[halcyondaze]

What's with these new values?

Effective immediately, this company’s values are:

#1 Operate with integrity.

#2 Put the customer first.

#3 Make this a great place to work for employees.

Did these not exist prior to Conrad stepping down? If they did, and this still happened, they're clearly bad values to hold.

For one, they're unspecific and don't have a clear opposite. No one is going to take the opposite on these, meaning they can't really be values.

No one will proudly state that

#1 Don't operate with integrity.

#2 Put ourselves first.

#3 Make Zenefits at least a mediocre place to work.

Are good values, so the values the new CEO espoused aren't really actionable or value-able in any way.

Anyone have a different take that I might be missing?

[tempestn]

I agree that they're not particularly specific, but I don't think that a value has to be controversial - ie that its opposite could also be a reasonable value - in order to be useful. By selecting certain things as key values and excluding others, and possibly by ordering the values by priority, you still give some direction.

[halcyondaze]

Maybe not have a complete opposite that could also be valid, but at least state some sort of preference or be able to be used to make a real decision.

He goes on to say that he wants to push decision making ability down in the company, but if you're looking at those 3 values, it seems hard to make clear decisions based on them.

[tedmiston]

I can't help but agree. This is the completely generic corporate-ification of values to the point that they're meaningless. If I were a Zenefits employee, this would be a red flag to reconsider working there.

[jonathankoren]

Meh. I've never seen a corporate values statement that wasn't warmed over claptrap. The very idea you need a mission statement or list of values means the coolness has left the building.

[rjvir]

"Put ourselves first" (the opposite of #2) is kind of similar to "Make this a great place to work for employees" (#3).