Values raise performance, survey finds

News Article - 23 November 2006
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Business employees who identify with core values have been found to perform better than those who do not, a new study has shown.

Research by audit and accounting firm BDO Stoy Hayward in conjunction with employee firm ISR showed that workers with values such as professionalism and being customer-orientated "significantly" outdid their counterparts when it came to performance, Accountancy magazine reports.

Customer orientation and professionalism were reported as being the joint top value by 91 per cent of respondents, while being achievement-orientated was rated top by 86 per cent.

The four companies which recorded the strongest core values outperformed the competition with an 18 per cent higher operating profit and a 14 per cent rise in average fee income per employee.

"Firms ambitious for their future will want to work hard at identifying the values which matter to them and ensure management practice is aligned. Firms that do so will see their performance increase dramatically," the publication quotes BDO partner Peter Leach as saying.

A factor which may impact upon performance is conflict in the workplace, which 32 per cent of global finance workers blame on pay reviews, according to Accountancy Age.

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