In a study conducted to over 700 companies, showed that most of them are relying on a set of core values as their guideposts in cascading corporate culture to individual behavior. 72% of these organizations defined their corporate cultures as a set of values or core values, though other organizations used different terms in lieu for “culture” such as principles, philosophy or ideals; values are still cited as the foundations of their culture.

HR managers and C-suite leaders are investing their efforts to make the individual behavior aligned with the company’s corporate culture; on the other hand, they also need to focus on bringing individual unique behavior into how they perform their individual tasks. With this, how can leaders ensure the balance between their two tasks without compromise and how can HR be able to determine a “non-negotiable” aspect in their respective company culture?

Are core values really significantly effective?

MIT’s research showed that over 80% of companies have posted an official set of corporate values on their website. Additionally, for more than three decades, CEOs have discussed the company’s culture with major business magazines, whether they are asked about it or not.
Most companies, 73% of them, enumerate three and seven corporate values. Amongst these company’s values includes the following:

• Integrity (65%)
• Collaboration (53%)
• Customer-centricity (48%)
• Respect (35%)
• Innovation (32%)

On the question, Does culture significantly impact employee behavior?

A study was conducted to determine whether culture significantly impacts employee behavior, a practice or just a paper exercise? It reveals that “there is no correlation between the cultural values a company emphasises in its published statements and how well the company lives up to those values in the eyes of employees” 

The study reveals a gap between official values and cultural reality in most of the organizations that asked the question.

Closing the GAP: putting company values into practice

The way to close this gap is to explain and communicate with staff the ‘non-negotiable’ aspects of a core value. In one of an exclusive Economist Impact event, Regan Taikitsadaporn, CHRO, Asia-Pacific at Marriott International, attended and shared how they ensured that the culture remained versatile but continually aligned with employees’ core values. 

Corporate values need to be communicated and installed to the individual employees, however, it must be clearly explained that these values have a space and are subject to individual interpretation and action, so to empower employees, give them a leeway to create their own strategy in the enhancement and improvement of their individual performance. These values are meant to be part of daily rituals and not just a mere text in the company policy handbooks.

Contextualizing values to local cultures

Flexibility is really important when your company is expanded across multi-cultural regions, like in Asia Pacific. How core values are interpreted, varies in one country from other.

Leaders should be aware and understand the variation in local cultures and connect everyone to the company’s core values with such context.

Illustrating it to better get the scenario; Marriot operated in 133 different countries around the worlds; given –the different types of cultures across these countries. When about, for example, putting people first or showing respect to your colleagues or customers, how we show respect in Japan is very different from how we show respect in Australia-culturally it’s very different. But those [core values] need to permeate and be localized wherever business is.