It was only seven years ago, GE announced the GE Beliefs, a 2.0 version of the world-famous GE Company Values. Based on the Oxford dictionary, values are principles or standards of behaviour; one’s judgement of what is important in life. Beliefs are an acceptance that something exists or is true, especially one without proof.
Uhm, arrogant much? It was launched perfectly. The sentences were innovative, spot on, packed with newly established acronyms like VUCA, no one ever heard of yet. But when you looked at the leadership failing very publicly just a few years later, these “Beliefs” showed high double standards, tanked with proof.
What Company Values Matters for Employees?
In today’s job market, when software developers can communicate in Klingon with their potential employers and still get hired, the company values, louder than words, are actions and reactions.
Actions on equal, transparent pay. Actions on career advancement. Actions on diversity, from the entry level roles to the executive team to the board. Actions on remote working possibilities, paid sick leave, paid parental leave for caregivers, just to mention a few.
And most importantly, employees will look at how the companies are reacting to social injustice questions. Over fifty companies, many of them Fortune 500, have already announced very publicly, they will cover travel and/or relocation to access equal healthcare. These are the companies, who did their homework on how their employees expect them to react to a crisis. And unfortunately, we had many of them in the last three years.
It’s definitely a big pill to swallow for more traditional leadership and companies who believe employees should give away their blood, sweat and tears for minimum-wage. These same, old-school companies are hammering their HR organizations for the lack of candidates, high turnover and zero diversity. To solve the employee shortage, it’s time to wake up and look around what global talent actually needs.
The Company Values Journey to Start
It’s a journey, all companies must start venturing forth. Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey describes the start of any journey very well, with “The Call to Adventure” which is immediately followed by the second step: “Refusal of the Call”. The refusals in many companies are so loud in immense silences, it hurts our ears. These silences people do not want to hear anymore.
For companies, who wants to be relevant and competitive, it’s time to walk through the journey, even if it’s tough, even if it’s painful, to reach the end goal, the last step: “the Freedom to Live”. And the freedom to live is one of the ultimate shared goals people have across the globe. Leaders of today have to loudly take a stand on which side of history they are because these actions are the ones truly representing the Company Values.
