Core values reflect what is truly important to an organization. These values do not change from time to time or situation to situation or person to person; but rather serve as the foundation of a jewelry company’s culture. All employees need to have a basic understanding of the core values endorsed by the organization so that they know how to interact, what strategies to employ and how best to fulfill the mission of the company.  Core values help guide employees in understanding what constitutes appropriate personal relationships and business processes.  All employees should be able to articulate to some degree what the company stands for and why the company approaches business opportunities in the way it does.

The competencies of an organization are separate from its core values. There are no individual core values within a company; only organizational core values. Managers must instill core values within an organization and that takes more than just setting a good example.

Responses to market opportunities are strategic. Core values are usually summarized in the mission statement or in the statement of core values. The mission is the core reason the organization exists.  It is the core purpose.  The core values of a jewelry organization are the guiding principles of behavior through time and have many important benefits.  Values and credibility go hand in hand for managers and help employees understand and clarify what is really important.

To clarify core values managers need to start by creating a comprehensive list of all possible values and then rank them based on importance (A=high importance, B=medium importance, C= low importance). Review the list of A and B values and then confirms which ones are really most important to the organization and which ones might be subsets of other values.  Core values help define the kind of jewelry organization the company desires to be.

JCK