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How to infuse your core values into performance review cycles
Your company’s core values hang in the lobby. They’re on the website. They might even be printed on coffee mugs. But do they show up where behavior is actually shaped and rewarded?
Even among some of the most modern life sciences organizations, the answer is no. Performance reviews remain stubbornly disconnected from the values leadership claims matter most. Sales teams get evaluated on quota attainment. Scientists on publication records. Manufacturing on production metrics. Meanwhile, those carefully crafted values about collaboration, innovation or patient focus gather dust.
The missing link is often competencies. When competencies are clearly tied to values, they give managers and employees a shared, practical language for evaluating performance.
Values articulate the culture you want to build. Competencies translate that culture into the skills and ways of working your organization expects from everyone.
Research from Gallup shows that employees who believe their organization reflects their values are 3.7 times more likely to be engaged at work. This higher engagement leads to increased productivity, job satisfaction, and ultimately, lower turnover rates. So it’s a bit disappointing that the data shows only 21% of employees in the U.S. feel connected to their company culture.
The fix isn’t complicated, but it does require intention. Here’s how to build performance review cycles that make your values more than wall art.
Why performance reviews matter more than you think
Performance reviews get a bad reputation, often deserved. They’re time-consuming, uncomfortable, and frequently feel like a check-the-box exercise that fails to make a real difference in employee growth and development.
But here’s what’s often overlooked: performance reviews are one of the few universal moments when every employee receives direct feedback about what matters. Miss that opportunity to reinforce your values, and you’re essentially telling people those values are optional.
In life sciences, where you’re managing diverse teams across functions, from lab scientists to sales representatives to manufacturing operators, performance reviews become even more critical. They’re your chance to create a common language (values-anchored competencies) about what good looks like, regardless of role or location. Competencies make it possible to evaluate how results were achieved, not only what was achieved.
Organizations that embed values into performance management see measurable differences. Employees understand expectations. Managers can give specific feedback tied to observable behaviors. Leadership teams can identify and promote people who embody the culture they’re trying to build, not just those who hit their numbers.
Getting the timing right
Before you can infuse values into reviews, you need a review cycle that works. Most companies default to an annual review cycle, but annual reviews create problems, particularly during periods of rapid growth or organizational change.
Annual cycles mean feedback often arrives too late to course-correct behavior. An employee who struggled with cross-functional collaboration in Q1 doesn’t hear about it until December, when the pattern is entrenched. New hires wait a full year before understanding whether they’re meeting expectations beyond their functional deliverables.
Consider these alternatives:
✅ Quarterly check-ins with annual formal reviews. This schedule gives regular touchpoints to address performance and reinforce values-aligned behaviors without overwhelming managers with paperwork. The annual review becomes a summary rather than a surprise.
✅ Biannual formal reviews. If your organization isn’t in rapid-growth mode and your workforce is relatively tenured, twice yearly can work. Just make sure managers are having informal conversations about values-aligned behavior between cycles.
✅ Rolling reviews tied to hire dates. Some companies stagger reviews based on employee start dates to avoid the end-of-year crunch. This works if your HR team can handle the administrative complexity and your compensation cycles aren’t tied to a specific review period.
The right cadence depends on your growth rate, organizational complexity and manager bandwidth. But the principle stays constant: reviews need to happen frequently enough that feedback feels relevant and timely.
Making values measurable and observable
This is where most companies stumble. Your values need to translate into specific, observable behaviors that employees can demonstrate and managers can evaluate.
A useful way to think about it: Values are your cultural commitments. Competencies are the capabilities and ways of working that bring those commitments to life. Behaviors are what you can actually see someone do.
For example, if “collaboration” is a value, a related competency might be “cross-functional partnering” or “enterprise thinking.” The behaviors are the proof points that the competency is showing up.
“Collaboration” means nothing specific. But behaviors tied to a cross-functional partnering competency do: “Proactively shares data and insights across teams, seeks input from other functions before making decisions, and helps colleagues solve problems outside their direct responsibilities.”
“Innovation” isn’t measurable. But behaviors tied to an innovation competency are: “Regularly proposes process improvements and tests new approaches, even when they fail.”
The exercise of translating values into observable behaviors forces clarity about what you actually mean. It also exposes when your stated values don’t align with how your organization operates day-to-day. If one of your values is “patient focus,” but the behaviors you really reward are “hits aggressive timelines regardless of quality concerns,” you’ll discover that disconnect fast.
For each value, identify the competencies that bring it to life, then define three to five specific behaviors that demonstrate each competency in action.
Example: If a company value is Patient Focus, related competencies might include ethical decision-making, quality mindset and risk awareness. Behaviors could include surfacing concerns early, documenting decisions rigorously and testing assumptions against patient impact.
Building values into the review structure
Once you’ve defined competencies and observable behaviors for each value, the implementation part gets easier.
A strong review structure includes three components:
✅ Functional performance metrics. Role-specific outcomes. Sales quotas, research milestones, manufacturing quality standards. Keep these.
✅ Values-anchored competencies (rated through behaviors). Evaluate capabilities and ways of working that reflect your values, using the observable behaviors you defined earlier.
✅ Development planning tied to both. Growth goals should address performance gaps and competency gaps alike.
The ratio matters. If 90% of your review focuses on functional metrics and 10% on competencies, you’re signaling that values are nice-to-have. Leadership positions should weigh values-based competencies even more heavily.
Clear competencies also reduce bias by giving managers consistent yardsticks for evaluating performance across teams and levels.
This also means your compensation and promotion decisions need to factor in values-anchored competency alignment. The sales representative who crushes their quota but consistently throws colleagues under the bus shouldn’t get promoted to leadership. That single decision tells everyone what you actually value more than any town hall ever could.
Communicating expectations clearly
Even the best-designed performance review system fails if employees don’t understand what’s expected. You can’t wait until the review cycle to explain how values and competencies factor into evaluation.
✅ Start at onboarding. New hires should learn the specific competencies and behaviors tied to each value during their first week, with examples of what those behaviors look like in their function. If you’re scaling rapidly and bringing on new team members constantly, this becomes even more critical.
✅ Managers need training on how to observe and evaluate values-aligned behaviors. Many managers default to evaluating what’s easiest to measure, which is almost always functional output rather than behavioral patterns. Give them frameworks for gathering evidence throughout the review period, not just when the form is due.
✅ Make the behaviors visible beyond the review cycle. If collaboration is a core value, regularly recognize employees who demonstrate collaborative behaviors in team meetings, internal communications and company-wide forums. This reinforces that these behaviors matter all the time, not just during review season.
Why this work matters for your organization
Values-aligned competencies and behaviors are what enable life sciences companies to move fast during regulatory challenges, maintain quality during rapid scale or integrate acquired teams without cultural friction. When everyone understands the competencies that drive success and sees those behaviors recognized and rewarded, you get organizational alignment that compounds over time.
The alternative is expensive. Employees optimize for whatever gets measured and rewarded, even when those incentives contradict your stated values. You end up with functional silos, talent retention problems and a culture that works against your strategic goals rather than enabling them.
For CHROs and communication leaders trying to demonstrate the business impact of culture work, performance reviews are one of your highest-impact interventions. They’re an existing system, already built into your organizational rhythm. You won’t need to ask for more budget or create a new program from scratch. You’ll be improving an existing process.
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Your culture is your competitive advantage
The companies that integrate values and competencies into performance review cycles have stronger cultures. And they also have more effective managers and employees who understand how individual behavior connects to organizational success. That’s the foundation that lets you scale and outpace competitors who are still treating values as an afterthought.
Your performance review cycle is happening whether you intentionally design it or not. The question is whether you’ll use it to reinforce the competencies and behaviors that actually drive your business forward or waste it evaluating only what’s easy to count.
Thinking about your next steps? Let bink help.
It’s time to review your performance review process.
