How to Launch Your Core Values and Make Them Stick

5 Steps to Implement Your Core Values and Keep Them Alive

Here are five important things you should do to launch your core values, so that they have a lasting, positive impact on your company.

1. Create Promo Material

One of the first steps you’ll want to take when launching your core values is create promotional material that you can circulate internally. For example, you can hang posters in the hallways, use images as employees’ desktop backgrounds, or provide each employee with a printout at your next company meeting.

At Outback Team Building & Training, our core values are on display throughout our headquarters. You can find them posted beside employees’ computers, saved as people’s screensavers, and hung up as large posters in various spaces around the building. As a result, they are never very far from our minds.

You can also take your promotional material above and beyond by participating in a custom team building event that incorporates your core values.

For example, our team worked with a group to build a tower, with each level representing one of their company’s core values. Afterwards, they put the tower on display back at their office. It was a memorable and fun way for this organization to instill and promote their core values throughout the company.

2. Announce Company-Wide

After you have all of your promotional material ready to go, it’s time to officially launch your core values.

This announcement works best when shared with the entire company at the same time, so that nobody feels left out of the loop. Organization-wide memos, an announcement at a company meeting, or an info session about the core values are all great options.

And don’t forget to make use of your promotional materials! As mentioned above, you can attach core value graphics to email announcements, or hand printouts to employees at a meeting or info session.

Outback’s leadership team chose to launch our core values with a presentation and interactive session. At the session, employees were introduced to the core values and asked to share what each attribute meant to them.

It’s important not to forget that new hires will have missed your launch, so try to include a similar presentation during your onboarding process. This can help ensure that the core values remain prominent as your team continues to grow.

3. Use Core Value Language Daily

Something that the Outback team does on a regular basis is incorporate our core values into everyday discussions.

For example, employees are encouraged to weave this language into meetings, employee feedback and reviews, and internal communications.

By using the core values as a guide when making decisions or discussing important company-related matters, you can help continually keep them top-of-mind for your entire organization.

4. Recognize People Who Live Your Core Values

By recognizing individuals within your organization who live the core values, you can help encourage others to do the same.

Here are a few ways you can show employees that you notice when they embody your company’s key attributes:

• Provide written recognition during team meetings
• Give verbal shout-outs during organization-wide meetings
• Present core value awards at your retreats, summits, or kick-off meetings

All of the above can be done on a monthly, quarterly, half-yearly, or annual basis.

5. Hire with Core Values in Mind

Using core values to hire new employees can help you build a stronger and more cohesive team.

By ensuring that individuals value the same traits as the rest of your organization, you’ll be able to fill your team with people who fit in with your company culture.

Core values play a large part in how Outback interviews, influencing everything from the recruitment materials, job descriptions, and, of course, the actual interview questions. Our leadership team has found that this tactic helps our company consistently bring on people who are not only a great fit for our organization, but are set up to succeed from the get go.

If You Haven’t Created Your Core Values Yet…

Don’t have core values? Read our recent article Creating Your Company Core Values in 5 Easy Steps, and discover how to easily build values that can help your organization thrive.

You can also download A Step-by-Step Guide to Uncovering Your Company’s Core Values for more tips on launching your core values, available all in one convenient document.