We’re all familiar with lists of organisational values but how much credence should we give them when we’re seeking out businesses to collaborate with or work for?
Are “corporate values” just another example of meaningless jargon?
The truth is, they can be. It’s easy for these values to exist on paper (and on the ‘About’ page of a company website) but never have a life beyond that. Or, they can remain at an executive level and fail to filter down through a business and become a true part of its culture.
But when an organisation truly lives its values – using them to guide all their decisions – the effects can be profound.
An organisation that’s committed to its core values wins in three crucial ways:
- Their values position them in the public sphere, showing people what they stand for and how they operate in the world.
- Their values guide and moderate their decisions.
- Their values help them to hire the right people – those who share their vision – and create the fabric of their team.
These are our values at MEC Mining:
- Collaborating and sharing ideas is how we do business.
- We make relationships count.
- We do the highest quality work to get the right outcome.
- We take ownership.
- We are courageous in dealing with people and ideas.
These values underpin everything we do: how we work with our clients; how we solve problems; how we innovate; and how we recruit, guide and foster our team.
We hire professionals from diverse backgrounds who bring different strengths and personalities to our organisation, but we always ensure that our employees share our purpose and vision. In this way, we’ve built a team of people who genuinely care about who we are, what we stand for and where we’re going. Far from being corporate jargon, our values have been at the heart of our success.
