Principle 3: positive cultures share positive values and behaviours
Last updated: 9 Jun 2025
Listen to Keri talk about positive values and behaviours in a positive culture, from a manager’s point of view.
Listen to Josie talk about her experience of positive values and behaviours in a positive culture, as a member of staff.
In this video, Josie shares how her employer supported her idea to celebrate Africa Day – an opportunity to share customs from different African countries – with co-workers and the people who access care and support.
What do we mean by values and behaviours?
Our values are the things we think are important. They guide our actions, decisions and how we behave.
Values and beliefs are often something we feel strongly about without knowing why.
If we try to do things based on our values, we can be more mindful in our actions and our attitude.
We all have different values depending on our background, our experiences, or the people in our lives.
For example: if we experience discrimination, we may notice when other people are facing the same barriers and feel it’s important to support them.
While we need to value and respect our differences, a positive culture sets clear standards and expectations for staff.
Some jobs have specific values and behaviours. This is where values-based recruitment can help.
If you’re a social care worker, for example, you’ll need to follow the Code of Professional Practice. It says that all workers need to:
- help people who receive care and support to say and achieve what matters to them
- respect others’ dignity, privacy, preferences, culture, language, rights, beliefs, views and wishes
- support individuals to stay safe
- be honest, trustworthy and reliable
- be qualified to do their job properly and to a certain standard.
If you provide a regulated service, the regulations expect you to promote a culture of openness, honesty and candour at all levels.
It’s also important that we recognise some people we care for and support may not share the same values
How do positive values and behaviours lead to positive cultures?
Sharing the same positive values can lead to positive cultures because they:
- promote respect and dignity – they encourage us to step into someone else’s shoes and think about how our own actions will affect other people
- encourage trust and transparency – by having values that prioritise being honest and open when we communicate, we can understand what other people need or expect, and we can explain our own needs or expectations
- help us to build collaborative relationships – when we focus on teamwork and working together, we can bring in different perspectives and make the workplace more inclusive
- help us to keep improving things – when we all work to the same values, we can share a vision of what good looks like, and what matters to us and the people we work with
- promote accountability and ethical ways of working – when we share the same values, we’ll hold each other to similar standards and that can give us a safe space to say when we need more support.
Where to find out more
Here are links to information and resources to help you work on your organisation’s values and support others to uphold them.
Some of these links may not be available bilingually or in an accessible format. We’re not responsible for content produced by other organisations.
Example values and behaviours framework – Skills for Care
This framework describes some of the values and behaviours that help us to give adults good quality, personalised and effective care and support.
Values-based recruitment – Skills for Care
Values-based recruitment is an evidence-based approach. This toolkit can help both organisations and individual employers to understand a candidate’s values, behaviours and attitudes, and assess whether they align with the values, culture and expectations of the workplace.
Evidence summary: attraction and recruitment – Insight Collective
This evidence summary highlights relevant and up-to-date research on attraction and recruitment in social care in Wales. It highlights the challenges of recruitment and how to address these.