Just 27% of employees believe in their company’s values | Hacker News Reader

Just 27% of employees believe in their company’s values

cactussofthr.info

74 pointshrgeek65 comments

Yeah. File this under another thoughtcrime I've committed.

There was one set of values that my company's CEO wrote up on the fly b/c we were doing reviews for the first time. Those values are _awesome_. They're explicit about the goal of making money, they're explicit about priority, just awesome.

The new COO felt like he needed to make an impact so he wrote some new ones. The company I work for also has a very playful marketing tone, and he applied our marketing tone to our company values. The values also aren't explicit-- they are each a complete sentence, but it's fairly vague how they should be applied. Idk. I know it's all bullshit, but I felt like we really had something for a moment. I think that the new generation (I'm 29) is just so tired of being marketed or manipulated that honest "we're here to make money" is a better value than "We should all do what we can to hit our numbers."

Maybe this is just a problem that engineers and lawyers have, since we neurotically try to find the inconsistencies and misapplications of statements.

[edit] money, not monkeys. Thanks kd :)

I've always seem company values with things like "We respect each other", "we operate with integrity in every aspect of our interaction with other stockholders".

It's like kindergarten meets lawyeresse.

It's all bullshit anyhow because it doesn't matter what your execs put down as the company values if your manager has different ideas. And everyone knows there's a cold chance in hell they'll be held responsible unless they're already out to get them. If your publicized values take a backseat to other things they're not really your values.

"We value honesty" in your company values but you'd better not "rock the boat". I've had "have fun and play" or something to that extent in my company values but had the exec I reported up to present that then in the very next slide say "That's good for the company but really no, that doesn't apply to our group." I've had "Always be continuously improving" and had a direct manager say "what is that shit anyway? I don't buy it" about it. You might ask why someone would disagree with something that's so blandly uncontroversial and it turns out that you need to be okay with admitting that there's room for improvement and that's not compatible with carefully crafted slide decks talking about how awesome we were. As you can imagine technical debt was left unchecked until something caught fire. And after a couple years of that kind of management there's pretty much always a fire.

I too, share in the goal and passion of making monkeys.

In all seriousness though, I'm surprised the number is even as high as 27%. Unless you're working for the Peace Corps or some charity that's trying to do some real good in the world, you're probably working for a business that is there to make money. And the reason you're working there is most likely that you need to make money to live on.

It's nice when companies just cut through all the bs and pretense and are honest about it.

> I'm surprised the number is even as high as 27%.

Every statement of company values I have ever read has been very bland, essentially a bunch of motherhoods that virtually no one would ever disagree with. Who ever had a problem with "innovation" or "communication"? A statement that actually made some choices, that drew some actual lines in the sand, would be very welcome. Imagine a company that said something like this:

"We are high performers. We recruit only the highly accomplished, and reward those who do great work far above common standards for our industry. We cull the laggards ruthlessly."

"We acknowledge a duty to act in the interests of our employees, customers, and stockholders, even beyond strict legal requirements. If we absolutely have to choose among these groups, the stockholders come first. Note that the list does not include suppliers, the government, or the general public."

"We believe in hierarchy. It's the only way to effectively organize the efforts of thousands of people. Your boss has done something to earn our trust in ways you have not. Accordingly, in a dispute between you and them, we will almost certainly side with them. If you have serious conflicts with them, we recommend you leave."

You mind sharing what you remember of the good ones?

Meanwhile the number of owners of the company who believe in the company's values remains steady at zero.

I suspect that believing in the company's values is the sole province of the Organisation Men:

http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-o...

Wow, that whole article is a very interesting read. Certainly a world run by sociopaths does generally fit with how history has unfolded... I think though that the author makes one mistake where he conflates the perception that social mores are ultimately constructed fables with the ability and willingness to construct your own in order to control other people.

I work at Fitbit and I think our founders believe in the company's values.

Fill as many landfills as possible with trackers purchased and either used a handful of times before collecting dust and eventually being thrown away, or quickly discarded when the next incremental upgraded device comes out?

I'm really not trying to be mean, and I'm sure a lot of people find value in fitness tracking (and I'm just as guilty of it as I'm wearing a shiny new Pebble 2, which also has fitness tracking), but that's the unfortunate reality of hardware company that comes out with the new shiny all the time: people buy it who shouldn't and other people throw them away far too quickly and thus a ton of waste is created.

I can't even imagine how many landfills got filled with just Rock Band and Guitar Hero plastic guitars and drums, for example. Millions got sold, and after a few years, pretty much all of it got thrown away.

I really wish there was a better way to reuse old electronics.

That's just untrue

Companies don't have "values", they have internal PR. People, sentient, living breathing people have values. Companies are not that.

> People, sentient, living breathing people have values.

Does this include PR employees?

When acting on their own behalf? Of course.

When advocating for a company? No, of course not.

"Corporations are people, my friend."

That's a little too broad brush. Groups of people can share common values, and those groups can be quite large. In the millions.

Companies can have values, but it's probably rare because what brings most people in a company together is a desire to pay the bills.

I wholly disagree.

It can have a culture, that I will agree with. And that culture can be objectively better/worse when compared against a traditional moral system (and I'm only being so pedantic here with the "moral system" phrasing because culture that's good in one country/society may be considered toxic in another, so there's no objective measure of moral righteousness when examining a culture.

Values, on the other hand, are almost purely fiction. They are what certain executives (the ones charged with coming up with and signing off on the values statements) want employees, customers and the public to believe is the culture the company has created (or is trying to create), but that's not the same thing as the culture itself or what a value actually is. Using the term "values" here just anthropomorphizes a non-sentient entity (a company) in an attempt to create an emotional response in people.

Considering I've worked at a place in the past where providing an "excellent work-life for it's employees" was written into the quality policy, but they consistently treated all their employees like crap; I'd be willing to argue that only 27% of businesses believe in their own values.

They would argue that they provided you with a great work-life, so great in fact you barely had time for your life-life.

Firstly: This should be changed to link to the original Gallup article [0] since the submitted link is just a shameless reformatting of their original work (and is harder to read).

Secondly: Something I think people are missing is that breaches of company values are part of the ammunition that can be used to fire people. I'd wager that's as much of the purpose of (big-company) "values" as anything else.

[0] http://www.gallup.com/businessjournal/195506/few-workers-app...

I don't see this as a negative thing having witnessed someone terminated before in part due to misalignment with values. It can be a very useful tool for getting rid of someone who is quite obviously causing damage but might be hard to get rid of for other causes.

Values dictate how a company should operate and how employees should treat each other. It is a way of codifying the culture and can serve as part of the company's immune system to expel threats to that culture.

Making sure I understand and align with the values of companies I work for is something I've found to be tremendously helpful in ensuring I enjoy working there.

But most people, I'd wager, are either misaligned with at least one or two of the company's values, or have acted contrary to them at some point. Yet, they don't get fired.

"Values dictate how a company should operate and how employees should treat each other. "

So, not management, then?

They apply to management as well. Practice what you preach and what not.

But I agree that it is quite possible to be misaligned with one or more values or acting contrary to them at some point. That's just reality. It really depends on the person and situation and usually it takes more than being off on one or two. At the very least the hope is that those are trainable things that can be improved.

> I don't see this as a negative thing having witnessed someone terminated before in part due to misalignment with values. It can be a very useful tool for getting rid of someone who is quite obviously causing damage but might be hard to get rid of for other causes.

That's just the Al Capone argument. Should we have insane tax laws that everyone has broken at some point just so that the state can send the "right person" to jail? Should we allow planting of contraband on the "right suspect" because if they didn't have anything on them today you're making up for when they'll have something on them tomorrow? Holding a 5 tonne weight over everyone's head is no way to foster a good culture. You're just forcing people to live in fear of unjust reprimands.

That's a bit of an extreme comparison, no?

FWIW, the values were pretty clear on this point, and it was pretty apparent to all (not just management) that the change needed to happen. And again, it was just in part due to this. There were other reasons.

There was no real sense from anyone I knew that the values were being unreasonably held over people's heads or that they were asking too much.

I can accept that it probably worked out in your case. It also worked out in the Al Capone case. The problem is that it's the wrong way of solving the issue, and could cause unjust carrying out of the rules. Because if everyone has broken the rules, then you have lost your effective ability to do anything in fear of reprimand.

It's very reminiscent of thoughtcrime. Which is why I have a problem with it.

There's a huge distinction here you overlook: Private enterprises vs the government. Honestly, I think it should be fairly easy for companies to let people go, and ideally we worry more about making sure they do a good job of offering severance rather then forcing them to continue to employee people that are damaging the business. Then businesses don't need to just this kind of indirect foolishness, they can just let people go.

Absolutely the government shouldn't be doing the things you describe.

This.

Company value: respect. Ok. Your boss rips you a new one. Screams. Name calls. Uses profanity. Play the "respect card" this will work.

Company value Integrity: you are suggested to do something shady or wrong to boost a metric. Play the integrity card.

How'd that work at Wells Fargo? Whistleblowers were promptly fired.

"More than ever, our customers need a safe, trustworthy, capable financial services provider that can help them plan for and achieve their financial goals"

https://www.wellsfargo.com/about/corporate/vision-and-values...

It didn't. Or maybe there were some who just walked away and see now unnoticed.

I used to think all that stuff was useless until i found out how to use it to my advantage.

Most jobs are and always will be a chore.

But it isn't "cool" to admit it, in job postings as well as in job applications.

In my experience "professionality" is also doing your job (and doing it well) also and especially when it's a chore.

We can wear jeans and t-shirts, but the new professional standard requires pretending to have passion for the CEO's vision because plain old performance with a good attitude isn't enough anymore. Thought codes instead of dress codes.

I always think corporations are run like communist states: central planning, ideology, thought control.

Better that than the shitshow egalitarian democratic companies would be.

I think one follows from the other: in central planning, someone can negatively affect your prospects without much immediate adverse effect, and for possibly trivial reasons. Because of this implied threat, conformance to the party line becomes mandatory.

Fortunately, when this happens in a company, you can find another job relatively easily (when it is) as your prospects were only curtailed within the scope of the firm. Finding another citizenship is a good deal harder.

I'm fine with that as long as the proceeds are also distributed in a manner consistent with communism (the utopian version, not the failed socialist state experiments)

"All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others".

The problem with the utopian version is that centralization of power pretty much guarantees it won't happen, hence the failed states. It's like how benevolent dictatorships are one of the best forms of government, but you never want to try and implement that for obvious reasons.

Well, I would say that there are the set of company values that get printed on posters and placed in breakrooms. 27% of employees believe in those.

But, most importantly, there is an unwritten set of values that rules over those companies. Those who understand those values tend to do well. However, many don't realize this, and the dissonance often leads to a crappy work experience.

The idea that a company can have values is absurd. A company isn't a person. It cannot have values any more than it can have a religion.

What the term really means is more like "the CEO's values" or "values as defined by consensus of the people in a subcommittee."

A company's stated values and mission are often at odds with it's revealed preferences. Employees respond to the latter, which show themselves via what kind of behavior gets rewarded/ignored/punished.

If you think that's bad, try working in a place where almost all of them do.

I believe in paychecks.

Everything else ... yeah, that's probably the marketing department with too much free time.

I don't believe in paychecks, I need to see the evidence.

Everytime I have worked at a company and HR ships out their new Values deck I just roll my eyes, it could be the single biggest waste of time HR just spinning their wheels.

I would have to first believe that my company actually has values before I could believe that I share any of them.

The only corporate value that I ever took at face value was "Make money." I'm not sure who must have had a stroke that temporarily disabled their executive dishonesty gland long enough to slip that into the corporate culture, but I hope they survived it.

Literally everything else has been blatantly obvious employee propaganda.

Does this include the self-employed?

Ohhhhhh! Next time I'm at the bar I'm going to ask my freelance friends what their company's values are. This'll be good.

I thought the "values" of every public company is to make as much money as possible for shareholders.

Actually, employees don't give a shit about the companies they work at and they should be treated as such. If it's not their own company all they care about at the end of the day are the money they get (the more, the better), the conditions they get and to complain about every single fucking thing. All this while trying to trick you as much as possible by not being efficient or trying to become better at what they are doing, on their own.

So I'd urge owners of companies to hire and fire people quick. There are rarely good people who stay within a company for more than 2 years and who care about what they do. Those people usually become part of it (partners).

The rest are just there temporary, so treat them as such: shitty replacement parts.

I guess I've yet to see company values be something more than a generic "be a decent human being" list. Then, you watch all the politics and backstabbing from middle management and the complete cluelessness of upper management and that number seems pretty high to me. I haven't worked at a lot of startups can't speak to those.

In related news: my culture was just shaped by Senn Delaney, a Heidrick & Struggles company. to help me live by my new values, I refer to my provided commitment card daily.

http://www.senndelaney.com/

You poor, poor bastard. I can't imagine what hideous cultural concoction those suits must have cooked up and forced upon your company.

It will be interesting to also find out what percentage of employees think culture decks are bs as well.

Probably because "company values" are just a checkbox on the company marketing checklist.

I've been through several startups as well as acquisitions. There's a huge difference between learning/acclimating to a set of values that aren't yours versus starting something with a group of people who all share preexisting values. Many great teams and products exist because of the latter. Even so, great teams from the latter camp can have values diluted every time new people come on board.

The first startup, I was employee #12. The second startup, I was employee #30. The third startup I joined mid-way through an acquisition. Each of these companies had great aspirations for good values but all failed to trickle them down to individuals. Too much bullshit and too many bodies. As a co-founder of the current startup (https://www.reamaze.com), we've purposely kept our team small, tight, and well curated. Instead of constantly hiring more bodies, we think outside the box and adapt to how our business is growing. All this to keep our values and chemistry intact. Just keeping the chemistry alive allows us to build products we and customers love.

You simply can't build successful teams, products, or businesses when so few of your employees buy into the real reasons you're doing what you're doing. Sure, you can buy them off with great salaries, benefits, and office amenities, and you may be able to carry that momentum to an exit but there will be miserable people. And if you can't carry the momentum, good luck with the mass exodus. This is why many will say "the day job will always be a chore". A lot of our customers actually come to us for advice on team building, customer service, and culture and we always encourage them to not hire. We don't even encourage them to hire if it's urgently desperate. Instead, hire only when you've met the right match at the right time. Happy to chat to anyone who wants to discuss team building and growing an extremely viable business by intentionally staying small and nimble.

I think team chemistry and emoloyee buyin is severely underrated. Large salaries being thrown around silicon valley when the hires themselves dint believe in the product but just the money, resulting in a team that just 'dayjobs' whatever they are working on instead of being passionate sbout the company's products and values.

Mr. Robot did a great job of exposing all this corporatist bs garbage.

I planned on watching that series but after hearing this it makes me not want to. I have enough cynicism in my life.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njIc062qmg4

This is really the peak. Ultimately I would argue the show is pretty cynical but does show a world where change is possible.

Sad that so many people spend working lives in institutions whose values are unintelligible or not theirs. I worked at a company whose values were clearly articulated and formed a shared vocabulary amongst employees. It can be done. The values were stated at a high level of generality, as they have to be. So applying them in novel cases required interpretation, discussion. In that sense, the principles were not easy to apply. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. The discussions themselves encourage engagement, reflection.

Didn't bother reading. The bold font and lack of proper line height did me in.

As far as I can tell every companies values are make money.

I think that over-simplifies a bit- a company's value is to make as much as possible for the corporate leadership. That's what the people who create the culture are most interested in.

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