‘Openness, honesty, integrity, courage, respect, diversity, and balance.’
These are the official values of Disney; something that Cruella de Vil clearly didn’t adhere to.
Disney have a point, however. Working in a respectful environment such as this allows us to achieve much more.
This is why communicating your vision and values to your workforce is integral to success.
How do you ensure this message is conveyed to 100% of your team?
More importantly, how do you guarantee everyone will connect with your message? Pinning a notice on the canteen cork board doesn’t cut it anymore (let’s face it, it never did!).
Our award-winning Learning Management System, The Academy LMS, is the perfect tool to promote your vision and values in an informative and engaging way.
Firsty, you’ll need a clear understanding of what your vision and values are…
What are Visions and Values?
If you run a business, the chances are you’ll already know what your vision and values are. Still, it’s good to remind yourself as much as possible. Afterall, the pressures of work can often steer you away from these core ideals.
Let’s have a look at the definitions of each:
A Business Vision:
This is having a clear definition of what your business is and where you want it to go.
Amazon’s business vision, for instance, is as follows:
“We strive to offer our customers the lowest possible prices, the best available selection, and the utmost convenience.”
A Business Value:
These are the core principles and standards of the way you do business.
For example, Microsoft’s business values are:
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- Integrity and honesty
- (Being) open and respectful
- Accountability
- (Taking on) big challenges
- Passion
- Striving for excellence
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Growth Engineering’s business values are:
Be Kind. Be Bold. Be Responsible.
We hold these values so dearly that we have them painted on the walls of our HQ:
Why is it Important to Communicate them?
Visions:
If employees connect with your vision, they’ll be much more likely to feel engaged with what they’re doing. If they feel more engaged, they’ll be more productive. Companies with engaged employees outperform those without by 202%.
Communicating your overall vision is integral to flourishing as a company. Why? Because a vision should filter down to every aspect of your business. If every department is striving towards the same goals, then you’ll be able to finish your achievements with efficiency and focus.
Values:
Call it an atmosphere, call it a vibe, or call it a feeling; sometimes you walk into a working environment and you instantly know what the company values are (especially if they’re painted on the walls in big, colourful writing).
The values should pour out of every team member with everything they do. Be it how they carry themselves, the work they do, or how they interact with others.
If you can communicate your values to each team member, and every team member is reflecting your values, then you’ll produce a unit of like-minded individuals.
Hold every new project against your original values, then you’ll always conclude with a stamp of quality on your work.
How to Communicate Your Visions and Values with your Employees:
You could hire a town cryer to come to your office every morning and shout out your visions and values, but it might get aggravating after about three days. Luckily, Growth Engineering have a host of savvy tricks to communicate your visions and values on our award winning Academy LMS and Knowledge Arcade.
Here are a couple of ways you can convey and reinforce your V&V’s:
Communicating through Different Content Types
Communicate your visions and values from the onboarding process and they’ll be no confusion further down the line. You can accomplish this on The Academy LMS via various content types. Be it SCORM, Powerpoint, Word, Video, Images or PDFs. With a variety of formats, you’ll be able to tailor the way you spread your message. Keep in mind that posts that include a visual element produce 650% higher engagement than text-only posts.
The Newsfeed
The Academy LMS has a social wall where users can post everything from blogs to videos and images, or just simple words of wisdom.
This is a great way to reinforce your visions and values as it encourages discussion too.
Reinforcing through Battles
The Knowledge Arcade offers a unique way to learn in the form of our sensational Battles. With Battles, the admin can create quizzes based around your training. Include a good smattering of questions about your vision and values, and you’ll have an engaging and competitive way to reinforce them. You can choose to challenge anyone in the company with a Battle, and the results are shown on the Battles leaderboard.
Rewarding Value
If your values are carefully followed then you may want to reward your workforce. Rewards can work as a great incentive, as well as aiding employee retention and uniting your team. Rewards can come in the form of virtual badges and experience points. (XP). In fact, you can choose to trade in your badges and XPs for real-life rewards such as dinner with your manager, or additional holiday leave.
Final Word
Your vision and values lay the foundations for your business. They should be considered during every decision made. Stray away too far and it could cause you to lose your focus. Get good at communicating your message and you’ll cultivate a community who will all live by your standards and policies.
We ensure all our team are kind, bold and responsible by: 1) decorating our HQ with the words, and 2) hammering the message home by using our awesome solution tools.
Safeguard your vision and values by booking a free tour of our Academy LMS today!
