To what extent do organisations that aim to unite employer and employee core values perform better
The Background: Opportunity The Opportunity
Definition of the opportunity:
Would businesses who don’t run their business to ensure employees hold corporate values as their own perform worse.
Different organisations use various structures in order to encourage employee loyalty and align core values of the employees to those held by the organisation. The corporate culture of an organisation directly contributes to it’s unique social and psychological environment. It is in the interest of an organisation to have a workforce that has a value system that is aligned with their own so that the environment is one that promotes ingenuity and creativity. People work and operate to their own value systems. This means that if their value systems are the same as each others an environment will emerge that reduces negative conflicts and promotes creativity.
Recommendations on the basis of that research: Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Justification of why the opportunity is important enough to be researched: I think that the advantages of having a workforce that can op-
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erate with the same values is clear. When people are working to the same standards, due to their core beliefs, a more productive workforce
Organisations use different structures in order to encourage employee loyalty and alignment with corporate values.
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Literature Review
Most organisations hold company values, but they are no use if they are not integrated throughout every level of the business PERSON.
A soulless core value will do more bad than good
As well as helping educate existing and potential clients on a companies standpoint, having a relatable standpoint can give a competitive advantage (Pat Fong). This is due to customers aligning the company with themselves as they share common key beliefs. It is clear then, that if a company’s value system is outlined in a meaningless mission statement consisting of bland and dishonest words, then not only the employees feel misrepresented, but the consumer base becomes disunited with the brand (Lencioni, 2002).
How does leadership/management make the changes to ensure employees agree with core values
Transformational leadershipThe actions undertaken by leaders within a company go a long way to embed corporate values. Mc
Are the employees right for the job? Should they be hired based on their attitude or their skills? (You can teach skills)
Should an organisation be prepared to lose people who are well skilled if they do not conform to company values
How can the structure of the company represent the value system they hold: Netflix uses a holacratic structure to allow employees to
When employees share the same values as their employers there is a sense of unity and working towards a common goal. Establishing strong core values is helpful to many internal and external factors:
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The decision making process can be streamlined, most simply: if a product doesn’t meet quality regulations it will be discarded (Pat Fong, 2013)
Employees are more likely to be retained if they are working for a set of beliefs that they believe in. Equally recruitment increasingly relies on the fact that jobseekers are researching companies to work for. (Or not to work for) that have similar set beliefs as them.
When your culture and values don’t align employees, customers and performance can suffer (Cancialosi, 2015) https://www.forbes.com/sites/chriscancialosi/ 2015/07/20/2-ways-to-ensure-your-corporate-culture-and-values-align/ #4c0e2f096e31
Communication is essential to
If too many people agree in a company then no work can get done as there is no positive conflict that allows people to amend or improve.
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Research Aim And Objectives
Research objectives
5 things that are clearly stated and defined. Research objectives that summarise what the project aims to achieve
1. I want to find out how a holacratic structure aligns employee values I would like to explore the ways in which a holacratic structure can ensure that employees have a shared value system that aligns with the organisations. I want to find out if this structure, which places more accountability and responsibility on the employee, helps to keep the employees value system in place.
2. How a hierarchical structure impacts core values of employees I want to find out if a more traditional hierarchical structure aligns core values more and see if implementing a more ‘reward and punish’ can ensure employee values are in line with the company they work for.
3. To see how the hiring process and how new employees are vetted/ trained to fit in with company valuesI want to see the extent that rigorous recruitment techniques, such as those seen in Netflix and Zappos, can ensure that new employees are suitable for the company and are congruent with existing corporate values.
4. To see what systems are in place to ensure that employees keep their values, e.g. rewards or punishments, motivation and inspiration I want to see what reward systems are put in place to successfully achieve a
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workforce that shares corporate values with their respective organisation. I want to find out if these are affective and if to what extent do they unite the workforce with the organisation.
5. See how the management strategies of an organisation make best use of employee values (McKinsey’s 7S framework may be useful here)I would like to find out how the managerial strategies of an organisation are implemented to ensure that workers are in an environment that makes use of a shared value system. I would like to know what strategies are effective to retain core values and which strategies can be damaging and create conflict.
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Proposed Methodology Research methods:
3 different methods that will allow me to investigate the opportunity
1. Interviews: I am going to conduct interviews of people in the relevant sectors in order to establish the extent that an open organisation structure increases employee loyalty.
2. I am going to make a questionnaire to establish a variety of answers to my questions. This is a good way to get a lot of answers and gain a large amount of response.
3. I am going to host a focus group that will have an open discussion about the extent that organisation structure increases employee loyalty. It will be an open discussion where all opinions will be accounted for and noted.
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Ethical Considerations
I need to consider the ethical ramifications from conducting research. I must ensure that the people involved in the focus group, questionnaire and interviews are kept anonymous in my investigation. This is to ensure my work is inline with GDPR. I also need to ensure that any work/material that I use is credited and referenced. This is so that I do not break any plagiarism rules and the relevant people get credit for their work.
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Project management
I have created a Gantt chart to visualise the amount of time each section of my project will take to complete.
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References
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