along on the journey
If there’s one thing you can do today to refresh your values, it’s as simple as start listening. Sit down with your people across all levels and departments and ask them what helps them thrive, what holds them back and how they navigate challenges together. When employees see their own language and shared experiences reflected in the final values, they’re far more likely to bring them to life.
“It’s about being collaborative. It’s not coming down and saying, 'We have an initiative and you have to get on board.' It’s saying, 'We want to listen to you. What are we doing well? Where is there opportunity?' It’s such a lost opportunity if it’s not treated as a two-way process.” Hannah, Employer Brand Partnerships Manager
The real value of values
Employees whose personal values truly align with their organisation’s would need around a 40% salary increase before they’d even consider switching jobs. [Source]
Fundamentally, people want to work for an organisation that stands for what they stand for. When you get your values right, it doesn't feel forced or unnatural. You’re simply articulating and reinforcing what already naturally unfolds across your teams. And that’s where the real magic happens.
