What Are Company Values?

Company values are a set of behaviors. If they aren’t clearly defined, individual employees involuntarily match their behaviors to the group’s. As a result, everyone in a company has similar attitude to projects, clients etc. On the other hand, it’s difficult to say what precisely are those similarities.

A few years ago, we had just that kind of situation at Polcode. And even though we knew we valued the same work-related matters, and that in case of a project emergency, every employee would make a similar decision, we needed to define our core values.

How Did We Start?

During the company’s organizational culture analysis, we decided to take a closer look at the matter.

We planned to invite the whole team to a meeting where everyone could share his or her insight about Polcode values. But let’s be honest, company principles are not the subject of everyday chat over the coffee machine. You need a certain ambience to talk freely about such personal stuff. Our main fear was that we wouldn’t be able to gather enough information to determine which exact values prevailed at Polcode.

Fortunately, we were wrong. The whole team was really enthusiastic about the meeting, and in the end, almost everyone shared something honest about their experiences along with thoughts on working at Polcode.

How We Got Around to Establishing Our Values

We organized seven workshops—five on-premise workshops in our regional offices and two online for remote team members.

The conclusions we got were similar in all seven groups—just as organizational culture experts predicted. What surprised us, however, was that almost the same approach to work was shared by people working in all of our regional offices in Katowice, Lodz, Białystok, Cracow, and Warsaw. Yet even more surprising was to discover that our remote employees, scattered all over the country, too, shared very similar views.

Forming Conclusions into Values

While we were collecting and analyzing feedback from all of our teams, our management was independently forming the core values and mission of Polcode. And guess what? The management’s conclusions aligned with what our employees felt and thought about the company.

What Are the Polcode Values?

After an in-depth analysis of all workshops, we distinguished three main values and formed our company’s mission.

Flexibility

We swiftly adapt to dynamic circumstances and changing conditions. The few organizational processes are in place to streamline and facilitate everyday work.

At Polcode, we value flexible workplace, respecting the priorities and expectations of both our employees and our clients.

People

The company is our team, and our priority is to treat every employee individually.

Respect, openness, and readiness to help are the key elements making up a good team. Aside from experience and eagerness for development, we value a sense of humor and friendly atmosphere at work.

Development

The Internet is remarkable. Evolving and changing constantly, it inspires us to utilize technology in innovative ways. It’s what fuels our drive to developing our knowledge and polishing the skills of the whole team. Equipped with that passion, we’re able to effectively support our clients’ businesses.

Our Mission

We turn our clients’ dreams into functional business applications. We do it for the satisfaction a job well done brings us. We are proud when a combination of new technologies, commitment, team’s knowledge, and business ideas of our clients results in products with a global reach.

The Benefits of Company Values

After we established our values, four things happened:

• New employees arriving at Polcode don’t have to guess anymore how to act and what to do because these questions are already answered on most of the walls in all our offices 🙂
• Existing employees, on the other hand, know that Polcode means much more than just developing software: it’s gathering people who share the same ideas and beliefs while cherishing their work.
• Team-wise, we’ve bonded tremendously, going out for monthly get-togethers.
• Company-wise, our project organization has improved, and along with it, the quality of delivered solutions.

If you would like to talk about best HR practices that strengthen workplace bonds and bolster business results, send us an email. We’ll be glad to answer all your questions.