At Talent Works International, we believe in the importance of corporate values when building your employment value proposition. As we discussed earlier this month, we believe that corporate values should meet the following six criteria: differentiated, consistent, authentic, relevant, visible and distinctive. This short presentation concentrates on visibility and authenticity used amongst FTSE 100 companies' corporate values.

1. hello
Talented People
Corporate values within your Employment Value
Proposition
Focusing on ‘visibility’ and ‘authenticity’

2. If you think of an EVP as a toolbox that is used to build the foundation of the company and where
both employees and stakeholders can go back to and make use of the tools (read: values) to insure
the persistence of the build, and which clients are aware of the tools and their value to them as
creating and maintaining a solid build (read: solid benefits/profits for them), you need to make sure
you’re putting the right kind of tools in that toolbox. And once you’re happy with the tools you’ve got,
you should tell those using your toolbox about them. Because really, why else did you buy (into)
them?
So we think there are a number of questions which should be at the forefront of your mind when
developing your corporate values and employment value proposition, including: Where will you
communicate your values? Are your current values hidden or easily accessible to a job seeker/current
employee? What does this say about you as employer and as a business? How accurately do your
values portray you as a business?
Introduction
Differentiated
Relevant
Consistent
Visible
Authentic
Distinctive
Values
The location a company chooses to publish its values
demonstrates how it sees itself as employer and a business as a
whole. We believe an organisation with a successful brand is
one which aligns both its employer and corporate brands. The
‘about us’ section seems a useful location to publish your
values.
One key concern for companies, in our opinion, should be the
visibility of the values and their authenticity for the entire
business. We feel that values should be created with three
groups in mind: the client/ consumer, potential and current
employees. As a result we wanted to focus our attention in this
second presentation on the value of being authentic and visible.

3. What the FTSE 100 are doing
The percentage of
companies advertising their
values in the ‘corporate
responsibility’ section
The percentage of
companies advertising their
values in the ‘careers’
section
The percentage of
companies advertising their
values in the ‘about us’
section
34% 30% 9%
The number of companies
in the Retail sector listing
values in the ‘about us’
section
The number of FTSE 100
companies that list their
values on their careers
pages listing ‘ambition’ as
one of their values
The number of companies
we think offer a more
alternative approach to
values that also list their
values on the ‘careers’ page
50% 33% 0

4. Visibility of values online
• Communicating your values solely on your
‘careers’ page, can easily give the
impression that you are focused more on
potential candidates, rather than current
employers or clients/customers and tie in
your values closer with their employer
brand.
• By specifically targeting graduates
when advertising corporate values,
corporate values can lose their function as
an internal tool and become an empty
proposition purely used as an
interviewing tool
• Don’t underestimate current/potential
employees: Sites like LinkedIn and
Glassdoor enable candidates to obtain a first
impression of their potential employer that is
not controlled by the employer themselves.
We also believe that a company’s
employment values should correspond
directly to its corporate values. They should
be reviewed from time to time and translated
into the relationship between employer and
employee. Building these relationships on
generic values (‘teamwork’, ‘innovation’,
integrity’ etc.) does not inspire candidates or
employees and EVPs based solely on this can
often be meaningless.
Different sectors use different locations on the
website to communicate their corporate values.
Overall, the ‘corporate responsibility’ area is
the least common place to cite corporate values
amongst FTSE 100 companies.
Hiding corporate values on the careers pages
could be seen by employees and potential
candidates that they are not your primary
concern. At the same time, candidates are
probably more interested in your company’s
culture than a list of values. A successful EVP
should therefore assure visibility of corporate
values and discuss their link to the culture.
In order for your values to work efficiently, they
need to be visible internally and externally,
which links back to consistency (is this the same
across the business?), but also to authenticity
(do your employees embody these values?).
One way of ensuring this is by making your
values visible to your employees at their place of
work, as Aviva have done. This is arguably
even more important than the web
presence of your values.

5. Making values easily accessible on your website is just one of the areas to look at because it tells
anyone who is interested that you have thought about who you are and how you want to act as a
business. It essentially acts as your code of conduct.
Companies should really look at distinguishing between different kinds of values:
• Core values – the company’s DNA. Deeply ingrained principles created to guide all of the
company’s actions.
• Aspirational values – where a company is heading, what it wants to achieve in the near
future but a level it is not currently attaining.
We believe that these two different kinds of values can both feature within an EVP – as long as
they are communicated accordingly. For this, companies should ask themselves how their values
correspond to the reality of their offices: Do they accurately portray the company culture?
Are they authentic? And if they are aspirational values, does the EVP offer advice on
how these can be reached?
Thinking about authenticity companies should remember the audience of their values:
• Do your company, culture and employees embody the values you have put in place?
• Where do you locate your values on your homepage? What does this say?
A case for authenticity
Ratio of authentic and aspirational values we recommend to be included in your list of values80:20

6. What do we take from this?
Think about your audience
Who might want information about your values? Who specifically do you want to have visibility to
them? What do you want people to take away from the information you provide?
Create links to your values from multiple places
You can link to your values page from various location on your homepage - that way, the full impact
they have on the entire company can be communicated.
Make them visible – and not just online
Inform your employees about them – integrate them into their every-day work life. Through this,
they can make a real impact on employee culture, which we believe to be one of the key factors for
successful recruitment and retention.

7. thanks
for reading
Simon Thomas, Head of Brand and Insight simon.thomas@mytalentworks.com
Dr. Anna Everding, Researcher (Brand and Insight) anna.everding@mytalentworks.com
Becky Grove, Insight Consultant becky.grove@mytalentworks.com
For more information, contact: