'A principle is not a principle until it costs you money’ – the role of ‘values’ in an Employer Brand

This quote came from the great Bill Bernbach, founder of the celebrated ad agency Doyle Dane Bernbach, made famous by their distinctive work for Volkswagen and others which broke the predictable mould of advertising towards the end of the ‘Mad Men’ era in the 1960s.

I think of that line when I see the value statements of most large companies. A statement of values and the behaviours and processes they drive should be a fundamental building block of any employer brand – vividly demonstrated in the way the place works. People in Business recently studied the Financial Times Stock Exchange 100 top UK businesses (The FTSE) and established that 65 of them have stated values which are on their websites. The 35 who do not may believe that a formal statement is superfluous since the culture, style and positioning are clearly in the DNA and do not need added promotion in that form.

Frankly, looking at the 65 value statements there maybe another reason for not going public which is that non participants may be aghast at the samey obvious values which dozens of large organisations trot out. Maybe they just don’t want to join that club. You can see why from the PiB analysis ie 31 mentioned ‘Integrity’ and if you add similar words like ‘Trust’ and ‘Honesty’ that rises to 55. ‘Respect’ is claimed by 22 of the 65, ‘Responsible’ 20 and ‘Teamwork’ 19. Another 15 companies, trying perhaps to push the boundaries, state that‘Passion’ is a value of theirs.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with any of these as words which should underpin the basic stance of any organisation but value statements like these cannot form the basis for an employer brand which is distinctive and compelling. After all, unless you are Bernie Madoff or in organised crime, then are not such noble sentiments fundamental to all of us? They just do not add anything other than tick the box that ‘we have a set of values’

I think a great value statement should stop you in your tracks and make you think. It should give you an indication of what is expected of you and tell you what is really important to the organisation and what it stands for. Consider these for starters:

Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité for post revolutionary France in the late 18th Century

The Declaration of Independence for the United States of America. A brilliant example of where succinct prose works better than a few stated beliefs. In 1776 it was also a global first.

Down the street from PiB's office is the Lutyens memorial to the nurse Edith Cavell shot at dawn in Brussels, October 1915. There are four words in the stone ’Fortitude, Humanity, Sacrifice, Devotion’. Eighty five years on it strikes me as timely right now for the 20 health care volunteers killed at one time by the Taliban in Afghanistan earlier this year and all those who continue do that brave and vital work under such circumstances.

We have a new partner in Turkey and the basis of that country’s continuing stance is based on the stated beliefs of its leader Mustafa Kemal Ataturk post the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923 - ‘Westernization, Modernisation, Solidarity, Secularization and Equality for All Turks’. Turkey today is still driven by these values and the behaviours that represent them. Ataturk also knew the power of one simple edict to demonstrate a new order – in 1925 he made the Fez (the traditional hat of the ruling class) illegal stating that ‘civilised men wear civilised hats!’. He wore a fine Panama hat from then on.

Values should be at the heart of any worthwhile Employer Brand if the leadership can sign off on statements which are compelling and distinctive and which they themselves can demonstrate. It can be very hard to establish statements which match the power of the examples I have used above but using words which are just worthy and commonplace will not do it for you. If you can’t do it right, wait until you can.


Simon Barrow
16 November 2010