Conclusion

CONCLUSION

The Global Culture Report contains an abundance of statistical findings every year—data represented in percentages and odds that help us better understand employee experiences worldwide. But this year the findings add up to something more: Reason for hope. We see conditions and calculations with promise. Numbers that translate into confidence that small shifts in the way organizations manage change, build skills, show empathy, and develop resilience can create healthier workplace cultures.

Imagine, for a moment, how the small, people-centered modifications detailed in this report could transform your organization. With a little more flexibility and autonomy in their roles, your employees achieve greater balance in their lives and innovation in their work. They also acquire and use new skills that strengthen both their feelings of loyalty and your organization’s capabilities. And then, leaders practice empathy with more potency (and fewer negative side effects) and nurture teams who are resilient enough to benefit from whatever changes the future holds. Taken together, it’s harder to imagine how these shifts wouldn’t transform any organization.

Of course, even small shifts are more feasible when accompanied by straightforward steps. Here are few to get started:

1. Prioritize a people-centered culture

Culture programs should be part of your corporate strategy. And convincing executives to make them a priority should be easier given current talent shortages. So collect the data, create a business plan, and highlight how small changes in the employee experience can have a big impact.

2. Create a framework

Whether you aspire to build practical empathy, nimble resilience, or equitable flexibility, a framework helps make it real. Include specific principles, policies, and practices to support it as well as ways to educate and hold leaders accountable.

3. Define behaviors

Very few employees will know what proactivity or adaptability mean without the right context and examples. So define and demonstrate principles—write them down, share them widely, and remind people what they are in team meetings, one-to-ones, town halls, and company gatherings.

4. Recognize employees

When you recognize people for great work, be sure to connect it back to core principles and practices, and highlight how the employee exhibits them. If you showcase stories of embraced change, practical empathy, and nimble resilience, others across the organization will catch on quickly. Recognition proves you value the behaviors, and especially your people.

Regardless of the source—internal or external, initiated or imposed—any change that will benefit your organization is still a choice, a choice that in most cases requires some courage. We hope this report provides the perspective, insight, and validation to find that resolve. And we wholeheartedly wish you every success as you make the shifts necessary to fuel a workplace culture where people thrive.

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“It’s not only moving that creates new starting points. Sometimes all it takes is a subtle shift in perspective, an opening of the mind, an intentional pause and reset, or a new route to start to see new options and new possibilities.”
‍—Kristin Armstrong, three-Time Olympic Gold Medalist