Core values are the few principles a company says should guide how everyone behaves and decides. They only mean something when each one is tied to behavior you can see and reward.
| Value | What it looks like on a shift | How it shows up in reviews |
|---|---|---|
| Show up | On time, swaps arranged ahead, no no-shows | Attendance record and swap history |
| Leave it better | Finish the closing checklist even when tired | Checklist completion and spot checks |
| Speak up | Report a hazard or a mistake the same shift | Reports made, and no blame for honest ones |
A cleaning company with 80 cleaners had four values on its website: excellence, integrity, respect and teamwork. Supervisors could not say how any of them changed a shift.
EZTime digital HR forms let you send, sign and file employee documents online.
The owner asks 10 cleaners and 4 supervisors what separates the best crews from the rest. Three answers come up again and again, and they become the new values: show up, leave it better, and speak up. Each gets the behaviors in the table above. Supervisors use the same three in shift recognition, posted to the company feed, and in reviews.
Six months later, cleaners can name the three values without looking, and they appear in recognition posts several times a week. The old list had been on the website for years without anyone quoting it.
Values become real when they show up at the moments that matter to employees: who gets hired, who gets thanked and who gets promoted. For hiring, turn each value into one interview question about past behavior. For “speak up”, that might be: “Tell me about a time you noticed a mistake that was not yours. What did you do?”
For recognition, ask supervisors to name the value when they thank someone, and post it where every shift can see it. Over a few months, the recognition posts become a library of real examples, which is more convincing to a new hire than any poster.
A delivery company’s value is “safe every trip”. Drivers are also measured on stops per hour. A driver who refuses to load a van over its weight limit misses the target by 6 stops that day.
The supervisor recognizes the decision publicly, by name and value, and the operations manager adjusts the route plan so the extra load goes on a second van. Drivers learn from one visible decision that the value outranks the target, which a statement on the website could never teach them.
Three to five is common. Fewer is easier to remember and use.
The mission says what the company does and for whom. Core values say how people should behave while doing it.
Ask what separates your best people from the rest, turn the answers into a few short phrases, and add specific behaviors for each.
Use them in hiring questions, recognition and reviews, and make sure leaders model them.
Short, specific phrases that describe behavior, such as show up, leave it better or speak up, each with two or three examples of what it looks like on the job.
Rarely. Review them every few years or after a major change in the business, and change them only if they no longer describe how your best people work.
Digital HR forms, e-signatures and a digital employee file with expiry reminders, plus announcements by location, department or role.