Researching Employer Values

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Why Are Values an Important Consideration When Considering Jobs and Employers?

Different businesses, organizations and institutions all have their own value systems. Some of this might be stated clearly in a mission statement or values statement, while other values might be more hidden or embedded into the culture. Research shows that performance and engagement are closely linked, with most of us working more effectively when we’re invested in what we do. And one of the keys to feeling engaged at work is aligning your own values with those of your organization, your team, and your direct manager–when you’re all working together towards something you believe in. Researching and asking about the values of a potential employer can be an important step in finding a job and career path that you find fulfilling, engaging, and successful.

What Are Values?

  • Overview and a few examples of how values could play a role on the job:

Draft Language: Some values might be reflected in how a company does business at a large scale. This could be in commitments to organizational structures, hiring practices, management styles, where and with whom they do business, or philanthropic activities. Values sometimes span across a whole industry. Also, the structure of an organization can reflect its values such as mission driven non-profit work, public service, and non-traditional business models like cooperatives. Some values show up in just the simple day-to-day interactions between co-workers, customers, and the public at large. 

Know Your Employer

Finding a job and employer that fits your values requires some amount of foresight and thinking. It can be difficult to pinpoint an employer’s values as many organizations struggle to communicate their own identities to prospective candidates. However, to get a more complete picture of an employer’s values, consider researching the following:

  • the products or services the company sells
  • the company’s clients
  • reviews from current or former employees
  • learn about the company’s business operations
  • research the company’s leadership
  • ask your network for opinions
  • review related local news stories, forums and business journals

Resources to Find an Employer that Aligns with Your Values

There are many resources available to assist you with your employer values research, including mobile apps, articles and search engines.

Political Affiliation

  • Zippia — a job search tool, for each company, the site aggregated the contributions of every employee whose donations were publicly available.
  • OpenSecrets.org — aggregates contribution data
  • OpenSecrets.org: Organizational Profiles — ranks organizations that have donated the most money to political causes
  • What S&P 500 CEOs spent on midterms — compiled the political contributions of every CEO of an S&P 500 company into a searchable database, broken down by political party and can look at each donation individually

Social Impact

  • Certified B Corporation — meet the highest standards of verified social and environmental performance, public transparency and legal accountability to balance profit and purpose
  • Human Rights Campaign Corporate Equality Index — released each fall, the HRC’s CEI report provides an in-depth analysis and rating of large U.S. employers and their policies and practices pertinent to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender employees
  • Conscious Capitalism — an organization for businesses focused on purpose and meaning beyond profit

Non-Profits, Public Service and Non-Traditional Organizations