Company values: examples, a list, and how to make them real

Company values are the few principles that describe how people at a company work and treat each other. Most companies publish them, but few employees feel them: in Gallup’s analytics, just 27% of employees strongly agree they believe in their company’s values, and 23% strongly agree they can apply their organization’s values to their work every day. Values become real when people see them in everyday work, in the decisions leaders make and in the work colleagues thank each other for.

Here’s why values matter, how well-known companies write theirs, a list of values to choose from, and how to make them part of your team’s week.

What are company values?

Company values, or core values, describe the behavior a company expects and celebrates: how people make decisions, treat customers and work with each other. They sit next to a company’s mission, which says what the company is for, and its vision, which says where it’s going. Values describe how it gets there.

Good values are specific enough to guide a decision. “Integrity” on its own leaves a lot open. “Say what you’ll do, then do it, and say so when you can’t” tells people what integrity looks like on a Tuesday.

Why company values matter, and why most don’t stick

Values give people a shared answer to “what would we do here?” when no rule covers the situation. That only works if people believe in them and can use them, and most can’t.

23%

of employees strongly agree they can apply their organization’s values to their work every day. Just 27% strongly agree they believe in their company’s values.

Publishing values doesn’t make them real, either. In 2020, researchers writing in MIT Sloan Management Review compared the official values of large, mainly U.S. companies with how employees describe those companies in 1.2 million Glassdoor reviews:

The analysis reveals that there is no correlation between the cultural values a company emphasizes in its published statements and how well the company lives up to those values in the eyes of employees.

Most companies also pick the same few values, and the most common number of them was five.

• Integrity65%
• Collaboration53%
• Customer focus48%
• Respect35%

Donald Sull, Stefano Turconi and Charles Sull, MIT Sloan Management Review, 2020

The gap isn’t in the words. It’s in what happens every day: which behavior gets noticed, praised and rewarded. Gallup’s advice is for leaders to show how values influence their decisions, and to hold leaders, managers and employees accountable for representing them.

Company values examples from well-known companies

These are taken from each company’s own pages, as of November 2026.

Amazon calls its values Leadership Principles, 16 of them, starting with Customer Obsession (“Leaders start with the customer and work backwards”), Ownership, and Invent and Simplify. Others include Are Right, A Lot; Bias for Action; Frugality; Earn Trust; and Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit.

Netflix lists eight values: Selflessness, Judgment, Candor, Creativity, Courage, Inclusion, Curiosity and Resilience, alongside four principles, The Dream Team, People Over Process, Uncomfortably Exciting, and Great and Always Better.

Patagonia updated its core values in 2022, on the eve of its 50th anniversary: Quality, Integrity, Environmentalism, Justice, and Not bound by convention.

Atlassian writes its values in its own voice: Open company, no bullshit; Build with heart and balance; Don’t f— the customer; Play, as a team; and Be the change you seek.

Salesforce has five core values: Trust, Customer Success, Innovation, Equality and Sustainability, with Trust named its number one value.

HubSpot describes four culture commitments: Solve for the Customer; Be Bold. Learn Fast.; Align, Adapt & Go!; and Deliver with HEART, for humble, empathetic, adaptable, remarkable and transparent.

What they have in common isn’t the words (several overlap with everyone else’s) but the specificity. Each value comes with a description of what it looks like in practice, and most of the lists are short enough to remember.

A list of company values to choose from

Use these as a starting point, not a menu. Pick the few that describe what already makes your team good, then write in your own words what each one looks like.

How we serve customers

• Customer focus: starts from what the customer needs, not what’s easiest to build or sell.
• Quality: finishes the work properly, even the parts nobody will check.
• Reliability: does what was promised, when it was promised.
• Service: goes the extra step to solve the problem, not just answer the ticket.
• Simplicity: makes things easier to use, explain and maintain.

How we work

• Ownership: sees things through without being asked, and fixes what’s broken along the way.
• Bias for action: moves forward with good-enough information instead of waiting for perfect.
• Craft: takes pride in doing the work well.
• Focus: says no to good ideas to finish the important ones.
• Data-informed: checks assumptions against evidence before deciding.
• Frugality: gets more done with less, and treats company money like their own.
• Continuous improvement: makes something a little better every week.
• Accountability: owns the result, including the mistakes.

How we treat each other

• Respect: listens fully and assumes good intent.
• Candor: gives honest feedback kindly, and asks for it in return.
• Teamwork: puts the team’s goal ahead of individual credit.
• Kindness: notices when someone is struggling and helps.
• Inclusion: makes sure every voice in the room is heard.
• Humility: shares credit and admits what they don’t know.
• Generosity: shares knowledge and time freely.
• Trust: gives people room to do their work, and earns the same.

How we grow

• Curiosity: asks why, and learns something new from every project.
• Courage: speaks up, takes smart risks and challenges the status quo.
• Learning: treats mistakes as lessons and shares them.
• Adaptability: adjusts quickly when plans change.
• Resilience: keeps going through setbacks.
• Innovation: looks for a better way, not just the usual one.
• Growth: helps others get better at what they do.

What we stand for

• Integrity: does the right thing when nobody’s watching.
• Transparency: shares information openly, including bad news.
• Sustainability: considers the long-term impact on people and the planet.
• Community: gives back to the places and people around us.
• Fairness: treats people consistently and without favoritism.
• Safety: looks out for everyone’s wellbeing, physical and mental.
• Fun: brings energy and humor to the work.

How to choose your company values

1. Start from what you already celebrate. Look at the last few times someone on your team was thanked or praised. What did they do? Your real values are already in there.
2. Keep the list short. Three to six values are easier to remember and use than twelve. Five was the most common number in the MIT Sloan study.
3. Make each one observable. Write one or two sentences on what the value looks like in someone’s work. If you can’t picture someone doing it, it’s too vague.
4. Use your own words. “Customer focus” means more as “We start from what the customer needs.” Atlassian’s and Amazon’s values are memorable partly because they sound like the company.
5. Test them on real decisions. Take a few recent hard calls and ask whether the values would have helped. If not, rewrite them.

How to make company values part of everyday work

1. Recognize the behavior, by name. When someone shows a value, thank them for it and say which value it was. A thank-you tagged “Ownership” shows everyone what ownership looks like here, far better than a poster does.
2. Use them in decisions out loud. When leaders explain a decision, they say which value it came from, so values become part of how the company thinks.
3. Hire, onboard and review with them. Ask about values in interviews, explain them with real examples in onboarding, and talk about them in reviews.
4. Watch which values actually show up. Values that are never recognized are either missing from the work, unclear, or not really yours. Each tells you something.
5. Revisit them. Values can change as a company changes. Patagonia updated its core values in 2022, ahead of its next 50 years. Retire what no longer fits rather than keeping it for show.

How Upreciated helps you foster and curate your values

Upreciated makes your values part of everyday recognition, and shows which ones your team actually lives:

• Your values, with a face. Admins add each value with a 3D icon, and everyone sees them on the organization page.
• Every thank-you can carry a value. When someone writes on a board, they can tag the message with the value it shows. The value’s badge appears on the message, and in your Slack or Microsoft Teams channel if you’ve connected one.
• See which values come up. Analytics show how many of a period’s messages carry each value, and who gives and receives recognition by team and by value, so you can see which values your team lives and which never come up.
• Curate as you go. Rename a value, change its icon or retire it. A retired value stays on the thank-yous that already have it, so nobody’s recognition loses its badge.

For more on why recognition matters, read what employee recognition does for engagement and retention. If you need words for your next thank-you, the thank-you message generator can tie it to a company value.

Frequently asked questions

What are company values?

Company values, or core values, are the few principles that describe how people at a company work and treat each other. They guide decisions where no rule applies, and they work best when each one describes behavior you can see.

How many company values should a company have?

There’s no fixed number, but fewer is better. Three to six are easy to remember and use. In MIT Sloan Management Review’s study of large companies, the most common number of published values was five.

What are the most common company values?

In that same study, integrity was the most common, listed by 65% of companies, followed by collaboration (53%), customer focus (48%) and respect (35%).

What’s the difference between company values and a mission?

A mission says what the company is for. Values say how people work while pursuing it: how they decide, treat customers and work together.

How do you make company values stick?

Make them visible in everyday work. Recognize people for behavior that shows a value and say which value it was, use the values to explain decisions, build them into hiring and reviews, and check which ones actually show up.

Sources

• Nate Dvorak and Niraj Patel, Gallup, It’s Time for a Core Values Audit, October 5, 2018.
• Donald Sull, Stefano Turconi and Charles Sull, MIT Sloan Management Review, When It Comes to Culture, Does Your Company Walk the Talk?, July 21, 2020.
• Amazon Leadership Principles, Netflix Culture Memo, Patagonia Core Values, Atlassian Core Values, Salesforce and HubSpot Careers, read November 2026.