At the heart of every company are a set of beliefs and ideas that were part of why the business was formed in the first place. In the majority of cases, these beliefs will have been taken forward as the company grew and now form the values that the business and its employees embody.

Company values are an incredibly useful tool in recruitment, helping to inform everything from how you advertise available roles to the screening processes used to select candidates for interviews. In this article, we're going to explore why the core values of a company are important and then share some of the best ways to use them to improve candidate attraction and employee retention.

What Are Company Values?

Company values are the set of standards and priorities that inform the way that your organisation does business. They outline the behaviours, principles and beliefs that are at the core of your brand and which help everyone in the company align to work towards a common goal.

Your core company values impact everything from the projects you take on and the clients you work with to the experience that your employees have whilst in the workplace. They should be the driving force behind all of the business decisions you make and set out expectations for how the business operates and what kind of an employer you’re going to be.

In some cases, a company might choose values for show and not actually let them influence their work. But there are plenty of benefits to carefully selecting your company values and then making them an integral part of what you do, especially when it comes to recruitment.

The Importance of Company Values

Without company values, you’re left operating a business that isn’t clear on what it cares about. You need company values in order to create an identity for your brand that lets employees and customers know what drives your work and informs your business goals.

Having company values is also important because it lets employees know how they’re supposed to act and approach tasks in the workplace. For example, if honesty is one of your core company values then employees are going to feel more comfortable asking for help or owning up to mistakes, whilst companies with good values related to learning and development let employees know that there is an expectation to focus on personal growth.

When you have a clear set of company values, it’s much easier to build a strong and more recognisable brand image. Everything from the tone of your marketing copy to your partnership deals and the way you interact with followers on social media can be influenced by your brand values, so having these makes it much easier for your business to stand out in your industry sector.

From a recruitment perspective, your company values and culture create a unique image of you as an employer which you can use to attract candidates that are going to be a perfect fit for your company culture. Values make recruitment easier in two ways; they give you a better idea of the qualities to look for in candidates that will thrive as part of your business, and they help potential employees decide whether they’d be a good fit for your organisation.

The Impact of Company Values on Attraction and Retention

We’ve just highlighted the importance of company values and how you can use company values to improve recruitment, but what about the impact that they have on employee attraction and retention?

Let’s start with the current recruitment market. Now more than ever, candidates are prioritising accepting jobs with employers that have a company culture they feel connected to or core values of a company that they feel align with their own. In fact, 33% of employees in the tech industry say that company values and culture are very important considerations in their decision to accept or reject a job offer. 

Additionally, 23% of workers would view company values and culture as the biggest influence in accepting a job offer.

Having strong company values that your employees support also helps with attraction because it can help to improve your business’ reputation. 70% of employees whose personal values align with their company mission vision and values would recommend their company as a good place to work, and there’s no better recommendation than one from someone that genuinely enjoys working for your business. 

84% of job candidates also say that they consider a company’s reputation and image before deciding whether to accept a job, so ensuring that your company values are strong will also ensure that your reputation and brand image are positive. 

Failing to have a strong set of core company values can also cost you when it comes to a candidate attraction strategy. A minimum pay increase of 10% was needed to convince a candidate to take on a job at a company with a poor employer brand, so it can cost you a lot for every hire if you’re having to compensate for a lack of good company values. 

From a retention point of view, having established company values that employees relate to can ensure that they stay in their roles for longer. Employees that don’t feel like they fit their company’s culture are 24% more likely to leave their jobs, so by recruiting with values in mind you’re likely to find employees that will want to work for you long-term. 

How to Improve Candidate Attraction with Company Values

The values and visions of a company are one of your most impactful tools when it comes to improving candidate attraction. We’ve already highlighted how today’s candidates care much more about value alignment when they’re looking for a new employer, so you need to make sure that you’re showcasing your values in order to attract the right kinds of candidates.

Here are three ways to do just that.

Write Values-Led Job Adverts

Classic job adverts focus a lot on the necessary skills and experience required in a role, often with a single paragraph at the bottom that describes the company and its culture or values. If you want to use your values to improve candidate attraction, you need to flip this on its head and start creating job adverts that are led by your company’s core principles and beliefs.

You need essential information about role requirements in a job advert, but if you want to attract candidates because of your values then you need to make these the main focus of the adverts. One technique for this is to describe the ideal set of personal values that an aligned employee would have in your advert, and then link these to your company culture.

Another method is to lead with the benefits of your company values and what they offer employees; a company with ‘doing good’ as a value might give employees opportunities to do volunteer work, or a company that prioritises innovation might help employees make their mark on their industry sector. Don’t just list your values; explain how you embody them and what this means for your employees.

Highlight and Celebrate Value Embodiment

Speaking of embodiment, another way to advertise your core company values to help attract job candidates is to share and celebrate examples of your values being used in real life. For example, you might select and reward an employee each month that has done work which aligns with a particular value and share this on your social media accounts.

You can also create content that focuses on how certain projects or their outcomes are aligned with your values, such as writing case studies or reflective blog posts at the end of a project. You want your company values to be clear not only on your ‘About Us’ page, but across all kinds of different content shared by your brand.

Include Values in your EVP

An employer value proposition (EVP) is what you offer candidates as a potential employer. Your company culture is a part of this, along with employee benefits and the experience that a candidate would have in a role if they decided to come and work for you.

You can use your EVP in your candidate attraction strategy to dictate your employer branding, which is all of the different marketing efforts that promote your company as a desirable place to work. By making your values an integral part of what you offer candidates as an employer, you’ll stand out more from your competitors because of your values and likely attract candidates that are much more aligned.

Companies that have a good employer brand are also 250% more likely to consider their recruitment strategy as ‘highly effective’, so including your values in your EVP to strengthen your employer brand will also improve recruitment efforts overall. 

How to Improve Employee Retention with Company Values

Candidate attraction is one of the key things that can be positively influenced by a strong set of company values, but retention is also impacted as well. After all, if candidates feel aligned with your values then they’ll want to stay in their role for longer, with 33% of candidates that identify with their employer’s values saying that they’re less likely to leave their roles. 

Here’s how to increase employee retention with your values.

Ask Value-Led Interview Questions

No matter how hard you try, you’re going to struggle to retain employees that aren’t the right fit for your business and its principles. So one way to improve recruiting and retention is to ensure you’re screening candidates for value alignment in your job interviews.

You don’t want to hire entirely based on culture fit - having a diverse workforce is essential for innovation and you’re unlikely to find a team of employees that all agree with every one of your values. However, it’s a good idea to ask situation or scenario-based questions in job interviews that ask candies how they would behave in certain workplace situations to see if their responses line up with your company's values. Don’t ask them outright if they agree with or relate to values or morals; see how they say they would embody them in different workplace scenarios.

Keep Values Central to Decisions

If an employee accepts a job offer because they feel connected to a company’s values, they’re likely to leave soon after if they discover that these values aren’t actually embodied at work. Therefore, if you want to keep retention rates high through a value-led culture, you need to keep these values central to decision-making.

There will always be a few cases where profits or practicality have to come before values, but you should make a conscious effort to keep your values central to the work that you do and the direction that you take the business. If you’re hiring employees with the promise of a value-based culture, you need to ensure that you follow through with this and keep referring back to these values in how the company is run.

Summary

If you’re struggling with candidate attraction and retention then one of the best places you can start to improve this is with your company values. If you don't think that these values are strong enough to boost your EVP and engage current employees, consider updating them and rethinking how you use your values to inform your work and recruitment strategy, and then take note of whether employee attraction and retention improve.

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