As people continue to rethink and reassess many aspects of their lives in the era of Covid-19, it’s more important than ever that employees share a common sense of purpose, principles, and priorities with their employer. One of the most effective ways to establish that connection — as well as achieve other benefits — is through your company’s mission, vision and values.
Mission, vision and values statements represent a company’s reason for being, desired future state, and required behaviors, respectively, to employees, customers, candidates, and all other internal and external stakeholders. Taken together, these three statements serve to guide a company’s corporate culture and business strategy.
In 2019, our firm decided it was time to revise and update our mission/vision/values. We made that decision as we were adding employees at a steady rate and knew we needed to provide everyone with a common set of goals that we work together to achieve.
We were especially motivated because we saw how the staffing industry and, in turn, our company have become even more critical to the success of our clients’ businesses and our candidates’ careers. Employers and employees alike rely on us to help them navigate the new employment landscape and ever-evolving forces and influences such as digital technology, the labor market, workforce demographics, new skill sets, remote work, and much more. The time was right to craft mission, vision, values statement that reflect where we are and where we want to go.
The process we followed was streamlined and straightforward. A committee of several managers from different groups within the company was formed to oversee the project, which included employee input every step of the way. Through town hall meetings, small group input sessions, email communications, a survey, and more, we ensured that everyone’s voice was heard. It’s essential that the people who will bring your mission, vision, and values to life each day contribute to their development.
We challenged our team to think about what it is we do each day i.e., matching great candidates with great jobs, and then connect those results to the greater outcomes that they lead to, now (mission) and in the future (vision). After several months of writing and refining, we created two new statements to reflect that approach.
Our mission is: We connect people with their purpose, building long-term relationships and creating success stories for clients and candidates through meaningful talent solutions; our vision is: To be the trusted talent management partner to the people we serve, transforming lives and communities. Our 10 values include honesty, integrity, passion and diversity.
Employees told us that they appreciated and were invigorated by the opportunity to collaborate with colleagues and share their perspectives during development of our new mission/vision values. In addition to that immediate benefit, the real value comes from drawing on your mission and vision as a guide or filter for making decisions, considering ideas, and otherwise taking actions, across the board.
As we create work policies related to the Covid-19 pandemic, we refer to our mission, vision, and values to make sure the two are in sync. We implemented Feel Good Friday emails as a way for co-workers to recognize colleagues for work they did that week in living our mission. Our mission/vision/values even influence the programming we display on the monitors throughout our offices.
In today’s unprecedented times, inspiring confidence, collaboration, loyalty, enthusiasm and purpose among your team and clients is more important than ever for staffing firms. Strong mission, vision, and values statements — and living them every day in every way — can be a key part of your strategy for reaching those goals.