DFA’s Action Steps are designed to assist organizations with implementing practical strategies to humanize the workplace, empower people, and foster innovation. Members can access full versions the Action Steps in the Member Resource Center.
Organizations invest significant time and resources in recruiting, developing, advancing, and retaining talent. Those efforts are strongest when they are grounded in a clear understanding of what people actually value from their careers and their work experience.
What motivates one person may look very different from what motivates another. For one employee, advancement may mean moving into a leadership role. For another, it may mean building deeper expertise, gaining new experiences, or finding a role that is a better long-term fit.
Research reinforces how important it is for leaders to understand those differences. In our July Signature Session, Emma Codd, Global Inclusion Leader at Deloitte, shared findings from Deloitte Global’s 2026 Gen Z and Millennial Survey. Deloitte found that steady progress was the most cited career preference among respondents, while only a quarter said they wanted fast-paced growth. Some respondents said they would be willing to move laterally to find the right role, and others would consider a more junior role to gain experience and find the right long-term fit. Flexibility and purpose also emerged as priorities that, for some, could take precedence over job title or speed of advancement.
Further, nearly all respondents said purpose is important to their job satisfaction and well-being, with just over half of respondents saying their current job was mostly or completely aligned with their personal values and beliefs.
Leaders can use broad findings such as Deloitte’s study to complement work within their own organizations and better understand their own talent…..
https://dfalliance.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Leading-and-Retaining-Talent.png12001200dfalliancehttps://dfalliance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/DFA-Humanizing-Work-Cultures-scaled.pngdfalliance2026-08-28 10:04:402026-08-31 10:16:57Action Step – Leading & Retaining Talent: Understanding Your Talent by Understanding What They Value
DFA’s Action Steps are designed to assist organizations with implementing practical strategies to humanize the workplace, empower people, and foster innovation. Members can access full versions the Action Steps in the Member Resource Center.
Values are most powerful when they are more than words on a page. They provide a shared understanding of how people work together, make decisions, navigate challenges, and hold themselves and one another accountable. Values become especially important during periods of change. A merger, a leadership transition, or a stretch of fast growth disrupts how people are used to working together, while also opening a rare window to reset an organization or team’s culture on purpose.
But values only work when they move off the page. A value everyone nods at and no one can define does not change behavior. Common value words like trust, respect, collaboration, and transparency mean different things to different people. Bringing values to life means getting specific about what they look like in practice. For example, what does trust look like in a leadership meeting? How does collaboration show up when there are competing priorities? What behaviors demonstrate respect? How can a team recognize when it may need to reconnect with one of its shared values?
The often forgotten component of creating shared values
Creating a list of values as a team generally feels productive and leaves people feeling energized. What happens next is much harder. Values create actual value only when they translate into shared behaviors that have clear expectations and accountability mechanisms.
Most teams tend to skip determining what shared values look like in practice, treating the creation of value words as the finish line. This is why so many value statements end up listed on a website or framed on the wall,
https://dfalliance.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Turning-Values-Into-How-You-Actually-Work-Image.png12001200dfalliancehttps://dfalliance.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/DFA-Humanizing-Work-Cultures-scaled.pngdfalliance2026-07-31 12:28:172026-07-31 12:28:17Action Step – Turning Values Into How You Actually Work
DFA’s Action Steps are designed to assist organizations with implementing practical strategies to humanize the workplace, empower people, and foster innovation. Members can access full versions the Action Steps in the Member Resource Center.
Organizations spend significant time evaluating employee performance, yet many overlook one of the most powerful sources of leadership insight: the people being led.
Upward reviews create a structured opportunity for employees to provide feedback to managers, leaders, and other senior professionals about their leadership, communication, delegation, coaching, and relationship-building practices. Done well, upward reviews are a reflection of an organization’s commitment to accountability, trust, and continuous improvement.
….
Three Conditions That Make Upward Reviews Successful
Psychological Safety:
Employees must trust that they can provide honest feedback without fear of retaliation or damage to their careers. If employees believe their feedback can be traced back to them, they are less likely to engage honestly.
Psychological safety doesn’t happen automatically because a survey is anonymous. It’s built through consistent communication, transparency about the process, and leadership behaviors that demonstrate feedback is welcomed.
The strongest safeguard is the design of the process. Rather than asking people to merely trust that the upward review process protects their anonymity, show them how the process itself actually works. Walk them through each stage, laying out the process from start to finish, including what the people running the process can see and what the final report looks like. When employees understand how the process actually works, they can feel more comfortable sharing their authentic feedback…
Action Step – Leading & Retaining Talent: Understanding Your Talent by Understanding What They Value
DFA’s Action Steps are designed to assist organizations with implementing practical strategies to humanize the workplace, empower people, and foster innovation. Members can access full versions the Action Steps in the Member Resource Center.
Organizations invest significant time and resources in recruiting, developing, advancing, and retaining talent. Those efforts are strongest when they are grounded in a clear understanding of what people actually value from their careers and their work experience.
What motivates one person may look very different from what motivates another. For one employee, advancement may mean moving into a leadership role. For another, it may mean building deeper expertise, gaining new experiences, or finding a role that is a better long-term fit.
Research reinforces how important it is for leaders to understand those differences. In our July Signature Session, Emma Codd, Global Inclusion Leader at Deloitte, shared findings from Deloitte Global’s 2026 Gen Z and Millennial Survey. Deloitte found that steady progress was the most cited career preference among respondents, while only a quarter said they wanted fast-paced growth. Some respondents said they would be willing to move laterally to find the right role, and others would consider a more junior role to gain experience and find the right long-term fit. Flexibility and purpose also emerged as priorities that, for some, could take precedence over job title or speed of advancement.
Further, nearly all respondents said purpose is important to their job satisfaction and well-being, with just over half of respondents saying their current job was mostly or completely aligned with their personal values and beliefs.
Leaders can use broad findings such as Deloitte’s study to complement work within their own organizations and better understand their own talent…..
Members: Read the full version of this Action Step in the Member Resource Center.
Action Step – Turning Values Into How You Actually Work
DFA’s Action Steps are designed to assist organizations with implementing practical strategies to humanize the workplace, empower people, and foster innovation. Members can access full versions the Action Steps in the Member Resource Center.
Values are most powerful when they are more than words on a page. They provide a shared understanding of how people work together, make decisions, navigate challenges, and hold themselves and one another accountable. Values become especially important during periods of change. A merger, a leadership transition, or a stretch of fast growth disrupts how people are used to working together, while also opening a rare window to reset an organization or team’s culture on purpose.
But values only work when they move off the page. A value everyone nods at and no one can define does not change behavior. Common value words like trust, respect, collaboration, and transparency mean different things to different people. Bringing values to life means getting specific about what they look like in practice. For example, what does trust look like in a leadership meeting? How does collaboration show up when there are competing priorities? What behaviors demonstrate respect? How can a team recognize when it may need to reconnect with one of its shared values?
The often forgotten component of creating shared values
Creating a list of values as a team generally feels productive and leaves people feeling energized. What happens next is much harder. Values create actual value only when they translate into shared behaviors that have clear expectations and accountability mechanisms.
Most teams tend to skip determining what shared values look like in practice, treating the creation of value words as the finish line. This is why so many value statements end up listed on a website or framed on the wall,
Action Step: Upward Reviews – Building Cultures of Accountability, Trust & Continuous Improvement
DFA’s Action Steps are designed to assist organizations with implementing practical strategies to humanize the workplace, empower people, and foster innovation. Members can access full versions the Action Steps in the Member Resource Center.
Organizations spend significant time evaluating employee performance, yet many overlook one of the most powerful sources of leadership insight: the people being led.
Upward reviews create a structured opportunity for employees to provide feedback to managers, leaders, and other senior professionals about their leadership, communication, delegation, coaching, and relationship-building practices. Done well, upward reviews are a reflection of an organization’s commitment to accountability, trust, and continuous improvement.
….
Three Conditions That Make Upward Reviews Successful
Employees must trust that they can provide honest feedback without fear of retaliation or damage to their careers. If employees believe their feedback can be traced back to them, they are less likely to engage honestly.
Psychological safety doesn’t happen automatically because a survey is anonymous. It’s built through consistent communication, transparency about the process, and leadership behaviors that demonstrate feedback is welcomed.
The strongest safeguard is the design of the process. Rather than asking people to merely trust that the upward review process protects their anonymity, show them how the process itself actually works. Walk them through each stage, laying out the process from start to finish, including what the people running the process can see and what the final report looks like. When employees understand how the process actually works, they can feel more comfortable sharing their authentic feedback…
Members: Read the full version of this Action Step in the Member Resource Center.
To read this entire Action Step become a DFA member.