At Atmosphere, our culture can be described as accountable, team-centric, learning-oriented, and high-performing. We are deeply engaged, focused on growth and development, and love the work that we do to enrich the work lives of those around us. We also continuously strive to be a market leader and an employer of choice, which means the importance of strengthening the connection between our purpose and those day-to-day decisions that matter so much for the contentment and self-actualization of our team members and our overall success.
As our organization grows, we want to empower team members to make the best decisions for the clients they serve, the teams they work in, and for themselves. Providing a foundation on which to base decisions will help us meet operational and revenue goals, and provides a sense of satisfaction and enjoyment that results from personal growth and accomplishment.
People naturally rely on their inner compass when making decisions or modeling behaviors. And, when seeking a job, people will gravitate toward organizations whose corporate culture and core values are in alignment with their personal values.
Core values are a key component of a corporate culture, because they are the principles by which we make decisions, set and achieve goals, and connect with people and partners.
Five years ago, our core values were carefully crafted and published on our website and in the team member handbook. The values were relevant and inspiring, and yet not one person in our organization could recall them, much less describe how they lived our values every day. Team members couldn’t recall them because we as an organization hadn’t supported them and used them to their fullest potential through our everyday work.
We decided that to strengthen and enrich our own corporate culture, we needed to develop new core values, and more importantly, demonstrate how and why being a values-oriented organization helps us deliver on our purpose, holds us accountable as individuals and as an organization, and creates a positive and nurturing environment in which to work.