President’s Message

Living Your Core Values

Most companies have core values. Defining core values is an exercise in a typical strategic planning process. By taking the time to study various established organizations, it is evident that many have similar core values. Words and phrases like “quality” or “customer service” come to mind as examples of well-worn core values. But often these end up being just words on paper, illustrated by the fact that most employees cannot name their organization’s core values. So then how many companies actually live their core values on a daily basis?

When all staff believe deeply in the companies’ core values, the organization quickly builds up many great stories to tell demonstrating how employees are living the core values on a daily basis. I’d like to briefly tell two such stories.

Before we begin, the Annex core values are

1. Integrity – Operate with honesty and integrity in all we do.
2. Service – Provide excellent service to our clients while helping them with technology and business solutions.
3. Quality – Deliver quality results that meet or exceed our clients’ expectations.
4. Value – Offer services at a fair price so clients get good value for their money.
5. Community – Use our modest success to help make a positive impact in our community and in the world.
6. Balance – Have fun, enjoy the journey each day, and maintain life balance in the process.

Let’s start with integrity, our number one core value. Integrity, or similar concepts such as honesty or openness, are commonly used core values. But let’s face it – in the IT recruitment industry, not all companies live this value every day. We have all heard stories about a recruitment firm poaching an employee from an existing client to place at another organization, then contacting that same client and asking if they need help to replace the lost employee.

Recently an individual at one of our existing customers (let’s call him Sam) contacted an Annex client manager and asked for help to find him a new job. We explained our policy to Sam that Annex will not poach an employee from an existing client. Sam said it should be fine for Annex to help him because he came to us, rather than Annex contacting him first. He went on to say that the other IT recruitment companies in town are OK with that approach. But Annex is not. We will not poach an employee from an existing client, even if that employee initiates contact with us first. We will only help someone working for an Annex customer if he gets permission from his manager to use Annex in his job search. In Sam’s case, we believe we could have easily placed him in a new role for easy money. But because our number one core value is integrity and we live our values every day, we chose to take the high road. The individual in question decided not to disclose his intentions to leave to his manager. We expect that he will work with another firm. Ironically, that firm also has people working at the same client organization, but has no difficulties working with their customer’s employees. We see this scenario regularly.

The second story is about customer service, Annex’s second core value. Annex has two key stakeholder groups – clients who provide us with opportunities and consultants who get the work done. It takes two to tango, so both groups are equally important. We have collected many examples over the years of providing great service to clients (perhaps the topic of a future column). But the story I want to tell is about customer service for one of Annex’s consultants. Let’s call him John. John is core to the Annex Alliance, our consortium of 4,300 independent IT and business consultants in BC. Annex has a 9-layer competency banding system used to classify every one of the 4,300 people in our group. John is a member of our elite top banding category. Although he is an incredible consultant, he was struggling to find ongoing work and to grow his security consulting practice.

Tom Dutta, Annex COO, offered to help. Tom scheduled a strategic planning workshop with John. Tom used leading edge tools based on a methodology taught at the Queens School of Business in Ontario to conduct a full day workshop with John. Following the session, John emerged with a clearer vision for the future of his company and will now work with Tom on the final stage of the process. The process involved a series of steps:

• Assessing the business and its competitive environment.
• Sizing up the company.
• Establishing direction for the business.
• Defining the direction: vision, mission and strategic objectives.
• Preparing 10 to 120 day tactical plan of actions and communication of strategy.

Tom will provide follow-up mentoring and coaching to help John execute the plan. Strategic planning and mentoring are some of the ways Tom gives back his experience to the Annex Alliance community. He is currently mentoring another Annex consultant to grow that individual’s network infrastructure practice. Tom’s time is provided at no charge to these consultants. This is another way that Annex adds value to consultants, one of its key stakeholder groups.

If you need to hire an IT services and recruitment firm, take time to investigate the core values of each candidate organization. Can the organization’s people name their company’s core values? Does the organization have stories to tell demonstrating that its employees live the core values every day? Does the organization use its core values as an interview screening technique to hire people who are aligned with the company’s philosophy? Does the organization add value to both clients and consultants? The answers to these questions may help you when deciding on an IT services partner.