Organizational Values: What They Are, Types and How to Live Them Daily

Organizational values are the shared principles that guide how people in a company think, behave and make decisions, inside the team and with customers and partners. They come in four types: core, aspirational, permission-to-play and accidental. They only work when they are lived every day through hiring, recognition, communication and leadership behavior.

Pick up any book on organizational culture, effective hiring or employee retention, and you will read about the critical role of organizational values. Talk to any leader, business owner or individual contributor, and values are a topic they love to discuss. Companies put them on websites, frame them on walls, display them in boardrooms and quote them in press releases.

Organizational values have become so universal that it is hard to find a CEO who does not believe in them. Leaders spend days debating and refining their company's values. And yet, in many organizations, values are limited to window dressing. Employees, partners and customers barely know them or do not believe they are relevant to how the company works.

The numbers back this up. Gallup's organizational culture indicator found that as of May 2026, only 20% of U.S. employees strongly agree they feel connected to their organization's culture. In this article, we look at what organizational values are, the different types, company values examples and, most importantly, how to make sure they are more than words on the wall.

What are organizational values?

Organizational values, also called corporate or company values, are a set of guiding principles that shape employee actions and thinking. They define what the organization stands for, shape its organizational culture and create a sense of commitment in the workplace. In the iceberg model of culture, stated values sit just below the visible surface, where they guide the behaviors everyone can see.

Ask a group of people in a workshop what organizational values are, and you invariably hear words like equality, loyalty, integrity, respect, innovation, teamwork and efficiency. These sound strong, meaningful and concise. They are also the most common words in value statements, which is exactly why they often mean so little: when every company claims integrity and teamwork, the words stop guiding anyone. They may even be part of your own organization's values. Have you ever wondered how relevant they are?

Well-chosen values help everyone in the organization, from top leadership to entry level, share the larger purpose and work toward the same goals. They affect both internal and external matters: how employees treat one another and how partners, customers and other stakeholders are treated.

However, words mean nothing until they are ingrained in practice. Take Google. The first of its "ten things we know to be true" is "Focus on the user and all else will follow." You see that value delivered every time you search: relevant answers to almost any question, from the most common to the strangest, within seconds. Values are meaningful only when they are expressed through everyday behaviors.

Organizational values vs mission, vision and culture

Values are often confused with the other statements that describe a company. This comparison shows how they fit together, and why values are the piece that most directly shapes daily behavior.

Values are the bridge between the strategy on paper and the culture people experience. For the wider business case, see why organizational culture is important.

Types of organizational values

Organizations benefit from values only when they are defined clearly and people know exactly what each one means. The four types of organizational values below come from leadership author Patrick Lencioni, and core values come first because they are the only type that should never change for convenience.

1. Core values

Core values are the foundation of organizational culture. They guide how the whole organization conducts itself and performs under all circumstances. Core values capture the shared behaviors, beliefs and attributes that make the company distinctive. In a constantly changing world, core values remain constant, and a company should be willing to pay a price, in lost deals or lost hires, to keep them.

2. Aspirational values

As the name suggests, aspirational values describe what the organization wants to become but currently lacks. They are needed for future success, such as "speed" in a company that is still slow to decide. Leaders with a clear vision define aspirational values well, helping the organization get to where it wants to be. The key is to label them honestly as aspirations, so employees do not see a gap between the poster and reality.

3. Permission-to-play values

Permission-to-play values define the minimum standards of behavior every employee must meet. They are not differentiators like core values, but they set the rules for business decisions and conduct. For example, your organization will not tolerate dishonesty, and not hiring candidates who invent experience on their resumes is one way to enforce that permission-to-play value. Lencioni argues that integrity usually belongs here, unless a company holds itself to an unusually high standard that sets it apart.

4. Accidental values

Accidental values bubble up unintentionally as an organization grows. They are shared behaviors, attributes and beliefs that long-time employees no longer notice, but that are immediately obvious to new teammates. They can be as simple as how managers communicate with the team or how teams celebrate birthdays and special occasions. Accidental values can be positive, like a habit of helping colleagues, or harmful, like a culture where only people who look alike get promoted, so audit them regularly.

Common categories of company values

Beyond Lencioni's four types, it helps to check that your value set covers the main relationships a company manages. Most strong value sets include at least one value from three or four of these categories:

• Ethical values: How the company does business, such as integrity, transparency and fairness.
• People values: How colleagues treat each other, such as respect, inclusion, collaboration and growth.
• Customer values: How the company serves the people who pay for its work, such as customer focus and quality.
• Performance values: How work gets done, such as ownership, speed, innovation and excellence.
• Social and environmental values: How the company affects its community and planet, such as sustainability and giving back.

How to define core values that people believe

When leaders try to define organizational values, they sometimes forget that the purpose is to inspire positive behaviors and end up focusing on buzzwords. Listing beautiful-sounding words does the organization no good. What works is a clear framework that brings everyone together around a larger purpose.

A practical way to define core values is to gather real stories of the company at its best, brainstorm candidate values with employees, sort every candidate into one of the four types above and keep only the true core values on the final list, usually three to seven. Then write each one with a short definition and observable behaviors. Our guide to core values in the workplace walks through this process step by step, with seven company examples.

As Rob Dube, co-founder of imageOne, wrote in Forbes, the best companies take their core values to heart and challenge themselves every day to live them, while companies that have values but do not focus on them often struggle both financially and culturally.

8 steps to reinforce organizational values

Defining values takes weeks, but reinforcing them takes years, so most of the effort belongs here. These eight steps follow the employee lifecycle, starting with involvement because people commit most to values they helped shape.

1. Involve employees instead of developing values in isolation

When people are emotionally invested in something, they are more committed to it. The same goes for organizational values. When you ask employees what they like about the organization and where they see it going while developing the values, they enjoy the process and are more committed to adopting the result.

One of the easiest ways to do this is through an open communication channel such as a social intranet, which makes it easy to exchange ideas, thoughts and opinions between management and employees.

2. Find out where the values fit for your employees

Mapping touchpoints across the employee lifecycle helps you understand the challenges and nuances of each stage and where values can be reinforced. For example, when hiring, you can add interview questions that assess whether candidates show the behaviors your values describe.

Once people are hired, run regular surveys and polls to understand:

• How the values make a difference to each employee.
• How the values help sales teams in conversations with prospects.
• How the values guide support staff when handling customer issues.
• How the values apply to frontline and contact center teams.

In the process, you identify the areas where values can shape behavior in your organization.

3. Make the values easy to understand and remember

Keep the values as simple as you can. When people find it hard to understand what your organization stands for, they find it hard to stand by it. HubSpot spells its values as HEART (humble, empathetic, adaptable, remarkable and transparent) in its Culture Code, so employees remember every one. Atlassian keeps one of its core values famously blunt: "Don't #@!% the customer."

4. Model values and behaviors

One of the simplest and most effective ways to make values real is to work, and play, by them. Make them part of cultural activities, customer communication and partner engagement. Lead by example, and make sure every leader lives the values in each action.

Employees look up to leaders as role models and absorb their ways of working, consciously or not. Leadership matters even more as manager engagement falls: Gallup's State of the Global Workplace 2026 reports that global manager engagement dropped to 22% in 2025, down nine points since 2022. Assigning role models or buddies to new hires also helps them understand and embrace the values.

5. Communicate the values consistently

A good way to keep values top of mind is to weave them into corporate communication, daily briefs, project goals and informal conversations without sounding preachy. Share real stories of people living a value, not just the value's name. A centralized space for value-aligned content, such as a values channel on your intranet, keeps those stories easy to find.

Such affirmations keep employees focused and motivated, which matters when engagement is scarce. Gallup's 2026 report found that only 20% of employees worldwide were engaged in 2025, and it estimates that low engagement cost the global economy about $10 trillion in lost productivity.

6. Incorporate the values in hiring and onboarding

Selecting candidates who align with your values is as important as hiring for skills and experience. Use structured, behavioral interview questions to assess whether candidates fit your values, and reinforce the values again during onboarding.

For example, the HR team can walk new hires through a culture document, as Netflix does with its public culture memo, explaining each value and why it matters. That way, new employees start applying the values from day one.

7. Promote values through rewards and recognition

Recognizing and rewarding employees who demonstrate your organizational values reinforces those behaviors in everyone. Never hesitate to recognize someone publicly when they uphold a value. It makes the employee feel good and encourages others to follow suit.

When you appreciate someone in a call, message or post, name the value they showed and explain how it contributed to the result. A Workhuman study released in January 2026 found that recently recognized employees were 2.5 times more likely to feel aligned to their company's values. For a full program design, see our guide to values-based recognition programs.

8. Ask for employee feedback regularly

Your employees are the best judges of whether the company is living its values. The easiest way to reinforce values is to check in with teams regularly through pulse surveys, eNPS checks and feedback polls. Ask how well each value is lived on their team, then share what you will change, so the next survey is worth answering.

Living company values daily: a simple rhythm

Living company values daily is mostly about small, repeated moments rather than big launches. This rhythm gives managers and HR a practical cadence:

Company values examples from well-known brands

Core values drive a company's purpose every day, so pick ones that truly define what you stand for. These company values examples show how well-known brands phrase and use their values. For deeper stories on how companies live values such as integrity, innovation and customer focus, see our guide to core values in the workplace.

1. Ben & Jerry's: The ice cream maker runs on a three-part mission of product, economic and social goals that carry equal weight. Its values extend to supporting sustainable food production, family farms and rural communities.
2. The Coca-Cola Company: Its purpose is to "refresh the world and make a difference," and its 2024 proxy statement describes four growth behaviors it expects from every employee: curious, empowered, inclusive and agile.
3. HubSpot: HubSpot's values are spelled as HEART: humble, empathetic, adaptable, remarkable and transparent. It celebrates them every year with a HEART Week.
4. Atlassian: Atlassian's five values include "Open company, no bullshit" and "Build with heart and balance," phrased in plain language that employees actually repeat.
5. Starbucks: Starbucks lists five company values: craft, results, courage, belonging and joy. Belonging was established by its partners (employees) in 2023.
6. Airbnb: Airbnb's four core values are champion the mission, be a host, embrace the adventure and be a cereal entrepreneur, each with a one-line description that explains the behavior.

Notice the pattern: each company keeps the list short, gives every value a distinctive phrase and explains the behavior behind it. Now that you have seen how other organizations do it, you can start shaping your own.

Empuls' core company values

Setting core values is never easy, because they shape the behavior and decisions of the whole team and of future employees. Here are the core values we live by at Empuls:

• Do it right the first time.
• Unlock new value.
• Be the master of your own work.
• Feet on the ground.
• Customer is our true north.
• Be thorough to make it through.

How Empuls helps you live organizational values

Simple measures like an intranet, engagement surveys and a rewards and recognition system go a long way toward making organizational values effective. Empuls, Xoxoday's employee engagement platform, brings these together in one place with its culture and values tools:

• Values-tagged recognition: Empuls recognition lets every award and peer shout-out carry a company value, so you can see which values are reinforced most and which are ignored.
• Values stories on the intranet: Town halls, posts, polls and videos on the social intranet keep values visible across offices, shifts and time zones.
• Values in feedback: Pulse surveys, eNPS and action plans show how well each value is lived by team, and help you close the gaps.

Organizational values matter when they become actions

Almost every organization has tried to define its values, but only a few live up to them. Values make a difference only when they turn into actions and each employee lives by them, from senior management to new hires.

When everyone's plate is full, values can take a back seat. The good news is that by involving employees, keeping values simple, modeling them, recognizing them and asking for feedback, you can build them into every stage of the employee experience, so they become far more than statements on a corporate website.