By David Henzel, co-founder of TaskDrive—we support sales and marketing teams with personalized lead research and outbound campaigns.
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In short, a company vision is knowing what the business aims to achieve. It is basically the answer to the company’s “why” or the reason a company exists. The mission is then the “how”—the method, or in other words the road map of how the vision will be accomplished. Last but certainly not least, a company’s core values define the principles and purpose the company stands for. Serving as the guidelines and the mindset under which all operations will function, values should express a company’s perspective, ambitions and purpose.
To make your mission, vision and values stick, you first have to make them memorable. While knowing the company vision and mission is important to understand where the business wants to head, core values serve as the principles to follow in the present and thereafter, in order to get there. Make the company vision and mission clear and concise and as catchy as possible. Similarly, a great way to ensure your staff embraces the company’s core values is to create a short and catchy slogan or mantra to remember them by. One catchphrase that we use in my company is “Own It!” It’s an easy and short way of summarizing our value, which in full is that “We build trust and excellence through total accountability.”
Once you have your vision, mission and values clearly established and easy to memorize, the next step is to consistently share them with your staff. These guiding principles, which serve as your company’s North Star, should be revisited like clockwork with your staff to make sure they are always at the forefront of their minds.
From the first interview to months and years down the line, here are five ways to share your company’s message with those who want to be a part of it:
1. Interviews
Imparting your company’s mission, vision and values starts at the initial point of contact and should be brought up at the beginning of every interview with a potential new employee. When you start the interaction by pointing out the purpose of the company they are applying to, this sets the stage for their responses to come from that perspective.
2. A Hiring Video
When we hire, the hiring manager records a video briefing of the job description and then goes over the company’s mission, vision and core values. This ensures the new hire really understands what the job entails and is aware of the principles our company stands for.
3. The Contract
Have your core values listed on the last page of the contract you make with new hires. Not only should you have them date and sign at the bottom of the page acknowledging their acknowledgment and pledge to comply with the values, but you should also have a check-off box for each value, so the new hire has to tick off each box. These checkmarks basically provide the grounds that should the new staff member fail to live up to the company’s core values, this could be a reason for termination. For example, “Fun and Harmony” is a slogan for one of our core values. It means that we want to foster a workplace that is a happy place and should someone violate that law of conduct then they may no longer be welcome aboard.
4. Monthly Meetups
For new hires, set up a monthly meeting or online call and go through your mission, vision and values with all the new hires and share some core value stories. For each core value, tell a story or two that serve as examples of how these principles play out in the professional setting. For example, with one of my core values—“Love not Fear”—just reading it may not be clear enough for new hires, so I explain what the mantra means in context, which is to approach everything we do with the emotion of love rather than with fear, and then I share how doing so improves everything we do.
5. Shout-Outs
Hold virtual monthly town hall meetings for all employees to relay the company’s mission, vision and core values and to give shout-outs to staff members who have performed exemplary in a way reflecting the principles. For example, we have core value ambassadors that we announce in a newsletter. Acknowledging and rewarding a staff member’s good practices is a great way to give back to those practicing what you preach.
You may worry that regularly recalling the company’s purpose may cause people to get tired of it, but the truth is this is when it really sinks in. Like learning most anything in life, practice is what makes things stick—and with consistency, eventually living your core values will become automatic.
