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Inspiration and Values

Some of the aspects of the organisational culture that will inspire employees, and enable them to identify with the culture are:

Quality of Leadership: The extent to which the leaders in the organisation provide effective and motivating leadership.

Public Service Values: The extent to which the organisation both defines and demonstrates a coherent set of values.

Promotion of Diversity; The degree to which the organisation promotes and develops a diverse workforce, with equality of opportunity for all employees and members of the community.

Reputation of the Organisation; The degree of regard in which the organisation is held by the external community.

Risk Sharing: The degree to which the organisation encourages employees to take risks and the degree to which it takes collective responsibility for the consequences of risk taking by employees.

Recognition for Achievements: The degree to which the organisation recognises individuals' achievement and contribution.

Dialogue, Consultation and Communication: The extent to which the organisation establishes and manages effective internal communication mechanisms, channels and processes.

What Could This Mean in Practice?

“People join organisations and leave bosses”

• Effective and supportive leadership
• Delivery of Organisation Vision and Values - using appropriate styles to meet challenges 
• Better management of external perceptions, positive press releases, success stories
• Fairness/equality proofing
• Achieving diversity targets - mainstreaming the benefits

Is this an issue in your organisation?

Inspiration and values is one of the most important factors in the Total Reward Model, as it regularly features in the 'top three' priorities in the Diagnostic Questionnaire. Public service organisations often have values that attract employees with a strong public service ethos, particularly in health and education. There is also a positive feeling attached to many public service occupations - when faced with the 'So, what do you do?' question at parties, doctors, nurses and teachers seem to be more appreciated than the 'used-car salesperson' or equivalent.

Assess:

• What are the stated values of the organisation? Do employees know and understand them? Do managers and employees 'live' up to them?
• What are the implied or actual values of the organisation? What do people actually do?
• How is the organisation seen in the community? Does this image need to be changed or improved, and how? This involves working with PR or marketing to match the internal experience with the external image. You can positively affect the image of your organisation in the local community - the public has a tendency to judge their local schools or hospital well, even while complaining about education or the NHS in general. The public also appreciate improved local services, at the same time as begrudging the increases in Council Tax that pay for these improvements.
• Does your organisation honestly value and promote diversity and the fair treatments of all employees (and clients), regardless of gender, ethnicity, working pattern, caring responsibilities or age? You may need to conduct one or more focus groups comprised of potentially disadvantaged employees, as even a Diagnostic survey of all employees may not sufficiently address this issue.
• The impact that leadership and management styles have on the organisational climate, and therefore on employee productivity. Improving productivity through inspirational leadership is a theme in a number of public sector organisations.
  Again, you will need to work with colleagues both within HR and in other departments in these areas.

Benchmark

External benchmarking (pdf, 25Kb) of non-financial awards may help you gather the evidence you need to support recommendations for change. Look at what some of the best employers are doing both here and overseas – Best Places to Work.

Examples

• Certain industries (such as defence, oil and tobacco) pay a premium to attract employees, because a proportion of the population wouldn't ever consider working in some or all of these areas;
• Other organisations have people lining up to join (such as BBC, Virgin, Body Shop).
• NHS Leadership Qualities Framework [External website]
• Cabinet Office Leadership for Reform & Customer Focus
• IDeA Leadership Academy [External website]

Case Study

Read the Case Study [PDF 30KB] in a charity.
The Hunger Project

Further Resources