Taking a stand
But values have an important role to play in letting employees and customers know what a company and its people, stand for. It’s how you get to them that’s important. When it’s done right, the result is an honest reflection of the business. And that’s when they become useful.
After all, if you don’t tell your new recruits what you expect of them, then how can you be surprised if they fail you? And if your employees don’t understand what is important to your business, then how can they help you deliver the standards of behaviour that are so important to your reputation?
What we did
Following the introspection brought about by our recent rebrand, we felt it was important that we get down on paper the values that make Knights Brown who we are.
We held a series of workshops with employees from different parts of the business and in a range of job roles. There followed a lot of thoughtful debate and from that, we identified several themes that we then shaped into our values. Or in this case, guiding principles as we have chosen to call them as it helps people understand the point of having them.
Why values matter
They relate to:
- how we treat each other,
- how we treat those we work with, and
- how we make decisions.
So again, you can see why they are important.
As the business grows and adapts over time, they will serve to steer us in the right direction and we will recruit and develop our people with them in mind.
Bringing our values to life
To bring them to our employees’ attention, we worked with our friends at Glow who developed an overall identity for the guiding principles and an icon to represent each of them.
These were incorporated into a booklet that not only explains what the principles are but it gives examples of how we live them and expands on the behaviours that sit alongside them.
Download our PDF booklet
Click on the icon below to download a PDF of our Guiding Principles booklet.
