How Mineral Uses Value Alignment to Engage Employees

Clearly stating your company’s values can help engage and retain employees.

Engaging employees is a growing challenge for HR leaders.

Just 32% of full- and part-time US employees felt engaged in 2022, according to research from Gallup, continuing a trend that started in 2021 when employee engagement declined for the first time in a decade to 34% from 36% year over year.

But there is a secret weapon HR can use to increase engagement and employee retention: value alignment. And that is exactly what one organization is aiming to do. Mineral, an HR and compliance company, has established four core values that they use to connect with and engage employees so they not only do their best work, but they take pride in their company as well.

“The name of the game is engagement,” said Carla Yudhishthu, chief people officer at Mineral. “Our turnover has almost come to a screeching halt. So, now we want to make sure that’s real, that they’re staying for the long haul, and that we are prepared for when the market turns around.”

Identifying ideals. When Mineral was founded in 2019 via the merger of ThinkHR and Mammoth, it created a set of principles that would serve the organization’s newly combined clients and employees. Those values are: “We’re in this together,” “boldly driven” (meaning they should not be afraid to take risks and fail), “explore and innovate,” and “inspiring joy,” in each other through a positive culture where employees are rewarded, incentivized, and recognized for their contributions.

Boosting engagement. Mineral measures if employees are embodying the company’s values through regular pulse checks and an annual engagement survey. The survey feedback provided anonymously by employees helps the organization identify what is most important to their workforce so they can cultivate an environment where employees want to work for a long time.

“[We are] living our values, bringing the values to life, making sure we walk the talk from a leadership perspective and across the organization,” Yudhishthu said. “I have that on my mind everyday—Is what we’re doing living our values, are we bringing our values to life, are all our employees experiencing our values in the same way?”

This article was authored by Amanda Schiavo, and originally published by HR Brew.