One common misconception from prospects and clients is that we help them create their brand mission, vision, and value statements.
BlueLion does NOT offer this as part of our services! While we are concerned with the humans within your organization and ensuring your company remains compliant, these statements are better left to pros like branding and marketing strategists.
However, we DO believe that a meaningful mission, vision, and values are vital to building a successful business and team. After all, they are guidelines for what drives your business, how you conduct it, and how you interact with everyone, from your employees to your clients to your community.
Whether you’re launching a new company, you feel it’s time to revisit them, or you’ve been operating without defining them, it’s never too late to hone and share these brand statements with your team and stakeholders. Below are some tips and best practices for developing your mission, vision, and values.
Understand the Difference Between Mission, Vision & Values
Before you even begin this process, you and every other team member involved should understand the difference between your mission, vision, and values. Let’s define and break down the importance of each from an HR perspective.
Mission Statement
Your mission statement should outline the purpose of your organization. It should answer the question, “Why does the company exist?” Simply put, it should address what your business offers, who you’re selling to, and why you do it.
Regarding HR, your mission statement will help align recruitment, onboarding, and employee development processes with your company’s core purpose. It also helps potential and current employees understand the company’s overall goals and the contribution they can make toward achieving them.
Vision Statement
When it comes to your vision, it’s time to look ahead and think big! This statement describes the organization’s desired future state or long-term aspirations. It paints a picture of what success looks like.
The vision statement influences long-term talent acquisition and talent development strategies. It also helps employers attract candidates who are aligned with the organization’s future direction and motivates employees by providing a clear sense of purpose.
Values
Values are the core principles and beliefs that guide the behavior and decision-making of individuals within the organization. They define how your team will achieve the mission and vision.
Your HR and leadership team should keep your brand values front-of-mind during people processes such as recruitment, performance management, and employee engagement. Use them to:
- Assess cultural fit during the hiring process
- Develop training programs that reinforce your values
- Resolve conflicts or ethical dilemmas in alignment with your values
Overall, clear and compelling mission, vision, and value statements are critical to your employee relations because they help you:
- Attract and Retain Talent: You’ll attract candidates who resonate with the company’s purpose and culture. Solid messaging also helps retain employees who feel connected to the organization’s goals.
- Guide Decision-Making: When HR decisions align with the brand’s mission, vision, and values, you’ll experience consistency and a cohesive organizational culture.
- Drive Employee Engagement: Employees who understand and identify with these statements are more engaged, committed, and motivated.
- Enhance Performance Management: Values can serve as criteria for evaluating employee performance, ensuring that individuals’ behaviors align with the organization’s ethical and cultural standards.
- Facilitate Change Management: During periods of change, a strong brand identity can provide stability and help employees navigate transitions more smoothly.
Make it a Team Effort
These brand statements certainly shouldn’t be created in a silo. Be sure to include all relevant individuals in the process, including your leadership team, staff, internal stakeholders, and board of directors, if applicable. Hearing from people in all areas and levels of the company offers powerful perspectives and ensures your statements are truly all-encompassing.
To do this effectively, be sure to:
- Hold a structured brainstorming session or series of meetings
- Send an agenda before each meeting so attendees have time to come up with ideas and prepare
- Record every meeting and/or have a dedicated note-taker and send the recap afterward
As you write your mission, vision, and values, you should also keep your ideal clients in mind. Ask yourselves:
- What are their pain points or desires?
- How will you help them overcome or achieve their goals?
- What kind of language do they use?
- How do existing clients talk about your brand and offering?
Ensure your statements align with the expectations and needs of your customers, employees, shareholders, and any other stakeholders.
Create Concise & Impactful Brand Statements
Aim for clarity and brevity in your mission, vision, and values statements. They should be easy to remember and communicate. And forget the fluff—get to the point in explaining what you do, why you do it, how you do it, and what you’re working to build!
Mission and vision statements are typically one or two sentences each. Value statements can be a few key principles, whether you choose several words and explain how your team lives them out or come up with a few unique phrases and define them.
Make your brand statements more impactful by making them different. Don’t try to mimic others in your market. Instead, consider:
- What sets your business apart from the competition?
- What do you do differently?
- How do you plan to change and improve the industry?
- How did your organization get started?
Your story alone will help you stand out, even in a competitive industry!
Communicate Them Effectively
Once developed, communicate your mission, vision, and values throughout the organization. Ensure that every employee understands and embraces them. This will make them ingrained in your corporate culture! You can do this by:
- Incorporating them into the onboarding process and explaining them to new hires
- Including discussions and activities in employee training and development to reinforce them
- Posting them throughout the workplace, such as office walls, common areas, or digitally on your intranet or internal communication platforms
- Including them in the employee handbook
- Adding them to job postings and recruitment materials
- Displaying them on your website, typically on the “About Us” page
- Sharing stories and updates via social media and press releases to demonstrate how the organization is living out its mission, vision, and values
- Recognizing and rewarding employees who exemplify the company’s values
Effective communication of your brand statements should be ongoing. They’re not static documents but living guides that shape the organization’s culture and decision-making!
Test & Refine Them
As your company evolves, your mission, vision, and values might shift, too. It’s important to revisit them occasionally to ensure they accurately reflect your organization’s identity and resonate with stakeholders. Consider reviewing your brand statements every two to three years or when:
- Your business experiences significant changes like mergers, acquisitions, rebranding, marked growth, or shifts in strategic direction
- Employees, customers, or other stakeholders consistently express that the statements don’t align with the company’s actions or culture
- Your business faces a crisis or reputation challenges, and you need to reaffirm your commitment to ethical conduct and corporate responsibility
- You feel your statements no longer stand out or sound too similar to your peers or competitors
- The company experiences high employee turnover or low engagement, which could signal a misalignment
Whether you recognize one of these trends during a routine review or a major occurrence has you revisiting your brand statements, you can test and update them by first discussing and gathering feedback from your internal team. Then, you may seek feedback from clients and partners.
Regardless, ensure your mission, vision, and value statements are aligned, clear, and consistent during every review. And always ensure your team approves and relates to them!
Building a Brand with a Mission
Your company’s mission, vision, and values guide everything from your marketing to your operations to your community involvement. And how you live them out will influence your brand’s reputation.
As for your people processes, your brand statements are vital to attracting, developing, and retaining talent while fostering a culture that aligns with the organization’s goals and principles. They serve as a compass for HR decisions and actions, ultimately contributing to the success and sustainability of the business.
While BlueLion may not develop mission or vision statements or values, we are passionate about helping you and your team embody yours! If you need guidance on strengthening your workplace culture and incorporating your brand message into more of your HR processes, contact BlueLion today at 603-818-4131 or info@bluelionllc.com.
The information on this website, including its newsletters, is not, nor is it intended to be legal advice. You should contact an attorney or HR specialist for advice on your individual situation.
