The 15 Best Company Values Examples to Build Your Company Culture

In a 2023 survey of more than 5,000 U.S. workers, Pew Research Center found that just half (51%) are highly satisfied with their jobs. While most workers say they're happy with their relationships at work, there's a major disconnect between interpersonal interactions and the way they view long-term opportunities at their companies.

For HR professionals tasked with nurturing company culture, a strong set of core values can be the key to keeping culture on track. As Brad Rencher, CEO of BambooHR, explains, “Defining company values and developing your culture are the most strategic things you can do as an organization.”

To help you reflect on and evaluate your organization's values, we’ve compiled a list of the best company core values examples from organizations big and small. Read on to discover examples that will help you start thinking about your company’s own core values.

9 Company Values Examples from Large Organizations

For larger organizations, keeping culture on track can be a real challenge. With more people comes more variety in every way—experience, perspective, behavior, beliefs, and more.

Without a set of clear core values, it’s impossible to maintain a consistent culture that everyone in the organization can get behind.

Here are a few examples of large organizations that have defined guiding values for their people.

Amazon

Amazon’s company values describe the things that the best leaders do:

• Are right, a lot
• Bias for action
• Customer obsession
• Deliver results
• Dive deep
• Earn trust
• Frugality
• Have backbone; disagree and commit
• Hire and develop the best
• Insist on the highest standards
• Invent and simplify
• Learn and be curious
• Ownership
• Strive to be Earth’s Best Employer
• Success and scale bring broad responsibility
• Think big

When employees think and act like leaders, they're better able to earn and keep customers' trust. Leaders are more likely to think long term and never stop learning. They raise the performance bar for themselves and everyone they work with, aren’t afraid to take risks, and find ways to innovate and accomplish more with less.

Apple

Apple’s values emphasize the breadth, depth and scope of the impact their products and services make on the world:

• Accessibility
• Education
• Environment
• Inclusion and Diversity
• Privacy
• Racial Equity and Justice
• Supplier Responsibility

Apple’s company values have evolved over the years—a good reminder that your organization (and its culture) will also evolve and change as time passes. The process of creating and defining company values should be ongoing, so don’t be afraid to make adjustments when necessary.

Ben & Jerry's

Ben & Jerry’s is one of the most recognizable ice cream brands in the world. From its early beginnings, the company has sought to leverage their business to make the world a better place.

Ben & Jerry's core values guide their efforts to accomplish this noble goal by:

• Advancing human rights and dignity
• Protecting and restoring Earth’s natural systems
• Supporting social and economic justice

Costco

Walk into a Costco store and you’ll see a large warehouse, laid out as straightforward as possible to make finding the goods and services you need as easy as possible. The company’s approach to their core values is also intentionally straightforward:

• Obey the law.
• Take care of our members.
• Take care of our employees.
• Respect our suppliers.

Disney

One of the most recognizable brands in the entire world, The Walt Disney Company’s mission statement is "to entertain, inform and inspire people through the power of unparalleled storytelling." That simple, concise statement reflects Disney's focus on its customers, as well as its reliance on employees to make that mission a reality.

With a diverse portfolio of businesses—including theme parks, film and television studios, news media, and streaming services—Disney’s culture and values are designed to adapt to each business type. Disney designs work environments for employees at all levels that:

• Adapt continually to employee’s evolving needs.
• Drive innovation.
• Inspire optimism.
• Put the responsibility for an inclusive culture in the hands of leaders and employees alike.

Google

Google knows search is its core strength, and appropriately, search drives its company values. Google leverages its search expertise to provide a user experience that crosses borders and languages and meets users where they are—whether a user is an advertiser or web surfer.

Google uses great search technology as a starting point for identifying ways to innovate in every area of its business.

But as Google's values reveal, the company's success also rests on its ability to embrace diversity and creative approaches to work, play, and life:

• Democracy on the web works.
• Fast is better than slow.
• Focus on the user and all else will follow.
• Great just isn’t good enough.
• It’s best to do one thing really, really well.
• The need for information crosses all borders.
• There’s always more information out there.
• You can be serious without a suit.
• You can make money without doing evil.
• You don’t need to be at your desk to need an answer.

Netflix

The company culture at Netflix encourages employees to make decisions, share information openly and deliberately, and communicate candidly and directly:

• Communication
• Courage
• Curiosity
• Inclusion
• Innovation
• Integrity
• Judgment
• Selflessness
• Passion

With these values in mind, Netflix strives to keep only its most highly effective employees, and to foster self-discipline and accountability without a rigid set of rules.

Patagonia

On its 50th anniversary, Patagonia's leadership revisited and updated the company's core values to reflect who they want to be over the next fifty years.

Emphasizing quality, integrity, environmentalism, justice, and not being bound by convention, Patagonia's values are:

• Be just, equitable and antiracist as a company and in our community.
• Build the best product, provide the best service and constantly improve everything we do.
• Do it our way.
• Examine our practices openly and honestly, learn from our mistakes and meet our commitments.
• Protect our home planet.

Starbucks

Starbucks started with an understanding of the importance of connection—not only with its customers, but also with its now-international team of baristas and employees. The coffee giant's company values include:

• Acting with courage, challenging the status quo and finding new ways to grow the company and each other.
• Being present, connecting with transparence, dignity and respect.
• Creating a culture of warmth and belonging, where everyone is welcome.
• Delivering the best in all they do, holding themselves accountable for results.

This focus on connection explains why Starbucks calls employees "partners," reinforcing the understanding that every employee contributes to the company’s shared success.

6 Company Values Examples from Small and Medium-Sized Organizations

BambooHR

Of course, we couldn’t go through an entire article about company values without mentioning our core values here at BambooHR. The values that help us do great work every day include:

• Assume the Best
• Be Open
• Do the Right Thing
• Enjoy Quality of Life
• Grow from Good to Great
• Lead from Where You Are
• Make It Count

SnackNation

SnackNation's company values provide the standard for “everything [they] create and cultivate”:

• Display Grit Without Ego
• Health Above All Else
• Seek Perpetual Growth
• Serve & Inspire
• Spread Joy & Optimism

Glassdoor

Glassdoor has defined its values to “both communicate to employees what matters most to your organization, and create standards to hold both company and employee decisions accountable.”

Its core values include:

• Accountability
• People matter
• Integrity
• Leadership
• Ownership
• Passion

BizLibrary

BizLibrary's core values are designed to encourage growth, learning, and passion:

• Build successful partnerships that last
• Enjoy the journey
• Freedom to fail
• Giving back
• Passion to be the best
• Respect others
• Smarter every day

7Geese

7Geese keeps it simple with its company values:

• Excellence
• Growth
• Positivity
• Lending a hand

With values that are intentionally straightforward, it's easy for employees new and old to align around a common company culture.

Lattice

In writing its company values, Lattice sought to create values that represented “our cultural ideals, of our company standards that we strive to reach.”

These values include:

• Chop wood, carry water
• Clear eyes
• Ship, shipmate, self
• What’s next?

Next Steps: Your Company Values

With these excellent examples to guide you, you’re ready to start evaluating your own core values to build alignment throughout your organization. Consider where your company started, where it is today, and where you want to be in the future.

If perhaps you haven’t identified your company values, this is a perfect time to lead a discovery process to identify the informal values that already exist within your organization. They can guide you to embrace a formalized, written set of core values that you’ll communicate throughout your organization.