“A Priceless Treasure”

Employ­er attrac­tive­ness is a key fac­tor when­ev­er busi­ness lead­ers seek to recruit and retain the best per­son­nel. Peo­ple are more moti­vat­ed when they can iden­ti­fy with their jobs and above all with their com­pa­nies. But how can they rec­og­nize the right employ­er at a glance? One help­ful sign is the val­ues a com­pa­ny com­mits to upholding.

“It’s not enough just to write val­ues down. They need to be fol­lowed as a way of life, and also devel­oped fur­ther in judi­cious ways. Then they become a price­less trea­sure,” says Dr. Wolf­gang Freibich­ler, Part­ner at Porsche Con­sult­ing. As a man­age­ment con­sul­tant who has spent years study­ing people’s roles and needs in pro­fes­sion­al life, he puts the ball in the court of top man­agers and other lead­er­ship per­son­nel. “By the exam­ples they set, they take respon­si­bil­i­ty for the cli­mate, atmos­phere, and cor­po­rate image. This cul­ture should be the object of con­sid­er­ably greater aware­ness and focus.”

“Val­ues as a way of life” are often espe­cial­ly evi­dent at fam­i­ly-run busi­ness­es with long-stand­ing tra­di­tions. Medi­um-sized enter­pris­es that have pro­gressed over gen­er­a­tions from mod­est begin­nings to high achieve­ments usu­al­ly pre­serve the ideas and aspi­ra­tions of their founders, devel­op them fur­ther, and ide­al­ly adapt them to present needs. The “core” or “essence” of a com­pa­ny pro­vides sup­port, secu­ri­ty, and bear­ings to every­one involved.

The Ger­man com­pa­ny Trumpf — an inter­na­tion­al leader in machine tools and lasers for indus­tri­al man­u­fac­tur­ing — for­mu­lates its guid­ing val­ues in a com­pre­hen­sive, soci­ety-based man­ner. As a fam­i­ly busi­ness, it places a pre­mi­um on envi­ron­men­tal as well as eco­nom­ic sus­tain­abil­i­ty as the foun­da­tion to enable future gen­er­a­tions to thrive. In Freibichler’s expert opin­ion, tak­ing respon­si­bil­i­ty for the future sends an impor­tant sig­nal. “Val­ues will assume ever greater impor­tance as guide­lines in the years to come,” he pre­dicts. “Crit­i­cal atten­tion will be paid to the con­tent of com­pa­ny web­sites. Their cred­i­bil­i­ty will be scru­ti­nized. In recruit­ment process­es, for exam­ple, appli­cants look very close­ly to see whether a poten­tial employer’s self-image is a good fit for their own approach to life. That is a high­ly sen­si­tive mat­ter. By the same token, busi­ness part­ners and cus­tomers will also opt for com­pa­nies that take the ini­tia­tive and serve as mod­els for sus­tain­abil­i­ty, ethics, com­pli­ance, and social respon­si­bil­i­ty. Hon­esty and reli­a­bil­i­ty play major roles here.”

Cor­po­rate respon­si­bil­i­ty is also of para­mount impor­tance to Olymp, a man­u­fac­tur­er of men’s shirts found­ed in 1951. Mark Bezn­er, the sec­ond-gen­er­a­tion leader of this fam­i­ly com­pa­ny, describes what that means in con­crete terms: “Peo­ple can only man­u­fac­ture supe­ri­or-grade prod­ucts if they feel com­fort­able. As Olymp has grown to become glob­al­ly active, we have also expand­ed our busi­ness val­ues to take respon­si­bil­i­ty for the envi­ron­ment, the cli­mate, and soci­ety at large.”

A solid frame­work of val­ues exerts a sta­bi­liz­ing force espe­cial­ly dur­ing peri­ods of trans­for­ma­tion. “Many com­pa­nies are going through rad­i­cal change right now,” observes Freibich­ler. “Porsche Con­sult­ing sur­veyed lead­ers at the 100 largest com­pa­nies through­out Ger­many, and 66 per­cent of them want to com­plete­ly repo­si­tion them­selves over the next two years.” As he con­cludes, “Our analy­ses show that val­ues are a key ele­ment here. If applied in a respon­si­ble man­ner, they can help ensure that peo­ple are nei­ther sur­prised nor over­whelmed by a trans­for­ma­tion.” Accord­ing to the expert, “Val­ues serve as a com­pass for employ­ees. But val­ues such as sus­tain­abil­i­ty, respon­si­bil­i­ty, qual­i­ty, and cus­tomer ori­en­ta­tion are also impor­tant stan­dards for a transformation.”

Every­one is talk­ing about sus­tain­abil­i­ty as a pow­er­ful value right now. But what exact­ly does sus­tain­abil­i­ty con­sist of? A pre­cise def­i­n­i­tion hard­ly seems pos­si­ble. “What’s more impor­tant is how the con­cept is inter­pret­ed,” says Freibich­ler, “and how each com­pa­ny care­ful­ly for­mu­lates its indi­vid­ual inter­pre­ta­tion.” In his view, over­ar­ch­ing exam­ples include how com­pa­nies treat their older employ­ees, how they value their employ­ees in gen­er­al, and how they value their prod­ucts, cus­tomers, sup­pli­ers, and the world. “We need to exer­cise more care with each other, with our pro­fes­sion­al lives, and with our envi­ron­ment over­all,” he says, adding that most top man­agers are already aware of this. “Eighty-three per­cent of the man­agers in our sur­vey indi­cate that their com­pa­nies will be repo­si­tion­ing them­selves in com­pre­hen­sive terms with respect to sus­tain­abil­i­ty. This fig­ure was only topped by the mega-topic of digitalization.”

A company’s val­ues need to be evi­dent at key moments, urges Freibich­ler. “By that I mean delib­er­ate­ly shap­ing sig­nif­i­cant sit­u­a­tions in nor­mal work rou­tines, such as reg­u­lar employ­ee reviews with super­vi­sors. Peo­ple need a com­pass they can use for guid­ance. And this com­pass needs to be uni­form through­out the com­pa­ny. Val­ues should have a long-term char­ac­ter, and should not be changed every few years with­out seri­ous thought. How­ev­er, it is impor­tant to devel­op them fur­ther on a judi­cious basis. Account should also be taken of the pri­or­i­ties held by new­com­ers to a com­pa­ny.” And those pri­or­i­ties, as Freibich­ler notes from his con­sult­ing expe­ri­ence, “can dif­fer sub­stan­tial­ly from mon­e­tary con­cerns and a sin­gle-mind­ed focus on profit.”