Do you leave your personal values at the office door in the morning?

You, dear reader, also bring values such as integrity, justice or helpfulness with you to the office and would certainly like to be able to act according to principles that are important to you in everyday business life.

Our economic order as a so-called social market economy strives for a symbiotic relationship between business and society. Now, a strong awareness for resource-conserving and social ways of acting has developed in our community - comprehensively, across sectors, in the long term and worldwide. Especially - but not only - the younger generations are vehemently demanding these.

Today, customers as well as employees in our culture expect that "their" company upholds and lives the corresponding values. One of the most important issues for these employees is the comprehensive, ecologically and socially sustainable commitment of their employer1 .

Why should a company be value-oriented?

Only for social peace? Not at all. The opportunities are much more far-reaching. With value-based management, a company not only gains the "heart" and thus the commitment of its employees, but also attractiveness on the labour market as well as identity internally and externally.

If a company is committed to values such as solidarity, environmental awareness and innovation and lives them accordingly with the involvement of all stakeholders - i.e. management, employees and customers - this sharpens the profile of a company and thus forms a unique selling point.

More than recycled paper and energy-saving light bulbs
Many companies (still) associate the omnipresent topic of sustainability with the use of recycled paper and energy-saving light bulbs. But there is much more to it than that. In particular, it is also about living social sustainability: Less hunger and poverty, clean water and education for all. This awareness has meanwhile arrived and taken root in the population at large.

How can comprehensive sustainable action succeed for companies in the financial sector?
Companies should include employee engagement in their sustainability strategy. Top-down sustainability is only effective in the short term and is perceived as "greenwashing". Today, a company should be able to credibly convey that all actors together contribute to a society that offers equal opportunities for people and the environment.

In a financial company, this can be achieved through the interplay of the following three approaches three approaches:
      
At the client level - sustainable investment and investment solutions: Clients want profits, but no longer at any price. Ethically justifiable investments are in demand, where, for example, part of the for example, a part of the profit can also flow into aid projects.
     
At the corporate level - sustainable business: A portion of the corporate profit generated is invested in charitable activities.

At the personal level - acting sustainably: Everyone, whether CEO, manager or employee, should be able to commit to sustainability within his or her sphere of influence. This can be done, for example, with a salary donation, where employees can choose to donate
employees can choose to donate CHF 5 per month to a jointly supported aid project.

In such a company, which acts in a comprehensively sustainable manner, you, dear reader, do not have to leave your values at the office door. On the contrary: you will experience that your very own striving for a sense of purpose and value and value orientation will be taken up and continued. This generates energy - for for yourself, for the good of the company and for society as a whole.