7 ms·
Just 27% of employees believe in their company’s values
- angersock 10y agoProbably because "company values" are just a checkbox on the company marketing checklist.
- fallingfrog 10y agoMeanwhile the number of owners of the company who believe in the company's values remains steady at zero.
- twic 10y agoI suspect that believing in the company's values is the sole province of the Organisation Men: http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or-the-office-according-to-the-office/ http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-o...
- fallingfrog 10y agoWow, that whole article is a very interesting read. Certainly a world run by sociopaths does generally fit with how history has unfolded... I think though that the author makes one mistake where he conflates the perception that social mores are ultimately constructed fables with the ability and willingness to construct your own in order to control other people.
- brlewis 10y agoI work at Fitbit and I think our founders believe in the company's values.
- cableshaft 10y agoFill as many landfills as possible with trackers purchased and either used a handful of times before collecting dust and eventually being thrown away, or quickly discarded when the next incremental upgraded device comes out? I'm really not trying to be mean, and I'm sure a lot of people find value in fitness tracking (and I'm just as guilty of it as I'm wearing a shiny new Pebble 2, which also has fitness tracking), but that's the unfortunate reality of hardware company that comes out with the new shiny all the time: people buy it who shouldn't and other people throw them away far too quickly and thus a ton of waste is created. I can't even imagine how many landfills got filled with just Rock Band and Guitar Hero plastic guitars and drums, for example. Millions got sold, and after a few years, pretty much all of it got thrown away. I really wish there was a better way to reuse old electronics.
- maneesh 10y agoThat's just untrue
- ourmandave 10y agoDoes this include the self-employed?
- civilian 10y agoOhhhhhh! Next time I'm at the bar I'm going to ask my freelance friends what their company's values are. This'll be good.
- civilian 10y agoYeah. File this under another thoughtcrime I've committed. There was one set of values that my company's CEO wrote up on the fly b/c we were doing reviews for the first time. Those values are _awesome_. They're explicit about the goal of making money, they're explicit about priority, just awesome. The new COO felt like he needed to make an impact so he wrote some new ones. The company I work for also has a very playful marketing tone, and he applied our marketing tone to our company values. The values also aren't explicit-- they are each a complete sentence, but it's fairly vague how they should be applied. Idk. I know it's all bullshit, but I felt like we really had something for a moment. I think that the new generation (I'm 29) is just so tired of being marketed or manipulated that honest "we're here to make money" is a better value than "We should all do what we can to hit our numbers." Maybe this is just a problem that engineers and lawyers have, since we neurotically try to find the inconsistencies and misapplications of statements. [edit] money, not monkeys. Thanks kd :)
- sharemywin 10y agoI've always seem company values with things like "We respect each other", "we operate with integrity in every aspect of our interaction with other stockholders". It's like kindergarten meets lawyeresse.
- brazzledazzle 10y agoIt's all bullshit anyhow because it doesn't matter what your execs put down as the company values if your manager has different ideas. And everyone knows there's a cold chance in hell they'll be held responsible unless they're already out to get them. If your publicized values take a backseat to other things they're not really your values. "We value honesty" in your company values but you'd better not "rock the boat". I've had "have fun and play" or something to that extent in my company values but had the exec I reported up to present that then in the very next slide say "That's good for the company but really no, that doesn't apply to our group." I've had "Always be continuously improving" and had a direct manager say "what is that shit anyway? I don't buy it" about it. You might ask why someone would disagree with something that's so blandly uncontroversial and it turns out that you need to be okay with admitting that there's room for improvement and that's not compatible with carefully crafted slide decks talking about how awesome we were. As you can imagine technical debt was left unchecked until something caught fire. And after a couple years of that kind of management there's pretty much always a fire.
- ErikAugust 10y agoWell, I would say that there are the set of company values that get printed on posters and placed in breakrooms. 27% of employees believe in those. But, most importantly, there is an unwritten set of values that rules over those companies. Those who understand those values tend to do well. However, many don't realize this, and the dissonance often leads to a crappy work experience.
- sharemywin 10y agoI guess I've yet to see company values be something more than a generic "be a decent human being" list. Then, you watch all the politics and backstabbing from middle management and the complete cluelessness of upper management and that number seems pretty high to me. I haven't worked at a lot of startups can't speak to those.
- draw_down 10y agoIf you think that's bad, try working in a place where almost all of them do.
- zelon88 10y agoConsidering I've worked at a place in the past where providing an "excellent work-life for it's employees" was written into the quality policy, but they consistently treated all their employees like crap; I'd be willing to argue that only 27% of businesses believe in their own values.
- cmdrfred 10y agoThey would argue that they provided you with a great work-life, so great in fact you barely had time for your life-life.
- hash-set 10y agoMr. Robot did a great job of exposing all this corporatist bs garbage.
- whamlastxmas 10y agoI planned on watching that series but after hearing this it makes me not want to. I have enough cynicism in my life.
- Taylor_OD 10y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njIc062qmg4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njIc062qmg4 This is really the peak. Ultimately I would argue the show is pretty cynical but does show a world where change is possible.
- vosper 10y agoFirstly: This should be changed to link to the original Gallup article [0] since the submitted link is just a shameless reformatting of their original work (and is harder to read). Secondly: Something I think people are missing is that breaches of company values are part of the ammunition that can be used to fire people. I'd wager that's as much of the purpose of (big-company) "values" as anything else. [0] http://www.gallup.com/businessjournal/195506/few-workers-apply-company-values-jobs.aspx?g_source=WWWV7HP&g_medium=topic&g_campaign=tiles http://www.gallup.com/businessjournal/195506/few-workers-app...
- shostack 10y agoI don't see this as a negative thing having witnessed someone terminated before in part due to misalignment with values. It can be a very useful tool for getting rid of someone who is quite obviously causing damage but might be hard to get rid of for other causes. Values dictate how a company should operate and how employees should treat each other. It is a way of codifying the culture and can serve as part of the company's immune system to expel threats to that culture. Making sure I understand and align with the values of companies I work for is something I've found to be tremendously helpful in ensuring I enjoy working there.
- st3v3r 10y agoBut most people, I'd wager, are either misaligned with at least one or two of the company's values, or have acted contrary to them at some point. Yet, they don't get fired. "Values dictate how a company should operate and how employees should treat each other. " So, not management, then?
- shostack 10y agoThey apply to management as well. Practice what you preach and what not. But I agree that it is quite possible to be misaligned with one or more values or acting contrary to them at some point. That's just reality. It really depends on the person and situation and usually it takes more than being off on one or two. At the very least the hope is that those are trainable things that can be improved.
- sbob 10y agoI thought the "values" of every public company is to make as much money as possible for shareholders.
- znpy 10y agoMost jobs are and always will be a chore. But it isn't "cool" to admit it, in job postings as well as in job applications. In my experience "professionality" is also doing your job (and doing it well) also and especially when it's a chore.
- cheriot 10y agoWe can wear jeans and t-shirts, but the new professional standard requires pretending to have passion for the CEO's vision because plain old performance with a good attitude isn't enough anymore. Thought codes instead of dress codes.
- maxxxxx 10y agoI always think corporations are run like communist states: central planning, ideology, thought control.
- Senji 10y agoBetter that than the shitshow egalitarian democratic companies would be.
- pbh101 10y agoI think one follows from the other: in central planning, someone can negatively affect your prospects without much immediate adverse effect, and for possibly trivial reasons. Because of this implied threat, conformance to the party line becomes mandatory. Fortunately, when this happens in a company, you can find another job relatively easily (when it is) as your prospects were only curtailed within the scope of the firm. Finding another citizenship is a good deal harder.
- antisthenes 10y agoI'm fine with that as long as the proceeds are also distributed in a manner consistent with communism (the utopian version, not the failed socialist state experiments)
- 1_2__3 10y agoCompanies don't have "values", they have internal PR. People, sentient, living breathing people have values. Companies are not that.
- wott 10y ago> People, sentient, living breathing people have values. Does this include PR employees?
- 1_2__3 10y agoWhen acting on their own behalf? Of course. When advocating for a company? No, of course not.
- Analemma_ 10y ago"Corporations are people, my friend."
- gozur88 10y agoThat's a little too broad brush. Groups of people can share common values, and those groups can be quite large. In the millions. Companies can have values, but it's probably rare because what brings most people in a company together is a desire to pay the bills.
- 1_2__3 10y agoI wholly disagree. It can have a culture, that I will agree with. And that culture can be objectively better/worse when compared against a traditional moral system (and I'm only being so pedantic here with the "moral system" phrasing because culture that's good in one country/society may be considered toxic in another, so there's no objective measure of moral righteousness when examining a culture. Values, on the other hand, are almost purely fiction. They are what certain executives (the ones charged with coming up with and signing off on the values statements) want employees, customers and the public to believe is the culture the company has created (or is trying to create), but that's not the same thing as the culture itself or what a value actually is. Using the term "values" here just anthropomorphizes a non-sentient entity (a company) in an attempt to create an emotional response in people.
- Taylor_OD 10y agoAs far as I can tell every companies values are make money.
- ljw1001 10y agoI think that over-simplifies a bit- a company's value is to make as much as possible for the corporate leadership. That's what the people who create the culture are most interested in.
- g8oz 10y agoA company's stated values and mission are often at odds with it's revealed preferences. Employees respond to the latter, which show themselves via what kind of behavior gets rewarded/ignored/punished.
- logfromblammo 10y agoI would have to first believe that my company actually has values before I could believe that I share any of them. The only corporate value that I ever took at face value was "Make money." I'm not sure who must have had a stroke that temporarily disabled their executive dishonesty gland long enough to slip that into the corporate culture, but I hope they survived it. Literally everything else has been blatantly obvious employee propaganda.
- perseusprime11 10y agoIt will be interesting to also find out what percentage of employees think culture decks are bs as well.
- freelancezombie 10y agoDidn't bother reading. The bold font and lack of proper line height did me in.
- ElComradio 10y agoThe idea that a company can have values is absurd. A company isn't a person. It cannot have values any more than it can have a religion. What the term really means is more like "the CEO's values" or "values as defined by consensus of the people in a subcommittee."
- drivingmenuts 10y agoI believe in paychecks. Everything else ... yeah, that's probably the marketing department with too much free time.
- toast0 10y agoI don't believe in paychecks, I need to see the evidence.
- Mao_Zedang 10y agoEverytime I have worked at a company and HR ships out their new Values deck I just roll my eyes, it could be the single biggest waste of time HR just spinning their wheels.
- vsloo 10y agoI've been through several startups as well as acquisitions. There's a huge difference between learning/acclimating to a set of values that aren't yours versus starting something with a group of people who all share preexisting values. Many great teams and products exist because of the latter. Even so, great teams from the latter camp can have values diluted every time new people come on board. The first startup, I was employee #12. The second startup, I was employee #30. The third startup I joined mid-way through an acquisition. Each of these companies had great aspirations for good values but all failed to trickle them down to individuals. Too much bullshit and too many bodies. As a co-founder of the current startup (https://www.reamaze.com https://www.reamaze.com), we've purposely kept our team small, tight, and well curated. Instead of constantly hiring more bodies, we think outside the box and adapt to how our business is growing. All this to keep our values and chemistry intact. Just keeping the chemistry alive allows us to build products we and customers love. You simply can't build successful teams, products, or businesses when so few of your employees buy into the real reasons you're doing what you're doing. Sure, you can buy them off with great salaries, benefits, and office amenities, and you may be able to carry that momentum to an exit but there will be miserable people. And if you can't carry the momentum, good luck with the mass exodus. This is why many will say "the day job will always be a chore". A lot of our customers actually come to us for advice on team building, customer service, and culture and we always encourage them to not hire. We don't even encourage them to hire if it's urgently desperate. Instead, hire only when you've met the right match at the right time. Happy to chat to anyone who wants to discuss team building and growing an extremely viable business by intentionally staying small and nimble.
- ohnoesmyscv 10y agoI think team chemistry and emoloyee buyin is severely underrated. Large salaries being thrown around silicon valley when the hires themselves dint believe in the product but just the money, resulting in a team that just 'dayjobs' whatever they are working on instead of being passionate sbout the company's products and values.
- DashRattlesnake 10y agoIn related news: my culture was just shaped by Senn Delaney, a Heidrick & Struggles company. to help me live by my new values, I refer to my provided commitment card daily. http://www.senndelaney.com/ http://www.senndelaney.com/
- cableshaft 10y agoYou poor, poor bastard. I can't imagine what hideous cultural concoction those suits must have cooked up and forced upon your company.
- raleighm 10y agoSad that so many people spend working lives in institutions whose values are unintelligible or not theirs. I worked at a company whose values were clearly articulated and formed a shared vocabulary amongst employees. It can be done. The values were stated at a high level of generality, as they have to be. So applying them in novel cases required interpretation, discussion. In that sense, the principles were not easy to apply. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. The discussions themselves encourage engagement, reflection.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- vuzum 10y agoActually, employees don't give a shit about the companies they work at and they should be treated as such. If it's not their own company all they care about at the end of the day are the money they get (the more, the better), the conditions they get and to complain about every single fucking thing. All this while trying to trick you as much as possible by not being efficient or trying to become better at what they are doing, on their own. So I'd urge owners of companies to hire and fire people quick. There are rarely good people who stay within a company for more than 2 years and who care about what they do. Those people usually become part of it (partners). The rest are just there temporary, so treat them as such: shitty replacement parts.