Developing Values for Your Business

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Training Course: How to Develope Values for Your Business

The values and culture of your company have a direct effect on your employees, customers and ultimately your bottom line. What are you doing to establish, cultivate and grow this precious commodity? This course will introduce you to the processes of implementing company values for your company by including input from stakeholders and customers. Learn about the steps in the planning process, potential problems you may face, and how to implement your company’s values using a strategic plan.

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Developing Values for Your Business

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Text Transcript of The Course

1.3 Course Topics

This course will cover the topics that illustrate how establishing company values can improve your business’s success:

•      Why are values important to my business?
•      How do I establish company values?
•      What can go wrong?
•      How do I implement my values in my business?

Additional resources are identified to assist you. Visit the resource icon in the course player or locate additional tools, templates, and mentors on SBA.gov once you finish the course.

Let’s get started!

1.4 Why Are Values Important to My Business?

You may have heard a lot about corporate or company values lately. Consumers are becoming more and more interested in how the companies they support through purchases conduct business. Values can help you establish a shared societal value that makes your business more appealing to potential consumers.

Consumer curiosity and conscience is not the only reason to establish company values. Clear values can help keep a business on track because they provide a framework for decision-making and behavior, including hiring decisions and marketing practices.

Values also provide a coherent philosophy by which you and those who work for you can perform their jobs. When you have established a solid set of values that you consistently apply in your company, employees know what is expected of them and what they can expect from you, creating a stable and consistent working environment.

1.5 Values as Framework

Values-driven businesses can use value frameworks in hiring decisions, only hiring those who share the business values and maintaining an aligned work force.

Shared values can create a foundation for a passionate and committed workforce.

Values-based organizations often enjoy better teamwork, higher productivity, higher customer satisfaction, and lower employee turnover.

1.6 Customer Service Values

There are a lot of values that are worth assessing for your business. Let’s start with customer service values. Some examples of customer service values are:

•      Accuracy—Truth, correctness, and exactness in your dealings are important.
•      Cleanliness—Cleanliness is important in your business operations and personnel, and in the physical ambience of your business.
•      Maximum Utilization of Resources—This is a very important value for any business.
Resources—human or otherwise—should be optimally utilized.
•      Orderliness—Being organized is another important business value. Orderliness, or having everything in proper order, helps you in customer dealings, including making a good impression on customers.
•      Punctuality and Timeliness—These qualities are appreciated in every arena of life, and business is no different. You should always be punctual in your business dealings. Appreciate the value of your own time and that of others.
•      Quality of Products and Services—It’s ultimately the quality of the products you deliver and the services you provide that makes a name for your business. Never compromise on quality.
•      Regularity and Reliability—You should not be seen as a ―seasonal player.‖ That creates a perception that you are amateurish—not professional enough. Be regular in your dealings so that your customers see you as someone they can rely on.
•      Responsiveness—Always have an ear for the customer. You should respond quickly and completely to your customers.
•      Safety—Like punctuality, this is not a business-specific value. Put safety first in all your transactions.
•      Speed of Operations—Time is money. The speed with which you operate indicates your commitment and adds value to your business.

1.7 Organizational Values

Other potential values you could focus on are organizational values, which include things like:

•      Accountability—Be obligated for your transactions. You are answerable for your business dealings and to your customers. Never flee from taking the responsibility.
•      Communications—Whether internal or external, communication is a key to the success of your business. You must communicate well with your employees, customers, and everyone else that you deal with.
•      Cooperation/Teamwork—Cooperation and teamwork are essential if you want your organization to succeed. You should try to create your own team and seek their cooperation in and commitment to the common cause of making the business a successful one.
•      Coordination—To run a business, you have to coordinate with many people on a daily basis. Whether you’re working with a small supplier or a client from a key account, you have to have your coordination in place to run the business successfully.
•      Discipline—Be disciplined in all your dealings and transactions. Encourage your employees to be disciplined as well. It adds immense value to your business.
•      Freedom for Employees To Take Initiative—Encourage your employees to take initiative. Provide them with the freedom to do so. In this way the employees will feel and show more commitment and ownership, and will innovate more and more successfully.
•      Integration—There should be integration among all the people who work in your organization. Even the processes need to be closely integrated. This will help you achieve success with your business venture.
•      Standardization—Process, production, and every aspect of your business should be standardized. This helps you avoid unhappy surprises and helps to ensure that the business runs seamlessly.
•      Systemization—Being systematic is very important because that enables you to create a plan for you and your team. Having systems in place is always helpful, because it makes everyone aware of the processes to be followed and standardizes the order of the steps of the processes.

1.8 Psychological Values

A final category of values includes psychological values, among them:

•      Continuous Improvement—Both as an organization and as an individual, you should try continually to improve yourself. You should sustain a culture of continuous improvement in your organization.
•      Creativity—Be creative and lead by example. Encourage your employees to be creative as well. Creativity and improvisation always open up new avenues.
•      Customer Delight—Don’t get stuck in customer satisfaction. Try to produce customer delight by giving something extra. It is the delight that will bring customers back to your business.

•      Decisiveness—Be decisive in your judgments and choices. Don’t suffer from indecision or dilemmas. Think and evaluate well before taking key decisions. But once decided, go ahead with your decisions.
•      Employee Development—Sustain a culture of training and development in the organization. Try to develop the skills and knowledge of your employees in every way possible.
•      Harmony—Harmony at the workplace is essential for the success of your business. There should be harmony among your business’s personnel to ensure a smooth flow of work.
•      Innovation—Innovation is often the key to success. While established processes are important, innovating your way out of a problem helps your business go the extra mile.
•      Integrity—As an individual, every person in your organization should have basic integrity. Dishonesty or duplicity in any form is going to be harmful for your business and the work atmosphere.
•      Loyalty—This is another very important value. Be it loyalty towards the customer, the employer, or the employee, loyalty is always to be fostered in your organization.
•      Resourcefulness—Every person in the organization should have the willingness to help out the other. Resourcefulness, and the willingness to use the resources one has at his or her disposal for the benefit of the organization, are important values that can take your business to the next level.
•      Respect for the Individual—Every individual is different and each one should be respected. Respect for difference and respect for every individual is one of the foundational values of any organization.
•      Service to Society—We all know that the bottom line matters, but a pursuit of
profitability alone is not very healthy for an organization. You should care for the society, the people, and the environment. Try to serve the society in whatever way you can, small or large.
•      A Will To Succeed—A will to succeed is very important for the success of your venture.
Every individual related to your business should have an untiring will to succeed. Only then will they be able to make your business a success.