The importance of corporate values and the role they play in business success has been highlighted in literature globally. Companies where employees share similar values have greater employee commitment, higher performance and lower employee turnover. Researchers have also found that discrepancies between employees’ and their organisation’s values could lead to occupational burnout and decreased work engagement.

Values fit between employees and their organisations has also been found to have a positive relationship with job satisfaction.

Emphasising on company values, the CoVaQ Culture was designed to help organisations determine their values culture or identify whether their formally espoused values(value statements) align with how their current employees experience their values culture.

Focusing more on the individual, the CoVaQ Fit helps companies identify which organisational values are appreciated by their employees, allowing for an evaluation of whether there is alignment between the company’s formally espoused values (value statements) and what their employees wish to experience in the workplace.

ASSESSMENT SCALES

Both the CoVaQ surveys provide feedback on 11 scales that can each be interpreted separately, but can be clustered into 4 broad themes, namely:

Focus on Service Delivery: Innovation, Client-Centredness and Excellence
Doing the Right Thing: Accountabilityand Integrity
Focus on Employees: Social Equity, Personnel Development and Teamwork
Sustainability for the Future: Putting Safety First, Social Responsibility and Environmental Impact

Whilst the CoVaQ Fit indicates which of these scales the individual values most, the ratings of each of these scales on the CoVaQ Culture can provide insights into the company’s:

Knowledge Gaps: considers differences between formally company espoused values and values that employees see as espoused.
Management Gaps: where values espoused by organisation do not align with employee experiences.
Dislocation Gaps: gap between group level and individual level values within the company
Expectation Gaps: mismatch between the embedded and intended values within the company.

AREAS OF APPLICATION

The CoVaQ can be used for the following purposes:

• Individual Values Identification
• Company Values Development
• Internalisation of Values
• Value Alignment
• Values Maintenance
• Values Selection

REPORT OPTIONS

CoVaQ Culture: provides an overview of how the company is perceived on each of the 11 values across the four value levels. This report further highlights gaps between the various value levels to provide a more in-depth understanding of where potential value incongruencies can arise. Finally, the report concludes with an indication of the overall top 5-6 values for the company or organisation with a description of the values culture in relation to these values.

CoVaQ Fit: indicatesthe 5 top values of the individual employee, which can be used in team, department or organisation value development, alignment or maintenance initiatives.

SOUTH AFRICAN RESEARCH

Since this is a South African-developed instrument, extensive research has been conducted on the CoVaQ. Furthermore, JvR Psychometrics welcomes the opportunity to partner with clients in conducting research studies using the CoVaQ in their organisations.