CHRISTINA CHAU: Alright. We'll go ahead and get started.
This webinar is being recorded and will be available later on octanner.com. So as I'm going through the slides, don't feel like you have to screenshot anything or quickly write things down. We will have everything recorded before, so you don't have to, you know, take copious notes. We'll send out an email later today with the link to where you can find that recording. This webinar is also SHRM and HRCI certified, and the codes will be available at the end of the webinar.
I want this webinar to be informative. I'll be speaking, and I'll be sharing lots of research and insights and best practices. But what I don't want is for me to be talking this entire hour, and you just listening because you all also have great insights and best practices in your own workplace cultures. So please, during the webinar, share these with one another in the chat.
Ask some questions along the way. But if you have best practices that your organisation is doing on any of the topics we talk about today, please share them with one another. I know that you guys love learning from each other. I know you love hearing what other companies are doing.
I also love learning from you all and and hearing what you guys are doing in in your own organisations.
If you have questions during the webinar about the topics, the research that I'm sharing or any of the best practices, throw those in the Q&A box on your screen, and we'll answer those at the very end.
So let's get started.
My name is Christina Chau. I'm the senior content manager at O.C. Tanner, and I'm happy to be here with you all today.
Today, we're gonna talk about five culture trends that we see coming in 2025.
And I think, you know, the pace of change in the workplace always feels dramatic and even so more in this past year. That's not gonna change next year in 2025.
A major thing that we saw this year that is also gonna move into next year is that employees are reevaluating the value of work and workplace benefits in their lives. And if you think about how in this past year, there were so many recent calls to return to in person work, and it generated so much controversy because a lot of employees were wondering, is it worth it? Is it worth me going back into the office when I've enjoyed remote work? Do I still wanna work for this organisation?
So what does all of this mean for workplace culture? Well, we're gonna dive in and explore five workplace culture trends we're seeing for this upcoming year.
So culture trend number one, a renewed focus on care in the workplace.
So in today's workplace, employees are evaluating their employer's actions by deciding how much of their company cares about them and whether that care is worthy of their effort and loyalty in return. And this is something I think employees have been thinking about ever since COVID and even after COVID, but, really, they're starting to reevaluate the role of work in their lives and is their current workplace fulfilling what they need.
Now caring for employees has always been a focus of HR leaders. It's something that is at the core of what you all do. But what we're seeing now is a shift in how employees define that sense of care and what organisations are doing in response.
So focus groups that we've conducted in our O.C. Tanner Institute found that how people answer two questions about work shapes their relationship with the workplace and their employer. And those two questions are, am I surviving? And if so, am I thriving?
Now, unfortunately, our research from the 2025 global culture report by that same institute finds that one third of employees are merely surviving at work. They're barely holding it together and getting by. I think a lot of us have felt a little bit of that with inflation over the past year or two, with grocery bills going up, and it feels like we're, you know, just kind of scraping by. But employees who are merely surviving at work feel a lot more severely.
They feel anxious. They feel financially uncertain. They're doubtful of growth opportunities in their current jobs. They're pessimistic about the future, and they may feel trapped trapped at work.
They might have difficult personal circumstances in addition to work circumstances. They may suffer overwhelming job responsibilities and pressure, and they feel unappreciated at work. And their struggles at work impact their ability to survive outside of work as well. We had one employee tell us in the focus groups, not surviving at work will affect everything to a point where it's scary.
So what are organisations doing to help these employees do more than just survive? How are they helping them thrive at work? Because employees who are thriving feel fulfilled. They feel secure about their future.
Their organisations care about their mental health. They feel a sense of belonging, and they enjoy growth opportunities and career flexibility at work, and they feel appreciated. And these people have hope.
So the biggest challenge for 2025 we see is closing that gap between what organisations offer employees in terms of compensation and benefits and total rewards and what employees actually need to survive and thrive at work and in life.
Carolina Valencia, who works at Gartner as a vice president team manager, she says, "companies have been engaged in an arms race to offer the best perks. But once basic needs are met, people are more powerfully motivated by feelings than by material features. Employees today wanna be treated as people, not just workers.
When HR leaders can generate these emotions in employees, both organisations and the human beings that comprise them win."
So, really, it all comes down to communicating and showing care.
When that exchange of employment feels less like a transaction and more like a relationship between employee and employer that's filled with care, that's when people can thrive.
Now we found that employees are almost four hundred times more likely to thrive at work when they feel that their organisation cares about them, but eighty percent less likely to thrive when they don't think the organisation cares about them.
And care really is generative. Right? When our people are not worried about surviving, when they're not worried about paying bills or, you know, making it through every day, and instead they're thriving in a workplace that's filled with that sense of care, they could ultimately pass that same sense of care forward to your clients and your customers, to your community.
And, ultimately, that momentum of multiplying care can really allow us to kinda lift everyone at large, right, lift society at large, which I think right now is something that we all need.
So what can organisations do to show this care? Well, it all starts with communication.
So company benefits and offerings and the perks that you're giving employees, they're more successful when they demonstrate and reinforce a genuine care and concern for your people and for their well-being.
So as you're talking about your benefits packages or total rewards or what your companies are doing for employees for the holidays even, emphasise that all of that is a direct reflection of the employee's importance in your organisation and that your company wants to fulfil their immediate and future needs so employees can thrive.
You can clearly communicate this care when you talk about what your organisation offers employees, whether it's during open enrollment every year when you talk about health benefits, and retirement benefits and all the other things you're doing for your people.
Maybe you talk about it during the recruitment period as you're, you know, attracting new hires into your workplace. You talk about it at the end of the year when the holidays are coming up or when you're thanking your people for an amazing year.
But also talk about it throughout the year as well. Right? Care is not just a one time thing. It's not just something you do when you have open enrollment. It really is how you feel about your people throughout the year.
Also, align your company resources and all the support that you have to help employees survive and thrive at work. Invest in resources and offerings that'll help them meet their basic needs, things like financial, health, growth, and recognition benefits.
Subsidize offerings as much as you can and have formal policies around how the organisation and how your leaders demonstrate that sense of care through practices like workplace flexibility or mental health support. And we'll talk a little bit more about this coming up.
A practice of care also should be abundant in the employee's everyday experience. Like I said, it's not just something you offer as a benefit. It's just part of your culture. And all the messages they hear at work and the interactions that they have with peers and with leaders every single day, all of that should demonstrate a sense of care.
So leaders and peers practicing things like empathy, emotional intelligence, having a cooperative work environment, all of these small interactions make up a culture filled with care.
And give recognition regularly to show employees that you see and value them and that you care about them and their work.
Now when companies build care into their culture, into their benefit offerings, into their workplaces, and their day to day experiences, it helps employees do more than just survive. It actually helps them thrive.
And employees who thrive at work--it's important to thrive. And not just because we think it's nice, but the research shows that employees who thrive at work are less likely to burn out, less likely to leave the organisation, more likely to do great work, and more likely to feel a sense of high engagement.
So I'm curious, and I see you guys interacting in the chat here a little bit.
How does your organisation show care in the workplace?
So, please, if you have this sense of care or this culture of care in your workplace, can you share some best practices with everyone else on how you communicate that, how you build that into the everyday employee experience, any cool things that your company might do to communicate care in the workplace?
And while you're doing that, I'll share an example from Southwest Airlines. So Southwest stock symbol and brand, as you all know, is all about LUV. Right? LUV is their actual stock symbol, and care is just part of their brand.
So, obviously, they practice it for their employees as well, not just their customers. And it starts at day one. And Southwest has an incredibly welcoming onboarding experience for new employees where they use this big celebration to make people feel welcomed and cared for the minute they start their first day at work.
They also use daily recognition to help employees feel appreciated and valued and cared for.
They recognise employees for everyday great work, for extraordinary acts of service both on and off the clock, for those who excel in their roles, and those who embody company values consistently.
Southwest also gives all employees recognition when the company achieves quarterly goals or, you know, big milestones. And most importantly, they recognise employee life events, both the personal challenges and the celebrations during an employee's journey with the airline. So not necessarily things that are happening at work, but even things that are happening outside in their personal lives.
And Callie Grice, employee experience consultant, culture and communications, says "I know our company leaders care about us as employees, but they also truly care about our families and the people who are important to us, and it makes a huge difference."
Southwest was a speaker for our Influence Greatness Conference two years ago, and they shared some incredible stories about what the company has done when things have happened in employees' personal lives, whether they were amazing things to celebrate or difficult challenges, some of the worst challenges that employees can face and their families can face. And it was really heartwarming to hear how much Southwest really does care for their people and how much they put that care into practice when things come up.
At Southwest, it's all about living their brand and values of love and care with heart.
So I'm just gonna take a quick peek at the chat here.
People are talking about different oh, care circles. I see that coming up a little bit. Some services that you all have, chaplain services, team building events, problem solving culture, community service events.
Let's see. Swag for employees, food stipends during peak seasons when they work longer hours, recognising different milestones.
So life events, Elizabeth, you wrote that here. I think these are all great ways for companies to show care. And it's interesting because a lot of those things, that you guys list here are not necessarily work related things. Right? They're things that care about employees as people, not as modes of production. And so I love how that demonstrates that sense of care that organisations have.
Alright. I'll move on. You guys can keep sharing, but I'll move on to culture trend number two, rethinking total rewards. So this goes along with culture trend number one and that sense of care. Because for the past twenty or so years, how organisations have typically tried to show this type of care and demonstrate the sense of care is through Total Rewards. Right? Total Rewards was created as a way to help employees see that full investment that organisations make in them.
And it's been great, but employees have had ever expanding needs. And faced with, you know, the increasing cost and complexities of life that has happened over the past decade, they're really looking for always-on benefits to help meet these planned and unexpected challenges.
So employees have a lot of needs. And in an effort to meet this diverse set of employee needs, right, because you have employees from different ages, different generations, living in different parts of the world with different interests, different, you know, lifestyles and and family needs. So in order to meet all of these needs, many organisations have defaulted to an endless buffet of benefits or a deep catalogue of niche offerings.
If you think about it, there's thousands of solutions, and you all probably even, you know, see this during open enrollment time or when you're thinking about benefits in your organisation. There's probably tons of companies reaching out to you to help you provide and connect your people with resources for their spouses and their children, their pets, their homes, paid time off, mental wellness, financial challenges, social health, retirement, education, you know, everything and anything you can think of.
And all of these are born out of this really good intention, well intentions to truly help employees and to help show care.
Unfortunately, most employees don't see these combined offerings in the light that organisations have hoped. I think everyone--companies, HR leaders--have tried so hard to meet all of these employees' needs by offering all of these different benefits. And, really, employees are not receiving them in the way that we're intending them to.
So when we did research and asked about total rewards, that name in particular, less than forty percent of workers knew the meaning of the term total rewards. They often confused it with customer loyalty programs, like, shoppers card when you go to the grocery store or, you know, punch cards at restaurants and that kind of thing.
And of those who knew what total rewards meant, only fourteen percent of those people could actually explain it. Right? They could actually verbalize what total rewards were other than just, you know, benefits that the company offers.
A lot of employees also told us they didn't think of total rewards offerings like compensation and health benefits as rewards necessarily. Right? They felt that they were the minimum that they would expect from their employer. So when I started a job, the minimum they should give me is my compensation and health benefits. But a lot of times, companies put those under total rewards. So there was a disconnect there.
And employees also viewed those beautiful total reward statements that we put so much time and energy and effort on. Right? We're agonizing over the right way to display them and the words to use and what to show. Unfortunately, employees view them with cynicism. They feel like they're created to maybe distract from low pay, or a lack of company profit sharing by kind of showing all these wonderful things the company offers, but they're not paying me what I want.
And what the research ultimately really found was that it doesn't matter how robust a benefits package is or how robust a total rewards package is if employees don't believe that their organisations have their best interests at heart. So having total reward offerings and communication that reflects that sense of care is really important.
We wanted to know what total reward offerings really communicate care the best. So we asked employees to rate different elements of total rewards that influence their ability to both survive and to thrive at work.
So when we asked employees, "what total rewards offerings would help you survive the best at work?" They told us, number one, competitive compensation. Right? They need to be paid enough, to pay their bills, to meet their day to day needs, to survive.
Also, health benefits. Right? It's really important, especially in the US, when health benefits are connected to our employers, that they have robust health offerings for them and their families. And also recognition, because that helps really provide that sense that they're seen and that they're important and the company cares about them.
So compensation, health benefits, recognition, it gives an overall sense of financial stability to cover the basic immediate needs.
Odds of fulfillment at work actually increased two hundred times when employees are satisfied with their compensation and health benefits. So when you give them those two things, not pet insurance, not, you know, other types of things, not home insurance, that kind of thing, when you give them those two things, they're two hundred percent more likely to feel fulfilled at work.
Now to help employees thrive, offerings such as career development, skill building, professional development, all of those things were important, as well as recognition, because professional development and recognition provide the sense of long term growth and security. It shows the employees that you're interested in them and invested in them and you want them to grow and stay with you for the long term.
You can see here that recognition is kind of a bridge that helps all employees feel seen and valued at any stage, whether they're surviving or thriving.
So this really showed us, rather than providing this exhaustive list of offerings, that we believe organisations should go back to the basics, go back to the basics and prioritise employees' basic needs. Go back to thinking about, are you paying your people adequately? Are you providing them with robust health benefits? Are you giving them opportunities to grow and develop it? And are you helping them feel seen and valued?
Total rewards offerings should demonstrate that the organisation cares about their employees and wants everyone to thrive at work. You want them to survive but also thrive at work.
And we found when employees are satisfied with total rewards, they're less likely to feel anxious or depressed. They're more likely to feel a sense of purpose and good well-being, and they're more likely to do great work and thrive.
The chart you see, there's a lot of numbers there, but it shows the change in outcomes when employees are satisfied with total rewards at their organisation. So when these people are happy with total rewards, they are less likely to feel depressed and anxious, more likely to feel a sense of purpose and opportunity and success and and feel highly about their leadership and do great work.
And because employees' needs change so rapidly, organisations need to reevaluate their total reward strategies and see if they're effectively meeting the basic survival needs of their employees. And then once they do that, determine how to help employees thrive. When total rewards satisfies the needs of both and communicates a foundation of genuine care, it really changes everything. Right?
These numbers are really dramatic. It's not just a one hundred percent increase for the most part, it's, you know, multiple hundreds percent increase.
Employees know when their organisation genuinely cares about them. And when it's genuine, those benefits and offerings are more likely to resonate.
Elizabeth Baskin is the CEO of Tribe Inc, and Tribe is an internal communications agency. And she says, "employees may be more receptive than ever to the charms of total rewards. Beyond salary, employees are placing a higher value on benefits like health care, including wellness, mental, and financial health, which help them thrive outside of work. To support thriving professionally, recognition and development play a strong role."
So she, separately from what we found, was able to kind of validate our findings of how important it is to provide health care, to provide wellness benefits to help them thrive at work, and that recognition and development are really important to employees.
So what can organisations do? Well, one, reevaluate your total rewards offerings and strategy. And now is a great time to do that. Right?
Because some people, open enrollment starts in January. For others, it might be April. For others, you know, it's kinda throughout the year. But before you go into that, reevaluate your offerings and strategy.
What's missing from total rewards is not new benefits. You don't have to add more. You don't have to add new all the time. Right?
It's just helping employees feel cared for. So make sure that what you are offering currently or what you're planning on offering shows that care, demonstrates that care, helps employees meet those basic needs, of survival, of compensation, and health offerings, and subsidize them as much as possible, right, to meet employees' basic needs. Help them out if you can, if your organisation is in a place to.
Then provide real tangible career development, skill building, flexibility, and recognition to build long term security. A lot of companies say they offer career development or skill building but there is no tangible path. There are no tangible resources there. And so employees are kind of left to figure that out on their own without the help of the employer.
But in the concept of total rewards, having a plan, having tangible resources, having a training, you know, a way for employees to grow and develop. That's what's really gonna make a difference. And, again, communicate that it's because you are invested in them, that you care about them for the long term and you want them to stay.
And remember that recognition is a bridge that helps all employees feel seen and valued and should be included in your total reward strategies.
So we were actually almost surprised by how much, how important recognition was to helping employees survive and thrive. Right? We are a recognition company. We know it's important.
We have the data. We've done the research. But when it comes to surviving and thriving specifically, that it ranks the same, you know, up there with the compensation and health benefits, that was a little bit surprising. But it does make sense.
Right? All employees have a fundamental need to be seen, to be valued, to be appreciated.
And as a lever of total rewards, if you can really build it in, integrated recognition provides that immediate security that tells employees the organisation cares and appreciates them, as well as future security that reinforces that they're an important part of the organisation, that the company values them.
And if recognition is infrequent or absent, employees are more likely to feel they're in survival mode, especially during times when they feel overworked, overwhelmed, unsupported, or burned out. Right?
Think about the hardest times at work that you've had, and you're working so hard. We can all relate to feeling stressed all the time, you know, feeling a lot of pressure, trying to meet a deadline, and we're starting to feel burnt out. And if no one notices that, no one notices our hard work, it leads to even more burnout and and feeling unappreciated.
So organisations that make recognition an integrated everyday part of the employee experience increase odds of improving several cultural outcomes. Things like belonging, fulfillment, engagement, thriving at work, and wanting to stay. When you have integrated recognition, employees are five times more likely to want to stay two or more years at your organisation.
So recognition that's integrated happens frequently and in meaningful ways. So it's important to provide tools to recognise a variety of accomplishments and milestones, to communicate exactly what employees are uniquely contributing, and to share how they further the organisation's purpose. And ensure that all employees, no matter what their role or location or department, can give and receive recognition and feel appreciated.
So I'm curious here. I'm sure most of you listening have an employee recognition program, or are doing some form of recognition in your organisation. But does your organisation build in rewards and recognition into your total rewards packages or strategies? Now I'm not talking about rewards and recognition in as pay and benefits or company profit sharing. I'm talking about more as a recognition platform or recognition program.
Is your recognition platform that you're using part of your total reward strategies or communication, or does it kinda live separately?
If you do this, if you do build recognition into your total reward strategies or your benefit offerings, if you communicate it together in some way, I'd love to hear how you do that. So please share that in the chat because I love to hear how companies are doing that. I'll share what ACG does. But if you guys are doing that in your own organisations, please share with us.
So as a company that continually adapts to meet its members and employees' needs, ACG, which is part of AAA, they're the Auto Club Group, refines and rebrands its recognition solution based on evolving business goals and employee situations. So they have been doing recognition for over forty years. And throughout those forty years, they've continuously evolved and adapted and improved their program.
They have a Celebrate As One solution right now through Culture Cloud, and it improves the accessibility, inclusivity, and alignment of its recognition to meet employees' needs to be seen and valued.
So all employees, including those who work remotely or on the road, because with triple A, you have lots of people who are doing, you know, insurance adjustments or going out to help people who are stranded on the side of the highway. They have a large remote population. Everyone can give and receive recognition.
And ACG recognises across every stage of the employee life cycle from beginning to end. ACG enables leaders to create their own campaigns tied to specific team goals, to celebrate career anniversaries in a meaningful way, and to build recognition into their workplace culture. And what I love about ACG is they talk about this, and they talk about their total rewards and benefits. So I went on their website under careers to kind of see how they communicate about recognition and how they communicate care through the total rewards offerings.
And one of their values, is about valuing employees. Right? It's about showing that they respect, they "invest in our employees." You know, they use that language.
They're offering growth and professional development opportunities. They reward and recognise high performance and celebrate successes. So all of this is built into the communication that they use to talk about total rewards, talk about care.
This really helps ensure all employees feel appreciated and both survive and thrive, which helps explain why ACG is known as a top place to work in multiple areas. They were a speaker at our most recent Influence Greatness conference, and they shared about how much, you know, how many lists they're making to be a top place to work for women, for minorities, for the Detroit area, everywhere. They're just expanding in terms of of how employees see them and and love them as a place to work.
Their senior executive said, "we have the opportunity, especially with everything that is happening in the world today, to step up our game and value the wonderful people we have at ACG. What we're seeing right now is that companies who truly value their people are gonna not just survive but thrive."
And I love this language because, again, before our global culture report research even came out, before we started talking about survive and thrive, they were already talking about it in this way. They were using those terms. And so ACG does an amazing job, of helping all of their people survive and thrive and recognising them and helping them feel seen and valued.
So before I go to the next culture trend, I'm gonna pause and just check the chat here and see, what people are talking about with recognition.
Oh, I see a few questions here. Let's see. Online platform with a social feed, which is fantastic. Ecards, giving points and gifts for recognition.
Let's see.
Some people are not sure if their programs are integrated into total rewards or they don't have anything, and that's completely fine as well. You know, we're all starting from somewhere.
Yes. I love this comment about what's important, what's being measured versus what's being talked about. Right? And that doesn't always match up or people aren't recognised for, you know, what the company is saying as being important.
We have one person here. Their program's integrated with cultural beliefs, engagement, and total rewards strategy. Love that. I think that's fantastic.
Brianna, I see you have a champions program, that rewards employees, empowers them. Fantastic. Yeah. I love that you guys are talking about this and sharing with one another, and please feel free to connect too.
I think one of the best parts of these webinars is that people can share those best practices and connect with one another.
Alright. Culture trend number three, destigmatizing mental health issues at work.
So mental health issues and struggles and talking about mental health is not necessarily new for 2025 because I think companies have been doing this since really COVID times. But, now is the time to really do something about it.
So mental health problems in the workplace, they're common. Right? They're gonna happen. And often, they're exacerbated by poor workplace cultures.
We all know that if you have a workplace culture that's toxic, you have leaders that are micromanagers or, you know, not good leaders, it's really gonna affect people's mental health.
And I think what we're learning is that the persistent stigma around mental health conditions has also contributed to employee suffering.
When we don't wanna talk about it, when we're quiet about it, it doesn't help. So it's time to build workplaces that talk about, support, and care for employees' mental health in 2025.
Professor Samuel Harvey is the executive director and chief scientist at Black Dog Institute in Australia, and he says, "creating a mentally healthy workplace should no longer be considered a peripheral concern for leaders. It's something that needs to be the core of successful, thriving organisations."
So opening that dialogue, having mental health resources, modeling conversations, promoting mental health and wellness can significantly improve all of our mental health even if, you know, we're at different levels of struggling.
So we found, not surprisingly, that work can affect our mental health both positively and negatively, and poor workplace cultures and practices may be unintentionally harming mental health. So things like unrealistic deadlines, toxic work environments, insensitive managers, conflict among teams, all of those things can harm mental health.
But at the same time, you know, creating a healthy workplace culture that encourages connection, communication, community, care, purpose, appreciation, all of those can reduce stress and lower levels of burnout and anxiety and depression.
So what you see on the chart is when you have a strong workplace practice like connecting people to purpose, providing opportunity, appreciating your people, strong leadership, if your employees have a high sense of survival and thriving, the odds of burnout decrease. The odds of probable anxiety decrease. The odds of probable depression decrease. Right? They all have a positive impact.
So while mental health challenges are everywhere, employees have a clear role to play in solving them or helping to solve them. Organisations can protect against mental health struggles through a positive and supportive culture and total rewards offerings like mental health resources and recognition that can help their employees thrive.
So we found recognition played a powerful role in helping with mental health.
I think there's been a lot of clinical research over the past decade or two that shows gratitude journaling can significantly reduce depression and anxiety. Right? There's so many gratitude journals out there. People talk about gratitude journaling, writing down five things every single day that you're grateful for.
That really helps us outside of work. It also helps at work. Right? Recognising others at work, being thankful for something that someone has done for you helps the giver have a more positive mindset and results in short term decreases in stress, anxiety, and depression.
So employees who gave recognition in the past thirty days reported lower odds of burnout, lower odds of depression, and lower odds of anxiety.
And I love that, traditionally, a lot of the impact data on recognition, and even the stuff that we've done in the past, talks about the impact on the recipient of recognition. How does the recipient feel when they've been recognised? But now we're talking about the giver. How does someone giving recognition feel after they've given that gratitude or expressed that gratitude? Giving recognition also benefits us as humans.
Now, of course, recognition is not a replacement for professional mental health care. And if you have someone that's struggling greatly with mental health issues or mental health struggles, recognition is not gonna fix that. Right? But it can complement existing well-being strategies.
So I'm gonna share this table. I know it's a little bit confusing. I'm gonna go through it, and hopefully, it'll make more sense. This table estimates the time and money lost to absenteeism.
So this is just one outcome. When people have mental health issues, employees have mental health issues, they are more likely to be absent. Right? They don't wanna go to work. They don't wanna come in. So this chart outlines the time and money lost to absenteeism per employee per month. So this is for every employee that might be missing work.
On the left side of that dotted line, you'll see organisations without a recognition program.
On the right side are organisations with a recognition program. So left without, right with.
Down the column, you'll see employees in different categories of mental health struggles. So maybe they have no mental health struggles currently. No burnout, no, you know, diagnosis of depression or anxiety. And then there's a category of people that have reported burnout. They feel burnt out. A category of people that probably have anxiety and people that probably have depression. We say that because it might not be clinically diagnosed as anxiety or depression, but based on the symptoms they told us, we say they would have anxiety and depression.
And what this chart shows is how many days are missed because of this mental health issue.
On the left side, it's how many days were missed without a recognition program. On the right side, you'll see that the number drops a little bit. So fewer days with a recognition program. People are absent for fewer days.
It also calculates the savings, in cost per employee per month, based on that absenteeism.
And what you'll find in this chart is that companies with a recognition program, because employees are absent less, actually saves these companies money, over six hundred dollars monthly or eight thousand dollars per employee annually in absenteeism costs for those with probable depression, for example.
So recognition, a) not only helps people not be absent as much, it lowers the absenteeism rate, but, b) it saves the company money in absenteeism costs.
We saw the same thing, for things like presenteeism, which is when the employees come to work, but they're not really there. They're not mentally there. They're kinda checked out. They're not engaged.
We also saw it with things like workplace accidents. We actually saw the incidence of accidents go down, by one or two, which doesn't seem like a lot. But when you think about it, having one or two less accidents in a month or in a year is really important.
And formal complaints. People were less likely to make formal complaints against their companies or their managers or their leaders when they have a recognition program. So the number of incidences decreases in organisations with a formal recognition program, and that results in cost savings across the board.
I hope I've explained that well. It's explained a lot better in our global culture report, which we'll send a link out to as well.
So what can organisations do? Well, first, destigmatize mental health issues at work by discussing and promoting mental health openly. Remove that stigma. Right? Implement policies that prioritise mental health and encourage employees and leaders to discuss it openly.
Have a process and resources available so when employees come to leaders with mental health concerns, leaders know exactly what to do to help.
And be flexible and support employees when they wanna take time off. Leaders should model taking time off. They should talk about their own mental health struggles if appropriate, and they should support employees when they need that mental health day or just to take some time off or to have a flexible schedule.
Also, create a healthy workplace culture. Right? That chart a few slides back talked about when you have a culture filled with care and connection and purpose and opportunity and all those wonderful things, it helps protect employees against mental health struggles.
And integrate recognition into employees' daily experience with solutions and tools that enable frequent and timely and meaningful recognition. So provide a variety of ways to recognise, a variety of reasons to recognise, and show appreciation and gratitude and encourage employees to use them.
Align employees' work to that greater sense of purpose. Be specific in how they contributed and why it was unique, and focus on that genuine positive appreciation.
And, of course, include mental health offerings in your total rewards offerings. I think this is something most companies are likely doing in some way, but really focusing on that in 2025, really making a concerted effort to make sure employees know about the mental health offerings available in your benefit packages or health care plans. Things like subsidized access to mental health care.
Maybe you have dedicated mental health days even if you just start with a few. So instead of just PTO or sick time, it's a mental health day. Time off to attend therapy appointments, you know, during work hours.
A lot of therapists may not work before or after work, and employees may not have the ability to go to those things. So providing, you know, time during the workday to attend mental health appointments would be great.
Mental health training, for both leaders and employees, with time for it during the workday, and then flexible work schedules. Those are just small examples of ways you can incorporate mental health offerings into your total rewards.
Now I'm gonna say again, recognition is not a replacement for professional mental health care. If someone is really struggling, they need to see a professional and get that care. But expressing gratitude is really proven to help, and recognition leads to a strong workplace culture that can help protect against some of the mental health struggles as well. So encourage recognition and expressing gratitude in the organisation.
So, CIBC is a leading North American financial institution. I talk about them a lot in my webinars just because they're just such an amazing organisation.
But they are committed to prioritising mental health, and they make well-being a shared responsibility between employees and the organisation. So it's not just falling on the shoulders of the employees to figure out their mental health. It's not just the organisation's, you know, responsibility to provide all those resources. They're working on it together.
And it removes financial barriers for those seeking mental health care by offering full reimbursement up to an annual limit. So if people need mental health care, they can be reimbursed for that care up to a certain limit.
The company also provides a robust employee assistance program, twenty four seven virtual care platform that employees can access on their mobile devices, and that connects them to a nurse practitioner who can assist with medical issues, including mental health struggles.
Now the president and CEO is the executive sponsor for well-being, which is amazing. Because if you think about how big CIBC is, they have their president and their CEO being that executive sponsor for well-being, it must be important. And he often talks about, along with other members of the executive team, his own stories and his own mental health struggles to deepen CIBC's commitment to well-being.
The importance of mental health is talked about frequently, not just at his level, but throughout the organisation. They have posts on an internal social channel from employees who share their mental health journeys. They do blogs from employees talking about mental health struggles and reminders to make sure that you're taking care of your mental health. They have online training and guides available for leaders to support mental health of their teams.
They also leverage their recognition program, Moment Makers, which is powered by Culture Cloud, to appreciate and celebrate employees. And using this platform, employees can really recognise peers who model healthful habits or those who help another team member out, those who prioritise their well-being and are a good example for others. The bank's commitment to prioritising mental health really helps employees thrive at work, and it reinforces CIBC's genuinely caring culture.
Their senior executive talks about it. Their CEO talks about it. They talk about it amongst their employees and their teams. They have access to mental health resources that are subsidized by CIBC. They leverage recognition and expressing gratitude.
I mean, it's an amazing thing that CIBC has done. What they've done really is very forward thinking. And it truly integrates recognition and mental health into their culture and their total rewards offerings.
So we talked about before that integration of recognition into total rewards. Now they're also integrating that recognition into mental health care and both of those into total rewards.
So I'm also curious with this topic. Have any of you linked recognition and gratitude with mental health in your organisations? Have you talked about gratitude as a way to help support mental health in your organisations?
Perhaps you've linked recognition with well-being. A lot of companies do that. We've seen a lot of clients, you know, use recognition to recognise good behaviours, wellness behaviours, like steps or eating healthy or getting enough sleep, some of those wellness types of things. But have you linked recognition to your overall well-being behaviours, and mental health specifically?
What are you all doing out there to make sure you're destigmatizing mental health, to make sure you're talking about it, modeling it, and modeling taking time off and taking care of your mental health and really helping employees? If you're doing anything that's unique or cool, please, share that in the chat because I would love to hear.
I think I was talking to a client the other day about mental health initiatives, and she had a really great point. She said, you know, we talk about it a lot, but I don't think anyone's found the answer of how to do it well or how to really take care of employees' mental health.
And I think in 2025, talking about it, having those resources and total rewards, and expressing gratitude are great ways to start.
So I'm gonna take a quick peek at the chat over here.
Let's see. Employee assistance programs.
Oh, mental health first aid and questions for training. I like that.
EAP programs. Yep. Webinars. Okay. Great. Webinars on mental health. I think as much as you can talk about it, open door policy, empathy. Yes.
Encouraging leaders to practice empathy and have emotional intelligence. That is also a great way to build support for employees' mental health.
Free counselling. Yes. I think as much as you can subsidize those mental health resources, it will be so helpful. Because, again, we see employees just surviving both financially and from a health perspective. So anything that a company can do to help support them would be really impactful.
Breaks during long meetings. Yes. Anything to kind of create that balance for employees, encouraging them to take breaks during the day. Fantastic. I love all of these these best practices.
Alright. I'll move on. Culture trend number four, smarter culture insights with AI.
So artificial intelligence has exploded in the last year. I think we saw that. Right? I think in 2023, going to 2024, we knew it was coming. There's a little bit of it. Chat GPT was kind of starting out.
But, really, last year, it just feels like it exploded.
And it now influences how companies are creating and measuring culture initiatives and employee experiences. So it's gone beyond just, like, being able to write an email for you, or, you know, doing research for you. And now it's really helping inform a lot of our decisions and helping us make better decisions.
There are growing uses for AI enabled insight tools and culture building apps, particularly, that can provide you with guidance and efficiencies to make your culture initiatives more effective.
So I'm just gonna share a few that we've been seeing out there, but we've also created. So here's just an example. And this is our example with Culture Cloud, but there are other, I know, tools out there that can do this.
The ability to identify which employees are at risk of leaving the organisation before they actually decide to leave. So not even just, you know, tracking who's left and who's not and maybe how much recognition or how their performance was, but identifying that before they even leave.
So this can be based on many factors. It could be based on their performance metrics, their satisfaction metrics on surveys, absenteeism that we talked about with mental health, but also the amount of recognition they've received. And if leaders could see that employees were at risk of leaving because they aren't being recognised enough, it allows them to actively recognise their people before they feel under appreciated and they do leave. So it's a great way to predict that ahead of time.
Our research shows that frequent recognition not only lowers odds of attrition by twenty nine percent, but there's tons of research out there from other sources that show not feeling valued and not feeling appreciated is a main source of why employees leave.
Another tool, like Recognition Coach, which delivers in the moment coaching to improve how employees communicate with and recognise one another. So these types of tools pick up on subtleties in language, right, and the recognition message that people are putting in, to deliver real time improvement suggestions that elevate inclusion, that reduce bias, that also increase the specificity--I never say that right--sincerity, and meaningfulness of employee recognition. So it really helps the user create a message that's more meaningful, that's more specific, and, again, that's more inclusive.
In early studies, eighty one percent of users incorporated the suggestions. So employees are enjoying it. They do like it. They do want some sort of editing for the recognition messages to make them perfect, to make them as good as they can be. And there's all sorts of tools that can do that, like Recognition Coach.
There's also social connection tools out there that leverage machine learning to identify all the people an employee is informally connected to within the organisation and recommend a list of people to follow and connect with. So this isn't always based on team. It's not just who is in my team and who is my leader, but maybe who am I recognising? Who's recognising me? Who am I working with? Who am I emailing? All of those form a circle for employees.
And these AI social social connection tools can identify that through the ways employees are working and create, you know, that sense of connection and community. These tools help identify meaningful community building opportunities and recognition opportunities.
And we found in our research that the odds that employees will thrive increased twelve times when they feel connected. So being able to kind of show that to employees, automatically.
And then automatic nudges and prompts that serve messages to the right individuals at the right times to ensure optimal platform engagement and communicate best practices. All of this continually improves the employee experience, whether it's recognition or other culture initiatives that you have across the organisation.
And then finally, a job transitions dashboard that allows organisations to track employee transitions in real time and how much recognition is happening during that transition period. So a lot of companies track when employees leave the company or join the company. But what about when employees change roles, when they get promoted, when they move to a new team, or they have a shift in responsibilities?
All of those are job transitions internally. And all of those transitions require some connection and some care and some, a lot, onboarding, which I'll talk about in the next culture trend.
So organisations can get valuable insight into a crucial moment within the employee experience so they know that when people are changing new teams or roles or being promoted or having new responsibilities, that they're being recognised early and often during that transition period and having a good transition experience so they're not forgotten.
So what can organisations do? Explore AI possibilities and culture building tools. Right? AI has not taken away our jobs like we feared, but it has helped us do our jobs even better.
So explore the possibilities of AI. If you're not already, explore it in your own culture building activities. See what reporting tools, processes could benefit from AI. Also, see how your current partners are using AI.
Ask your current vendors and partners what capabilities they have, how they make connections in your data. Find out what employees and users needs are for AI. What are your employees needing from AI that AI could help with?
What should you look for in good AI tools? Right? That's always a good question. How do I know this is a great AI tool? How how is it right for my organisation?
We'd say, you know, make sure that their algorithms pull from a large sample size. So a lot of our AI tools in Culture Cloud pull from millions of data points, like millions, which is amazing.
Make sure they're curated by data scientists. They're not created just by some guy on a computer.
And they're informed by best practices. That's really what's gonna help you find a good AI tool.
And then finally, develop an AI use policy. O.C. Tanner just did this, I think last year, to find our AI's restrictions and policies, for both how we use AI and how employees can use it in their jobs.
So what tools are employees allowed to use? What AI tools can they use on the clock on their work computers? How is customer or company data being protected? Right? If they're throwing customer data in there, you have to be really careful.
In what cases is AI use acceptable? When should we expect them to use AI to help with their roles versus when should we, you know, maybe be more careful around that?
These are all just examples of things companies should be thinking about as they use AI.
Now I'm curious with this one too. For the chat, how is your organisation using AI for culture initiatives? You might have been using it for other things like writing sales emails or whatever, but for culture based initiatives. Are you already doing some of the things that I shared?
Are you already looking at flight risk or, making those social connections? Or are you using AI in other ways? I would love to even learn what other AI tools are out there to help you with your culture initiatives, to help improve leadership, to help improve the employee experience, or to help improve workplace culture.
So if you guys are using AI, please share that because I am fascinated with how--I am a late adopter to technology, for everything even though I'm not that old.
But, I would love to hear what AI tools you guys are using out there.
Alright. So no AI tools yet. But if you have any, please share those in the chat. Okay.
Last culture trend, and I'll go through this pretty quickly because we're running a little bit out of time.
Expanding onboarding beyond new hires. So you saw the job transitions dashboard that I just shared, for the last culture trend. So we're gonna go into a little more detail about the importance of having good job transition experiences.
Again, I think a lot of us think about job transitions as when you join a new organisation.
But job transitions are more than that. Right? They're a natural part of every employee's career. The research found that in the US, workers will change jobs an average of nine to twelve times in their careers.
That's what the Bureau of Labour Statistics says, nine to twelve times. So there's some movement there. And it's a little more, a little less in countries around the world.
But change happens. Right? And how employees transition from one job to the next, whether it's joining a new organisation or even within an organisation, being promoted to a new leader, changing job roles or responsibilities, joining a new team. Right? Any shifts like that can impact their success.
So what we're finding is that onboarding isn't just for new hires anymore. It used to be that companies that did any sort of onboarding, they were ahead of the curve. Right? A decade ago, fifteen years ago, if you did onboarding, you were really cool, and everyone wanted to join your organisation.
But now onboarding is just something that employees expect. It's something that every organisation does, should do. It's just part of joining an organisation. But what doesn't always happen is onboarding employees when they start new roles within their companies.
So not a new employee, but maybe a new team.
Any employee starting a new role should have a great onboarding experience, whether you're brand new to an organisation or a team, because all new jobs have this period of welcome and training and development and connection. And they can all be difficult. Right? Transitions are hard.
Transitions and change can be kind of hard. When employees transition into a new role, there's more to learn than just the particular job. They still have to learn how to navigate that new role, the new leader, getting along with your new team, how processes, you know, work, how things are done, new software technology that new team might use, new expectations and how they interact with one another, adapting to a new team culture or a new leader. All of that can be challenging.
So how organisations craft meaningful job transition experiences is important and will significantly influence the employee experience for that employee. In every transition, there's a mix of excitement. Right? When we have a new role or a new job, we're all really excited, but we're also a little anxious. There's a little bit of apprehension there.
And a lot of times, employees are kinda left to sink or swim in a new job. Right? We kinda show them off to their new team and wish them good luck. But that really that sink or swim feeling can leave them feeling disconnected and frustrated and stressed.
When employees have a bad job transition experience, the odds of anxiety increase two times. Odds of burnout increased three times. Odds of wanting to stay dropped by fifty five percent, and odds of thriving at work dropped by eighty percent.
And this is all just from having a poor transition experience. It's not that the team is bad or something else happened. It's just that transition experience itself was not good.
But when employees feel their transition experience was transformative, and that's kind of a self described positive life changing event. So not only was it great, but it really was amazing in an employee's career. When job transitions are transformative, there's a higher likelihood of fulfillment, thriving at work, wanting to stay, satisfaction with their experience, and wanting to promote the organisation as a great place to work. So great outcomes just from having a good transition experience.
And Brian Kropp, who's the group vice president at Gartner, says "if someone is shifting to another part of the organisation or taking on a significant shift in their role, it's a mistake not to onboard them again. Not doing so will set those internal transfers up to struggle, to underperform, and potentially quit."
So the last thing we want is someone to leave the organisation that they've been at for so long, because they had a bad experience with a job transition.
And our research found that there's four key elements to creating a transformative job transition experience. I'm gonna go through this at a really high level, just so that, we can get through the rest of the research here.
But it's the sense of connection. Right? We all know that feeling of connecting with your teams and your leaders and your purpose. And when you start a transition experience and build that sense of connection, it's a really great foundation. And the odds of a positive transformation experience, increase fourteen times when employees feel a strong connection to their teams. So that's what the number here is, the impact of each of these factors transition experience.
So connection is really powerful. Right? It's the biggest number there.
Employee development. When employees feel they have learning and growth opportunities in their new role, the odds that they'll experience a positive transition experience increased by five times.
With community, if they can feel the sense of community once they've joined a new team or had a a new leader, that increases by eleven times the sense of having a great transition experience.
And flexibility, when you provide employees time to learn and develop the skills that are needed for the new role, when you are flexible with them in learning those new processes and adjusting, giving them that adjustment period, it reduces the risk of burnout.
And when you give them flexibility and autonomy in deciding how they can do this new role, odds of a positive transition experience increase by five times.
So these are the most important elements in a job transition experience. You have to give employees opportunities to connect with their new teams, to develop in their roles, to build a sense of community, and have flexibility.
When all four of these are present, the odds of having a transformative experience, that life changing experience, increase sixty times.
So what can organisations do? Ensure that all employees, not just new hires, have an onboarding experience, and build in connection and community in that job transition experience.
And one of the best ways to do that is really through recognition. Right?
When you first start at a new company, you get this wonderful welcome onboarding experience. When you move to a new team or have a new role at your company, we don't always get that same amazing welcome experience. We may get a lunch, you know, we might, you know, say hi to the team, maybe get a note card. But we don't get that same onboarding experience that we did when we started with a new company.
So do that for employees who are making internal job transitions.
Give them the eCards, the handwritten notes when an employee first starts. Give them company swag or swag boxes to build that connection. Have team building activities and regular peer to peer recognition so that you can foster that sense of community and that connection. It's so nice to feel welcomed and know people remember that you're starting a new job even if you're at the same company.
Also, recognise employees for growth and development. Right?
Make sure you're recognising for great work along the way. Employees who are recognised once during their first thirty days in a new job have three times higher odds of satisfaction with their experience. When they're recognised weekly, during the first month of their new job, those odds increase to ten times. So recognition has an impact, and doing it more often than just on the first day, is really powerful.
Recognising growth and development is also a great way to, again, foster that sense of of development within a new role, whether you're recognising for a formal training that an employee has to do, maybe certifications they have to take, or even if they're just being recognised for learning a new skill or a new process or, maybe they've accomplished something great, the first great thing on a new team or as a leader, a newly promoted leader, the first amazing thing they've done, recognise that. Show that you appreciate that, that you see that. It fosters a sense of opportunity and success and belonging very early on.
Now Norton Healthcare does this, job transitions, fantastically.
They really encourage employee mobility in the workplace, and they support employees at each point of their job transitions.
So even before their first day on the job, new hires get a welcome gift to their home with branded swag and meaningful symbols of appreciation along with a note from leaders welcoming them to the company.
And then in their first eighteen months at Norton Healthcare, so it's not even just the initial onboarding period, but that first eighteen months, employees go through a three part training series that's focused on culture and safety and employee success and development, how they can develop at Norton with frequent check ins, using career cycle surveys and leader check ins just to ensure employees are thriving in their new roles. And it's not just for new employees that are new to the organisation.
Employees coming back to Norton, so they call these Norton alumni, so these are employees that were at Norton, left for another, you know, hospital perhaps, and then came back. They're also recognised for rejoining Norton, with a cool symbolic pin. That's that compass looking like thing on your screen. So the symbolic pin to wear on their badges so people know they're a Norton alumni.
And when new leaders are promoted, so let's say they're an employee and they just got promoted to a new leader, they're given a new leader portfolio. It's a planner that has information about workplace culture.
They have leadership topics and best practices, like recognition, engagement, and well-being and gives leader tips on all of those areas. And it helps leaders learn the importance and those best practices around those soft skills, not just the skills they need for their new job, but the soft skills around leading.
And because they don't want employees looking elsewhere for growth opportunities, Norton Healthcare begins succession and career planning discussions as early as twelve months in a role. So you may have only worked in your job or your new team for a year, and Norton already starts talking about where you wanna go next and how they can help you get to where you wanna be.
They really want employees to feel like they can move around the organisation and be promoted, so they're not looking elsewhere. They're looking within Norton.
And when employees move teams, leaders help build that connection with leader rounding tools. So when leaders go and they round on their employees and their team meetings, they can identify which team members are, might be new to that team or new to Norton. They can check on their employee experience. They can celebrate and recognise them if appropriate, and they can support those who might be having personal struggles or going through a major life event.
So Norton Healthcare really takes a employee centric approach to these job transitions, whether you're a brand new employee to the organisation, a returning employee coming back, or a current employee that's moving or being promoted into a new role. It just ensures everyone has the opportunity to grow and succeed at Norton.
So I've shared how one of the best companies out there does this. How do you incorporate building connection and recognition when your employees change job roles? Do you think about that? Do you have moments where you can provide employees with a sense of connection and recognition when they're changing job roles internally? Please feel free to share in the chat.
Okay. I am running out of time. So just putting up here the five culture trends for 2025: sense of care in the workplace, rethinking total rewards, destigmatizing mental health issues, having smarter culture insights with AI, and expanding onboarding beyond new hires to all employees with the job transition.
All of this research I shared comes from our 2025 global culture report, which you'll find on octanner.com. I know someone shared it in the chat. I think it might have been Raven. You can go access it, get the whole report, download it for free. You don't even have to fill out a form. You don't have to put your name or email or anything. It's all right there, and that is our Christmas gift to you this year.
And while you're on our site, you can see how Culture Cloud, our dynamic platform for infinite recognition and employee experiences, can help you create wonderful total reward strategies that help demonstrate care and help your people thrive at work.
I apologize I don't think I have any time for questions.
But feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn, to email me, with your questions. I'm happy to respond to them.
Your codes here for attending, your SHRM and HRCI codes are on the screen. You can write those down now and and get credit for listening to me speak on this webinar. Thank you all for sharing your best practices, your insights, your questions.
Again, reach out if you have a particular question that you'd love answered. We will share an email, later this, I think, later today, if not tomorrow, with a recording of this webinar so you can get all of the great research and insights that I presented today.
So thank you all for joining me today and being here. Thank you for sharing your best practices.
We love learning from you all and hearing what you guys are doing in your organisations. Have a wonderful holiday. Thank you for listening to me, and have a great day.
