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Using Team Values to Boost Payroll Culture | 6 Best Practice Tips to Get Started

Learn some tips to help you improve your payroll culture with team values that will last the test of time. Plus a free PDF team values poster to give you some inspiration!

In the past, payroll has been overlooked and seen as a back-office function. But things are shifting. Payroll is maturing and is now starting to receive the recognition it deserves. It's a critical function, imperative to the success of any business.

So, now it's time to invest in your team. A big part of that involves working to improve your payroll culture. Sure, you can leave the culture to develop on its own — but it could be at your own peril.

One tested and proven way to build a strong culture is by establishing a set of values specific for your team. In this article we'll cover some best practice tips on how to get started.

How to establish team values

Here's some tips from a Harvard Business article to help you figure out which values will last the test of time:

Develop your values together with your team

Tap into the values people already find meaningful and uncover core values you're already living. This helps you avoid those aspirational but essentially meaningless values that leaders often impose on their team.

Reflect and contribute thoughtfully

Before you meet to discuss values, ask questions like: What do you value? What unspoken values have contributed to our success so far? What do successful employees share in common? Give everyone the chance to think it through first.

Get all ideas out there, then organise

List all the potentials on a whiteboard after talking through the questions. Then ask everyone to independently select ten values that resonate and rank them in order of importance.

Shortlist your values

Compare your lists and assign points to each — a #1 value gets 10 points, a #10 gets 1 point, and so on. Use your top-ranking values to create a short list, then see what general themes emerge.

Keep it simple

We kept ours to 3 values (4 max), so they're easy to remember and recall when you need them.

Print out a poster

Put together a fun design in poster form, print it and stick it on the wall so it's visible to everyone (send a printed version to remote employees in their welcome pack). Place a copy in the room where you hold interviews and reviews, too, so you can use it as a lens for developing, hiring and firing.

Bonus tips from our team to yours

The last two tips above are a couple of extras that have worked well for our team at Paytools: keep your value set small, and make it visible. Together, these mean your team always knows what behaviours and attitudes they should be bringing into work every day.

Free payroll culture poster

Here's a free example of an A4 PDF payroll team values poster to give you some inspiration.

Free download

Payroll team values poster

Download PDF

Creating a strong payroll culture is an essential step towards building a positive company culture overall. By establishing values that are meaningful to you and your team, you're much more likely to have a culture where your people feel valued and like coming to work each day.

If you'd like to learn more about what makes us tick, check out our company page or read about our payroll operations platform.

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