Living Company Values – An Employee’s Perspective

Company-Values-Recognition-e1492202967441

Living Company Values – An Employee’s Perspective

Company-Values-Recognition-e1492202967441

Company culture is a hot topic right now. It’s headlining industry magazines, touting its name on awards, and (for those of you active on social media) it’s all over LinkedIn newsfeeds. At Rocket IT, it’s something our team is very intentional about.

As someone who interacts on our organization’s behalf out in the community in both a marketing and a recruiting capacity, I’ve had a unique opportunity to both share my experience and hear from very different perspectives how others see Rocket IT’s company culture.

One of the highest compliments I hear is how much others love that Rocket IT lives out its values. That other people from outside our organization can look in and see how much our team loves to help others and be passionate stewards for those we serve is incredibly rewarding.

One of the questions I’m asked most often (though not nearly as often as Matt Hyatt, our Founder and CEO, I’m sure!) is how Rocket IT has sustained a company culture that lives its values when so many organizations struggle to name theirs.  It’s easy to get buy-in on company values from the leadership teams that created them, but how do companies get everyone else across all levels to do the same?

Basically, how did the Rocket IT leadership team get me and others as invested in the Rocket IT values as they were?

When Matt created our company values, he started with why. Our purpose is to help others thrive. As Matt says, we just happen to do this through technology, but it’s at the core of everything we do at Rocket IT, and our company values help us define how.

Connect with people. Be passionate stewards. Find a better way. Have a blast!

Matt and the rest of the Rocket IT leadership team have fostered a company culture that lives these values in three simple ways.

Our values are stated in simple language that makes sense.

When Matt wrote our company values, he didn’t bury us in corporate jargon and buzzwords. Our values are simple, and it’s to see how we can act on them.

Take a look at our values listed above again. They’re simple, clear, and easy to remember. You could ask any employee at Rocket IT about our values, and they’d be able to tell you about all four (and even our secret fifth value – Eat ice cream).  There isn’t a single buzzword in any of them, and each value is four words or less.

We regularly engage in open dialogue about our values.

If the only time your employees discuss your company values is when they get a list of them in their onboarding packet, they probably won’t be able to name them one month later. Values are something that should be a regular conversation topic when you want your company to live them out.

At Rocket IT, we talk about what our values mean, how we can be mindful about them in our roles, what they mean to us, etc.. We talk about them in all-staff meetings, team huddles, and during our Café Tuesdays where Matt invites us to bring our lunch into the Rocket IT café and talk with him and each other about what’s on our minds.

Our values weren’t created in a vacuum, and they don’t exist in one either. If you want your team to invest in your company values, you should engage your team in regular conversation about them.

Rocket IT’s leadership verbally (and publicly) acknowledge when employees embody a company value in the way they act or what they do.

There’s a lot of power in simple recognition, and when our leadership team positively recognizes team members for living out company values, we become more invested in understanding and acting in line with those values.

It’s not unusual for individuals to be lauded for “being a passionate steward” or “finding a better way” during our staff meetings. And it’s not unheard of for someone to receive an Amazon gift card for exemplifying one of our values in their interactions with our clients.

 

Our company culture of living our values is hinged on our values being very real, active goals for us. They’re not just words on our website or phrases in our employee handbooks for HR to recite by rote and other team members to forget immediately. From the perspective of the general “everyman” employee, if you want buy-in from employees at all levels of your organization, follow these three tips to make your values meaningful to them.

 


 

 

About the Author-

Jacque McFadden is the marketing specialist at Rocket IT. While a large portion of her job focuses on the more traditional side of marketing, she is also responsible for finding great new employees. Jacque is originally from Indiana. 

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