Living Your Values & Turning Employee Voice into Everyday Culture

Insights From Shane Ashby-Roche, Head of Organisational Development and Culture at The White Company; Emma Woodford, Chief People Officer; and Caroline Abercrombie, Chief People Officer

Start with Your People 

A clear message emerged from the discussion: employees should not simply be expected to adopt an organisation’s values. They should help shape, test, and continuously refine them.

At The White Company, the organisation’s values were developed directly from employee feedback. Colleagues were asked what it meant to work there, creating values grounded in the lived experience of the workforce rather than imposed from the top down.

The organisation continues to test whether those values remain relevant. Across its 1,700 employees, around 80% report that they are aware of the values and believe they are right for the business.

For Shane, this ongoing conversation is essential. Values should remain part of the language employees use and should be regularly tested against what people are actually experiencing.

“Do these values still feel right?” is a more useful question than simply assuming they will remain relevant forever.

Move from Aspiration to Action  

Caroline highlighted the important role employees play in translating broad, aspirational statements into practical behaviours.

Leaders may say they want their people to be innovative, accountable, or collaborative. But what does that mean for someone in a specific role, team, or location?

Employees help answer that question by grounding values in reality. They can identify the behaviours that demonstrate a value in practice—and expose values that sound impressive but do not resonate with day-to-day work.

This process can reveal whether a value is genuinely meaningful. If employees cannot connect it to their work, it may not be a value at all. It may simply be an ambition that has not yet been made tangible.

The most effective values are therefore not just statements of intent. They provide practical guidance for how people make decisions, collaborate, serve customers, and support one another.

Don’t Refresh Values for the Sake of It 

The panel also challenged the assumption that values must regularly be rewritten.

Emma shared how her organisation reviewed its values following significant changes during and after the pandemic. The business had evolved, its leadership team had changed, and its strategic direction had shifted. It seemed like the right time to ask whether its values needed to change too.

Employees responded clearly: the values still resonated. Rather than replacing them, the organisation focused on making them more relevant to everyday work.

This meant simplifying the language beneath each value and asking colleagues:

• What does this value mean in your role?
• What behaviours demonstrate it?
• How does it influence your daily decisions?
• What would customers and colleagues see if the value were truly being lived?

The exercise helped move the values from the walls into the organisation’s operations.

The lesson is simple: when values remain meaningful, the answer may not be to create new ones. It may be to bring the existing ones to life more effectively.

Connect Organisational and Personal Values

Values have the greatest impact when they connect with what employees personally care about.

The panel discussed the importance of understanding not only what an organisation stands for, but also what its people stand for. When personal and organisational values align, employees are more likely to feel authentic, motivated, and committed in their work.

Caroline described this alignment as the “magic source” of an effective culture. If employees do not personally connect with an organisation’s values, it becomes difficult for them to demonstrate those values consistently.

This is why values should not be treated as a communications exercise. They influence whether people feel proud of where they work, whether they can see themselves in the organisation’s purpose, and whether they want to contribute to its future.

Use Feedback to Shape the Employee Experience

Employee feedback is most powerful when it leads to visible changes.

Caroline shared an example from her work with rapidly growing scale-ups. As these businesses expand, employees can lose the sense of connection and opportunity they experienced in the early days.

Feedback revealed that employees still believed in the organisation’s mission, but they were unclear about what growth meant for them personally. They wanted to understand:

• How their role could develop.
• What career opportunities were available.
• How progression worked.
• What the future could look like for them within the business.

In response, the organisation developed clearer role architecture and career frameworks. This allowed employees to understand their potential and see how they could grow as the company grew.

The change did not come from a people strategy created in isolation. It came directly from listening to what employees needed.

Go Beyond the Survey

Surveys provide useful data, but a score alone rarely explains what is really happening.

Emma described how her organisation allows colleagues to leave anonymous comments alongside survey responses. Managers can then respond and begin a two-way conversation to understand the context behind those comments.

This helps distinguish between:

• A momentary frustration.
• A deeper concern.
• A misunderstanding.
• A recurring issue that requires action.

The opportunity to continue the conversation anonymously is also important. Not everyone feels comfortable immediately identifying themselves, particularly when sharing difficult feedback.

By creating space for dialogue, organisations can challenge their own assumptions. Instead of deciding what an employee “must have meant”, leaders can ask better questions and understand the issue more fully.

Shane added that comments should be analysed by business area, not just at an organisation-wide level. The concerns raised by retail colleagues, contact centre teams, and head office employees may be very different.

A broad statement such as “we need to be more innovative” may mean something entirely different in different departments. For one team, it might mean introducing new technology. For another, it might simply mean replacing inefficient spreadsheets.

The value lies in translating broad feedback into specific, localised action.

Close the Feedback Loop

Listening without follow-through can quickly lead to feedback fatigue.

Employees are more likely to keep sharing their views when they can see what happens next. That does not mean every request can be implemented, but it does mean organisations should explain their decisions clearly.

A useful feedback loop includes:

1. Gathering feedback through surveys, conversations, focus groups, and informal listening.
2. Exploring the “why” behind the feedback rather than relying solely on scores.
3. Creating an action plan that addresses the most important issues.
4. Communicating progress at an agreed frequency.
5. Explaining decisions when an action cannot be taken.
6. Reviewing the outcome to understand whether the change had the desired effect.

Transparency is particularly important when progress is slow. If a solution will take six months, say so. If the issue is not currently a priority, explain why and commit to revisiting it when appropriate.

Honesty builds more trust than promising change that cannot be delivered.

Managers Make Culture Real

Although surveys, platforms, and communication strategies all have a role to play, the panel agreed that the relationship between manager and employee is where culture becomes real.

Managers are often the people who determine whether employees feel heard, supported, and connected to the organisation’s values.

The most effective managers do not pretend to have every answer. Instead, they:

• Remain open to feedback.
• Listen carefully.
• Ask thoughtful questions.
• Admit when something has not worked.
• Understand the individual needs of their team.
• Take ownership of engagement.
• Work with others to resolve issues.

Emma stressed that managers should not view engagement as solely an HR or senior leadership responsibility. A survey may identify an issue, but managers own the ongoing conversation that follows.

That could mean addressing a significant concern—or simply escalating a practical problem, such as an issue with workplace facilities. Small actions can demonstrate that feedback has been noticed and taken seriously.

Caroline also highlighted the difference between managing people and leading them. Leadership is not automatically created by taking on a management title. It is built through trust, influence, openness, and the ability to bring people with you.

Give Everyone a Sense of Ownership

Shane shared a powerful question posed to the senior leadership team by The White Company’s CEO:

“Who is the business?”

The answer should not simply be the CEO, the leadership team, or the people function. The business is everyone within it.

That does not mean every employee is responsible for solving every organisational problem. It means each person should understand the role they play in shaping the culture and bringing the values to life.

When values tell employees that they are part of the organisation, employees need to see how that membership translates into action. What choices can they make? What influence do they have? How can they contribute to improvement?

Creating this sense of shared ownership helps move employees from passive recipients of culture to active participants in it.

Key Takeaways

The panel’s discussion offered several practical lessons for organisations looking to turn employee voice into everyday culture:

• Involve employees in creating and reviewing values.
• Translate values into clear, observable behaviours.
• Avoid changing values simply for the sake of appearing progressive.
• Use employee feedback to shape practical business decisions.
• Look beyond survey scores and explore the reasons behind them.
• Analyse feedback by team, role, and business area.
• Close the loop with regular, honest updates.
• Give managers the skills and confidence to listen well.
• Make leaders visible, authentic, and open to challenge.
• Help every employee understand their role in the culture.

From Laminated Values to Lived Culture

Values become meaningful when employees recognise them in the decisions the organisation makes, the behaviours leaders demonstrate, and the way managers treat their teams.

They are not created through posters, presentations, or one-off campaigns. They are built through repeated conversations, honest feedback, visible action, and everyday choices.

The organisations that create strong cultures are not necessarily those with the most polished values statements. They are the ones willing to listen closely, act transparently, and make their values relevant to the people who bring them to life.

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