Value-led business – Building a family environment

Great people are the core of any successful business, and Sparkle Cleaning believes that creating this team starts with your core business values.

What are core values?

They are the fundamental beliefs of an organization, the guiding principles that dictate how people should behave and act. In order to build long-lasting relationships with suppliers and clients it’s important for a business to be clear about its values. But more than this – these values let people know if it’s the right organisation for them to work for. If they have cultural fit.

Our core values are:

• Keep it simple

• Family comes first

• Add value

• Make money

• Have fun

For us ‘family comes first’ is a guiding value. I’ve worked in companies before where I have not been valued and I know how that feels and I never wanted that for our business.

Historically, cleaners have not always been treated well by their employers or by the clients they work for, and we believe cleaning is a valuable career – not just a minimum wage job. When people work for us, they are part of our family – they can take ownership of their work, and they have a part to play in a team. We reward excellent behaviour and work. If we get great feedback from one of our clients, the staff that work on that project are rewarded. We want people to grow with us, to have enjoyment in their work and to become confident team members and team leaders. 

How do you create core values for your business?

When defining what your business values, you first need to decide who should be involved in making this decision. Ideally, the whole team should be involved or at least all the key people in the business. Your employees know best what it is like working within the business and may have insight that you as the business owner do not. 

The first step is to look at where you currently are in the business. What do you believe about your business? It can be helpful to look at what your business does well already and how it is different from other businesses you have worked for.

Get feedback from customers and suppliers to see if your beliefs ring true with them.

Decide what is most important about the company to you and then give your team some time to think about what is important to them. These may be things you do already or maybe things you could incorporate into the business in the future.

From here it is best to narrow these values down to a set of core values. Around five or six is probably a good number and you can generally come to this by refining your ideas and combining similar points that have been raised.

Make sure your values have an action involved. They need to be part of your operational plan – how will you integrate these values into all aspects of your organisation?

We believe that strong business values help so many parts of your business; recruitment, retention and the future direction. Be clear on yours and the rest will follow.