Spotlight on: Cummins' core values

Cummins places great importance on its core values – Integrity, Diversity & Inclusion, Caring, Excellence and Teamwork – and looks for employees that will do the same.

Cummins’ values will help you determine whether the company is the right match for you – and recruiters will be assessing this throughout the application process too. ‘We can teach the technical and role-specific stuff, but we need to make sure a candidate shares the same values as us and would be a good fit for the workforce,’ says Grace Gill, talent acquisition coordinator at Cummins.

If you’re applying to Cummins or progressing through the recruitment process, you should familiarise yourself with the five core values and prepare to demonstrate how you have behaved in line with them. To help, we asked Grace and Tom Partridge, director of laboratory operations at Cummins’ European Technical Centre in Darlington, to expand on what each value means to them.

We also recommend that you read ‘A student’s guide to core values, by Cummins’ where Grace and Tom give their insights into company values and their advice on how to match yourself with Cummins’ values.

Integrity

Grace: ‘To me, integrity is about being open, honest and respectful, and keeping to your word or a commitment that you have made. This is an essential trait no matter what your position is in the organisation.’

Tom: ‘Integrity is about being trustworthy and loyal to both the company and to individuals. An example would be an employee who has a personal issue that they need to discuss with you, but they wish for it to remain confidential.’

Diversity & Inclusion

Grace: ‘This value is critical for any organisation to thrive. This is about not only acknowledging diversity within the workforce but celebrating it and striving for it. It is about truly understanding the importance of our differences and how, collectively, our differences lead to more creativity, better results and a competitive advantage for the business.’

Tom: ‘Diversity & Inclusion is all about embracing each other as people regardless of differences. It is ensuring that everyone is treated fairly and everyone has a voice.’

Caring

Grace: ‘Our Caring value means that whatever interactions we have, whether with a co-worker, a supplier or a customer, we have them in a thoughtful and empathetic manner. No matter the circumstances, we should always be supportive, kind, patient and sensitive to the feelings of others. Acting in this manner will always lead to better working relationships and better results.’

Tom: ‘Caring can be described as making time for colleagues, either in your team or outside it, who might need some help. Caring is about showing them that they are important and that it’s not just about getting the work done.’

Excellence

Grace: ‘Whatever your role or whatever your task, you should always strive to achieve the best results. To me, excellence becomes visible when you really believe in something and are passionate about it because this makes you want to give your very best efforts. Excellence is about recognising your strengths and working harder to always improve them.’

Tom: ‘Excellence is simply being the best we can possibly be, while striving to see where we can improve. Having excellence in everything we do drives a better future for the individual and the company.’

Teamwork

Grace: ‘Teamwork is about putting your own goals and feelings to one side and acting in the best interests of the team. It is about valuing and encouraging others around you and all working in synergy to achieve a shared goal.’

Tom: ‘Teamwork can be a very overused word, but it is essential. As a manager, it is about ensuring you use the individuals within a group to complement each other’s skills while completing a task or project. No one has all the skills for complex projects so a team should be a group of individuals who have different strengths working together.’

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