Our Community

The Values at Our Core

 

This week we are excited to share with you a bit more from behind the scenes at The Ralph. We’d like to take you a bit deeper into the inner workings of our Ralph team and to introduce you to the heart and soul of our beliefs as a company. Hold on to your hats, we’re going in…!

As we mentioned in a previous blog post, The Ralph is very much a passion and vision driven project. Our hospital is founded on a strong culture and authentic core values. Every organisation is built on values, behaviours and attitudes and we know how important it is for us to be clear on this from the start.

What are core values?

Our core values at The Ralph are aspirational traits that we want to strive towards. They are part of our DNA and are the fundamentals that guide our daily choices, behaviour and actions — especially when no one is looking. This is particularly important within our hospital – we aim to empower and encourage all members of Team Ralph to behave consistently, and to be proud of the amazing hospital and community that we are building!

Why are they important?

For us, it was really important that we put a great deal of collective thought and energy into creating core values that really mean something to each and every one of us. We wanted to ensure that every member of Team Ralph finds genuine meaning in their work and that everyone we interact with feels consistently cared for.

As an animal hospital, it can be tempting to assume that everyone will just know what our values are. After all, as a team of veterinary professionals, we are dedicated to caring for sick and injured animals, so isn’t it obvious?

We know from our collective experience of human behaviour, psychology and group dynamics that what may seem obvious to one person can be interpreted very differently by another. It’s tempting to assume that everyone is on the same page, but with something as important as our core values, we wanted to ensure clarity, transparency and a true sense of shared vision.

It is also vital for us to remember that whilst compassionate care for animals is paramount, it is also important that we prioritise looking after both ourselves and each other. Our communities (watch this space for more on this in a future blog!) are a big part of our collective Ralph mission and we want to ensure that this is reflected in our values, behaviours and actions.

So, what are our Ralph core values?

After many iterations, conversations, considerations and deliberations we have crafted our seven core values. Have a read below:

  • We care for every animal as we would our own
  • We act with compassion, integrity and humility
  • We treat ourselves and others with patience and gratitude
  • We value our people and prioritise their wellbeing
  • We embrace a learning mindset which has creativity at its core
  • We champion a community that nurtures a shared vision
  • We are a team that paves our own way and leads by example

What do they say about us?

You might have noticed that our values aren’t numbered. This might seem like a small point but it is very deliberate. We are conscious that no one value is of greater importance than any other, and are committed to ensuring that each one is treated equally and with the same emphasis.

When we were brainstorming and testing our core values we made sure to consider all the members of our community (the animals in our care, their human families, our people, our referring practices, the local community) and reflect on how we can interact with everyone in a way that is consistent with our vision. We took time to think through how each of these values will be brought to life on a daily basis – and have even created a Ralph dictionary to ensure that everyone knows what is meant by the words we use – it’s just one of our ways of helping to make sure there is no confusion.

How will we live by them?

For us at The Ralph, the most important element of our core values is that we are committed to consistently and consciously bringing them to life in everything that we do. We are very passionate about our mission to set the standard for small animal specialist veterinary care with an ethical conscience and to do this, we will fully commit to our values as a team.

Our values will be on display at the hospital as a daily reminder of our core philosophy that is at the heart of everything we do (stay tuned for pictures!). However, our values are so much more than writing on the wall and our mission is to live these every day. We don’t want to just talk the talk, we want to walk our walk.

We will be sharing more of our cultural journey over the coming months. Stay tuned here and follow us on social media to find out more:

Thanks for joining us on this journey. We are grateful for you being here with us.

See you again soon and take care,

The Ralph Team

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