2020 marks a new year and believe it or not, a new decade. The new year is often a time where we hit refresh on both our personal and professional lives. With a new decade approaching, now is a great opportunity to revisit your personal values and determine how they are currently aligning with your organization.
What are some examples of values?
Whether it’s keeping promises, focusing on detail, or being reliable, values can show up in different ways. As your team works together to achieve a common goal, they are guided by their own underlying values. Aligned values keep everyone together and on the same page.
What are the importance of personal values at work?
Personal values are the ones that you bring with you to work each and every day. They guide your behaviour, your expectations and so much more. If there are any disconnects between employee and organizational values, or between employees themselves, certain rifts can arise which have the ability to impact communication, performance, efficiency, employee engagement, and loyalty.
Aligning values is like bolstering up your immune system during flu season. You get your flu shot, take your vitamins, get enough rest, and do everything possible to ensure your body is ready to fight off any viruses or infections that threaten it. It doesn’t mean that you won’t come in contact with certain illnesses, just that you’ll be healthy and ready to overcome them if you do.
It’s important that you assess personal values on an individual basis. There are lots of free online tools that exist in order to identify your personal values. Knowing your own personal values can help you identify if your values align with your organization’s. It also ensures if (and let’s be honest, when) issues do come up, your team can weather the storm together and ideally come out stronger as a united force.
How can my organization re-visit values to recalibrate company culture?
If it’s been a while since you checked in with your company values and overall purpose, start there. If your organization has changed or adapted with time, it’s overarching “why” may have shifted.
Values shape the culture, support the vision and reflect what an organization believes to be most important; they are the essence of the company’s identity – the principles, beliefs or philosophy of values. It is so important to create organizational values and integrate them into your organization through your processes and systems. Values and purpose act as an organizational glue for your team to bond and truly commit to achieving the tasks your organization sets out to do.
By having identified your own personal values first you can see how your values align with your organization’s values. They are your moral compass and should be used to guide your decision making process. When you feel conflicted, you can be aware of how your personal values come into play and how they may impact you at work. The next step is sharing any negative impacts (and positive impacts too for that matter) you are having with your team and not letting them fester into something more. Having open conversations about values can really change the type of culture in your organization.
At the end of the day, you likely spend more time at work with your colleagues than you do at home. It’s important to work in an environment that fits and fulfills your personal values on a consistent basis.
Looking for help navigating your organizational values and linking them to personal values in 2020? Daeco HR Consulting delivers simple, common-sense advice and customizes solutions to your company’s needs and culture. Start this decade on the right foot–contact us for a free consultation today!
