DANIEL PATTERSON: Well, hello, everyone, and thanks for joining us today for the second installment in our 2026 GCR webinar series, A Thriving Workplace culture for All: The true impact of transparency and inclusion. This is the second of three webinars covering the chapters and topics that appear in this year's Global Culture Report. If you missed the first installment, you can view that on the octanner.com website where it is available on demand.
Before we begin, just a few housekeeping items to take care of. Today's presentation is both SHRM and HRCI certified for one hour of general credit. We'll be sharing the program IDs at the end of today's session, and this presentation is also being recorded and will be sent out all registered attendees by the end of the week.
And with that, we'd like to introduce ourselves for those who may not know us. I'm Daniel Patterson, and joining me today is Cristen Dalessandro.
Cristen is a principal researcher and sociologist at O.C. Tanner who specializes in the study of social inequalities as well as qualitative and quantitative research methods.
As part of the O.C. Tanner Institute and the Research Center of Excellence, Cristen's work focuses on the employee experience and workplace culture using a social science lens.
In addition to contributing to the Institute's research projects, such as the state of employee recognition and the annual Global Culture Report, Cristen is an award winning researcher who has published over thirty articles in peer reviewed journals and her book, Millennials' Romantic Relationships in Contemporary Times. Cristen has a PhD from the University of Colorado, Colorado Boulder and completed her postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Utah. Welcome, Cristen.
CRISTEN DALESSANDRO: Thanks, Daniel. Thanks for the introduction. So as Daniel mentioned, I'm Cristen Dalessandro, and I'm here today with Daniel Patterson. As a research manager for the O.C. Tanner Institute, Daniel oversees the IP research team in developing original, large scale cross cultural studies that explore the intersection of workplace culture, recognition, and the employee experience.
Specializing in mixed method research, he collaboratively develops strategic research that supports client solutions, shapes product strategy, and identifies long term industry trends and transitions. Daniel excels in translating complex data into actionable insights that help global organizations advance measurable strategies for success. And Daniel holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Utah with advanced studies in research and theory. Welcome, Daniel.
DANIEL: Thank you, Cristen. Okay. So now that you've got to know us a little bit, let's take you through the agenda for the day.
Excuse me. So today's webinar is gonna dive into research from O.C. Tanner's 2026 Global Culture Report. And in the next few slides, we'll tell you a little bit more about that report to give you some additional context and a sense of scope of the project. And after that, we're going to explore transparency and inclusive teams and how organizations can elevate these from concepts to actionable practices that can transform leaders, teams, and employees.
As always, we'll follow these up with recommendations for how leaders can put these into practice, and then we'll wrap everything up with some key takeaways.
Alright. Now that we've got a bit of a road map for our time together, Cristen, can you start us off and tell us a little bit more about the Global Culture Report?
CRISTEN: Of course. I'd be happy to. So the Global Culture Report is O.C. Tanner's annual report that provides industry leaders with a rigorous look at the evolving shape of work. So every year, our Institute team tracks, analyzes, and chronicles the latest trends and insights in the workplace using both qualitative and quantitative data.
And we do this to develop a framework of a thriving workplace culture from the employee perspective. That's kind of the key point there, from the employee perspective. So through interviews, focus groups, and surveys, this year's report engaged more than thirty eight thousand employees, leaders, and HR practitioners across twenty three countries to better understand the state of workplace cultures across the world. And a key theme that emerged from this year's exploration was this idea of inspire, which is also the title of the full report.
So before we move on, I wanna take a closer look at our theme for this year, which is, as I mentioned, inspire. So right now, it feels like employees just have a lot on their plates, not only in terms of work, but just in terms of life. Things like dealing with mental health issues, trying to balance work and family obligations. And in general, there's just a lot going on right now.
And, you know, that being said, well-being is, let's just say, not at an all time high. You know, the truth is that people don't always get to go home and recharge after work. Sometimes work is the recharge.
And one pattern indicating that this is increasingly the case is our finding that employees are hoping to get something more out of work than just a paycheck. Many employees want to be inspired. So while it's true that inspiration can take many forms, as we talked about in the last culture report webinar, one of the main sources of inspiration for employees is actually the people around them. So it's those daily interactions with other people in their workspace that lead to everyday moments of inspiration.
So, for example, just to kind of illustrate how powerful these everyday moments of inspiration are, you know, when employee or interactions that, lead to these moments of inspiration, when employees have thirty eight times increased odds of feeling inspired in their work when leaders and coworkers prioritize meaningful interactions, share ideas, and encourage insights.
And so, you know, as you can see, those interactions that employees are having every day are really what is helping fuel whether or not they're feeling that they can find inspiration in their work. So how does this relate to our topics today?
You know, as we'll see in the cases of both transparency and inclusion in a workplace context, employee social interactions are key in determining whether or not they feel these two cultural elements are actually present and or can actually be achieved. So not to give too much away, but, you know, reaching transparency goals often relies on specific types of communication around certain aspects of transparency. And reaching inclusion goals, as we'll explore a little bit later, is going to highly depend on interactions that employees are having with the people that they encounter at work every day.
So with that, I'll turn it over to Daniel to talk more about our first topic, transparency.
DANIEL: Excellent. Thank you, Cristen. So conversations about institutional transparency are everywhere today. It's really inescapable. But the reality is the idea of transparency in work and business is actually a relatively recent idea.
Historically, organizations regularly and actually intentionally withheld information from employees, sometimes in the name of confidentiality, sometimes privacy. But this approach frequently led to a sense of secrecy that leaders were hiding things from their people.
Now even though most leaders today know that concealment like this risks negative outcomes like disengaged workers and diminished trust, the practice of transparency isn't without its problems, particularly when it comes to the gap between what organizations think they should communicate and what employees want to know.
So since the pandemic, employees' appetite for transparency has only increased, and this is really understandable when we think about why. Employees and organizations alike are navigating an increasingly shifting business landscape, and people genuinely want to know how changing markets and technologies are going to impact their roles and careers.
And I think this quote, in as part of our research from Amanda Atkins at Slack really speaks to kind of that perceived value of transparency in the workplace. And she said, "Encouraging transparency and open communication in the workplace can be uncomfortable but can have big rewards: true organizational alignment, fewer distractions, increased speed, shared understanding, and higher levels of leadership trust, credibility, and confidence. These benefits help your company operate with less friction and foster a culture that attracts and retains talented people who want to have their voice heard at work."
Now yet, for as much as I love and actually really agree with her sentiment here, it doesn't change what we found is the underlying dilemma that's facing leaders when it comes to transparency, and that is how can leaders effectively prioritize transparency.
Employees still want more information than their [organizations] are willing to share. Now often, this is due to the complex environment of rules, regulations, and norms. And on the other side, organizations still frequently convey news to leaders that is constrained, controlled, and frequently distilled through HR who acts as gatekeepers. Now, thankfully, our research reveals that it doesn't take an unchecked flood of information to meet employees' expectations.
What we found is that employees really want transparency in four key areas. Those are personalized work, community, decision making, and accountability.
So now for the next few minutes, I'm gonna walk you through each of these areas, and we'll talk a little bit about why these areas are important and how transparency in each of these different areas impacts important outcomes, both cultural and business, that really matter most to organizations.
Okay. So let's start first with personal work. And now this involves employees' individual workload, performance, and evaluation. So what do employees want here? Well, here are a few of the things that we heard from them. They're looking for transparency around, they want clear expectations, clarity around their responsibilities, performance metrics for how their work is evaluated, real time feedback on their performance, and they really want a connection between their work, company goals, and compensation.
CRISTEN: That sounds really great, Daniel, you know, and also pretty reasonable. I mean, I think everyone wants to know what's expected of them and how they're supported in their work in order to achieve the expectations that are set out.
DANIEL: Right. I mean, all that absolutely makes, seems to make sense. But, unfortunately, we found that actually sixty percent of employees don't fully understand their company's strategies and objectives, much less how their work supports them.
Now that said, when leaders communicate transparently about personal work, the odds of positive employee perceptions dramatically improves. And as you can see in the table here on the right, there are a number of really great outcomes. I'll just highlight a few.
Kind of at that personal and cultural level, employees have a nine times increased odds of feeling that they have a sense of fulfillment at work. More from, like, a business standpoint, a five times increase in employees wanting to do great work, and also a five times increase in the odds that they're gonna feel positive about organization's leadership.
So as you can see, while that may be still a struggle in some aspects for certain organizations, when this practice is in place, it really has a strong impact on key outcomes.
CRISTEN: Yeah, Daniel. And if I can just add one thing here. You know, I think in this particular area, not necessarily in all components of our model around transparency, but here in particular, the leader, I think, plays a really important role in terms of communicating to employees, you know, what the expectations are in their role and, you know, how their work helps advance the organization's larger purpose. Right? It's not that the leader is the only one doing this. I think it's important that the employee understand where they sort of fit within the organization as a whole, but a lot of that information is coming from the leader.
DANIEL: Absolutely. The leader really is, I mean, for all the responsibilities that fall on the leader's shoulders, which we recognize, they really are the conduit to the organization, for the employee. And so, yeah, that is definitely key for that leader practice.
The other thing I would say here too, when we talk about some of those other aspects of transparency around personal work, specifically things like clear expectations, and and, fully understanding, you know, responsibilities. One thing that we have definitely seen both in our focus groups and in our quantitative data, the business landscape just continues to rapidly change and evolve.
And so this is a challenge both for leaders and employees, but often, we see this with relationship to markets, technology, different work models. Things are moving so quickly, within the workplace that for employees to really feel grounded and connected and safe, feeling like they're in a space where they can give their best work, getting that regular transparency from their leaders that's going to reassure them that, you know, yes, things are changing, but it here's why.
Here's how your role's evolving, and here's, you know, how you can contribute. That kind of communication is really, really gonna be key to keeping employees connected, engaged, and really doing their best work.
CRISTEN: Yeah. Exactly. And going back to sort of our opener, it's the interaction. Right?
DANIEL: Absolutely. Okay.
So the second area of transparency applies to community, and that is when employees dialogue with coworkers, leaders, and cross functional teams.
This includes one of the central practices that actually fuels connection and innovation, which is always super important to organizations, especially in the current business landscape, and that's collaboration with supportive teams.
So high transparency in this area of community also actually promotes a sense of belonging, cultural cohesion, and trust, all of which are key to really effective teams working, innovating, and and moving towards successful goals.
And, of course, they also give, receive, and witness recognition on a regular basis, which, of course, is important to us and something we're definitely gonna dive into more here later.
Now we should also point out that a transparent workplace community doesn't just happen on its own. It does really require intentional effort on the part of leaders to create an environment where everyone feels safe to address issues, to share information, and recognize contributions.
And, again, when we look at the data and some of the findings that we had, when employees feel they know where they belong and where they stand within their team, within the community, and there's transparency around that communication, well, the you know, as you can see here, the those outcomes speak for themselves.
Looking at the table here, we see an almost four percent, four times, excuse me, odds increase that they feel appreciated, almost six times increase in the odds that an employee's gonna have a sense of opportunity and growth within their organization. These are really important.
And I'd like to call out here one of the things that we try to do when we highlight data findings and outcomes. We're really looking across kind of three areas of measure, and that's how it impacts the individual, those personal outcomes, so feeling appreciated as an individual.
But also how is it gonna impact both the cultural and business outcomes? So, you know, are people feeling satisfied with their culture? Do they feel like their teams are achieving goals? These really kind of highlight the fact that when leaders implement these kind of best practices around transparency, and you'll also see this with inclusion and other areas that we research, it has a broad, it has an impact across a broader array of ROIs, which we always think is extremely important because all of those matter to the success of an organization.
Okay. The third area is decision making. Now, traditionally, transparency in decision making meant openly sharing the thinking behind certain choices or actions.
Now the advantage, of course, of communicating the process of, process and the criteria, along with easy access, information about changes and updates, well, it helps employees feel connected to decisions as well as a larger organizational vision. However, our new lens for this area actually goes a bit further to ensure employees' voices are heard even before decisions are made. It includes providing opportunities for feedback, encouraging open dialogue, and making space for input without fear of negative consequences. And this also overlaps and ties back into that transparency in community as well.
And overall, this approach around decision making signals to people that their insights are valued and considered, and it increases their trust in leadership as well as their sense of inclusion.
CRISTEN: This is great, Daniel. I, again, I like that we're kinda going back to that point about the dialogue. Right? This is a dialogue that's happening between employees and leaders, between employees and senior leaders in the organization. So what data do we have that supports how important this actually is?
DANIEL: I'm so glad you asked. Yes. We always have data. And as this table shows, when decision making is transparent and employees are actively involved, the positive impact on employee perceptions is significant. And you can kind of walk through here and see how that plays out on a number of levels. And one side note here and that I would make, for those of you who regularly tune in to our webinar, which hopefully all of you are doing, you always know that what we're what we present for you here in the context of the webinar is really highlighting some top level really key outcomes.
We hope that you all go out to the Global Culture Report at the O.C. Tanner website and spend time with it. You'll find that there's a lot more data, narrative case studies, and some really rich stuff that you can dig into there.
Okay. Lastly, employees need to see how leaders are accountable and own their work. This area of transparency involves communicating the responsibilities and expectations set for leaders, which builds trust and respect. Now when we talk about accountability, what we're referring to is how leaders hold themselves to communicated standards and how their actions align with organizational goals.
This includes a standard of ownership, which applies to how leaders acknowledge their role in decisions, and how they take responsibility for the results. And this is both good and bad because, as we know, sometimes decisions play out favorably, sometimes not so much. Now an example of this would be admitting when a decision creates problems, for example, for excuse me, problems for employees or when a strategy simply fails.
Leaders who proactively communicate the reasoning, anticipated outcomes, and any unintended consequences of their choices demonstrate a commitment to both transparency and integrity.
And, of course, our lovely data. Our research finds that, leaders who openly share challenges facing the organization, admit mistakes, take responsibility, and then recognize employees when things do go well can dramatically improve the odds of several positive outcomes.
CRISTEN: Alright. Thanks, Daniel. So now that you've dazzled us with this data, can we paint a picture of what transparency looks like in action? What is an example of somebody who's really practicing transparency on the ground or in the air?
In this case, in the air. Both on the ground and in the air.
Yes. Delta Airlines, they are a company whose leadership team has worked really hard to implement these principles of transparency into its workplace culture. Now in addition to connecting its customers across the globe, Delta prides itself on creating connection and building an inclusive and transparent culture for each of its more than one hundred thousand global employees.
Now that commitment is embodied by Liva Howell, and she's the manager of global employee engagement who, excuse me, proudly calls herself one of Delta's culture creators. Now sensing a need for deeper transparency and engagement with frontline employees, Liva organized a full day immersion for the corporate HR team, where they set aside all of their meetings, they left the office, and they met with operational teams on the ground.
Now the day began with introductions and then, most importantly, setting clear intentions for the visit.
HR was there to listen, to understand, and connect.
As Liva put it, we didn't want employees wondering why all of us were there. Obviously, when HR kind of walks into the room, a lot of people like, the hair stands up on the back of their neck. They didn't want back end whispering and questioning. They wanted full openness, transparency, and inclusiveness.
Now from walkarounds with gate agents and ground crews to lunch conversations and afternoon meetings, the HR team gained firsthand insight into the current realities of airport operations and the daily experience of those team members.
So how did this turn out? Well, Liva described the experience and the impact this way.
"Connecting my corporate partners in crime with my operational powerhouses enhanced understanding, perspective, and support for our people. The collaboration resulted in transparent and candid feedback, meaningful connections, and positive results. Not only did we walk away with great action items, we walked away with a greater meaning of being Delta family, breaking down silos, and building bridges."
So the takeaway here, and I think this really beautifully captures it. When companies and leaders focus on these key areas of transparency that really truly matter to their people, they build a workplace where employees are informed, feel valued, and understand how their contributions and efforts contribute to success.
CRISTEN: Thanks, Daniel. Some great insights and also such an awesome example, I think, of transparency in action from Delta. They're really setting the standard over there, I think.
Okay. So moving through our webinar, I think it's time to turn our attention to inclusive teams. You know, at the end of the day, fostering a culture of transparency is all about teams and leaders and senior leaders effectively communicating with each other. But another area where these interactions are crucial is when it comes to inclusion.
So I think this quote sums it up well when we're talking about the approach to inclusion that our research actually recommends. As Nelie Borrero at Accenture put it, "Diversity is a fact, but inclusion is a choice we make every day."
So in the past, organizations focused more heavily on diversity efforts and sometimes assumed that inclusion would just naturally follow. But it's become painfully obvious at this point that this is rarely ever the case. You know, without inclusive practices, employees won't be able to feel that true sense of belonging.
So inclusion is something that's not a one and done. You know? It's something that's built over time, and it's built in the workplace every day through sort of specific interactions that employees are having.
And who do employees interact with the most on any given day? Their teams.
So in our research, through both our qualitative and quantitative data, we uncovered that there's really sort of five key sets of behaviors that, when practiced on an ongoing basis at the team level, lead to increased feelings of inclusion over time.
So first up is emotional intelligence. Now emotional intelligence is a concept that's been around a long time. We've even written about it in past culture reports.
Essentially, emotional intelligence is asking, can you understand your own emotions and those of others as well? You know, a team is doing well in this regard when team members are able to understand one another, have open discussions, celebrate one another's successes, and manage their emotions.
So when we're looking, you know, for kind of clues as to whether or not this team, if emotional intelligence is kind of present among team members, these are the sorts of things that we would be looking for.
The next aspect that our research found is really important to employees is respect. So when we're talking about respect, we kind of wanna ask, are team members honoring each other's time, each other's boundaries, and perspectives equally? If the answer is yes here, then we can say that with some confidence that respect is present on the team.
The third thing we found that's really important when it comes to fostering that sense of inclusion is goals and purpose.
So in our research, we found that feelings of inclusion are really bolstered when team members feel that they're united in working towards some shared goals. Right? It's not that we're all working on separate things. We're all in this together, working on the same thing. And, you know, my success as an individual is our success as a team.
You know, when team members can work together to accomplish shared goals and goals that advance the organization's purpose, so not just, you know, what the team is doing, but they're also doing something that's working towards the larger sort of purpose of the organization, and when teams sort of understand their role and reason for being, it increases that sense of inclusion. You know, they feel that understanding of this is why we're here. This is why we're doing this. Everybody's contributions are important, and we're working towards the same goals.
Fourth is the importance of learning. When learning is present on teams, employees have the freedom to experiment, to collaborate, and perhaps most importantly, to make mistakes. And not just make mistakes, but treat those mistakes as a learning experience rather than some catastrophic failure that has to be avoided at all costs. You know, when employees feel like that sense of learning is present, then they're comfortable, you know, taking risks, making mistakes, and knowing that if they do make a mistake that doesn't turn out well, it's a learning experience.
DANIEL: You know, Cristen, if I could jump in real quick and just add something to this, I really like this concept and the way in which this kind of also overlaps and touches on that transparency and specifically around accountability that when you've got a healthy organization that's thriving and is both transparent and has the, you know, the sense of inclusion, making mistakes and those little failures are part of the process of learning.
And so when there's an environment where employees feel it's safe to make those mistakes and that it's part of the experience, and then when they see that also kind of mirrored in the behavior of their leaders, where, again, sometimes, like, as I pointed out earlier, you know, you put forward strategies or initiatives, and sometimes they don't work out the way that we planned.
Taking accountability is acknowledging, in its own way, not only the transparency component, but it's also acknowledging that, you know, as leaders, we're part of that learning environment as well and that, you know, we can make mistakes and that, you know, we can also then own up to it and sort of acknowledge that account accountability component.
CRISTEN: Right. If there's no mistakes being made on your team, if everything is perfect, that's probably the first red flag that, something's not right.
DANIEL: Right. And it's definitely, it's an indicator that you're not innovating because innovating and evolving, you know, often requires taking some of those risks. And part of that is, you know, being willing to fail and acknowledge it, recover, and build from that and move forward.
CRISTEN: Exactly. And I think that also relates to the last component of the model, which is voice. And, you know, when we're trying to determine whether or not a team feels that they have a voice, if team members are feeling comfortable expressing their opinions and giving feedback to each other, then we can say with some confidence that the sense of voice is supported on this team.
So there you have it. You know, these are really the five elements that help us determine whether team members are gonna feel that sense of inclusion at work. And, again, you know, these are these are the just kind of a little peek behind the curtain. You know, the way that we came to these these elements is, you know, primarily through our qualitative interviews.
You know, we went out and talked to employees across the country and asked them what makes an inclusive team. These are the five elements that they told us about, and then, you know, we take that information and test it quantitatively to make sure that it holds up at the statistical level. And, you know, in our case, luckily, most of the things that we talk to employees about in our qualitative groups did hold up. So these are really sort of the five key areas that we found.
You know, when there's high levels of these on a team, the employees are gonna feel like they're part of an inclusive team.
DANIEL: Yeah. And, you know, I love that. And I appreciate you highlighting, you know, kind of from a research standpoint, how do we arrive at this?
The other factor or the other aspect of this that I really like is, this model is not just theoretical. It's actually actionable. You know, when we look at this, one way of, as you just explained, we can say that when we're talking about inclusive teams, it's a combination of all these tested variables that we've looked at. But what it also does is it lays out a really nice actionable road map for organizations to, you know, kind of develop their own program from that. If I wanna build, you know, an inclusive team, here are some of those areas and those steps that you can, you know, kind of follow to really achieve that goal.
CRISTEN: Exactly. And, you know, Daniel, I think another question that we get a lot on this model is this question of, you know, because we're talking about teams, so individual teams, does does that also translate to a sort of broader scalability? Right? Like, if it's just teams that are practicing this, does that mean the organization is inclusive?
And we actually found in our research that, yes, the answer is that if we practice inclusion on teams or if we see that these inclusive practices are happening on teams, this actually works better than the alternative model, which is more of a top down approach. Right?
So if you kinda think about it, you know, a top down approach would be something like senior leadership says, we wanna be inclusive, and this is how we're gonna do it. Okay. Go and do it. Right? Maybe not necessarily giving much of a road map to their people. Because, unfortunately, as we sort of mentioned at the beginning, inclusion can be one of those things that we want to have, but maybe the way we achieve it is a little bit elusive. Right?
It seems like, I guess the, you know, the question is what's the road map for it? Right? How do we do it?
But when we think about it this way, you know, employees are again, those day to day interactions are what are key. Employees are interacting with the people on their teams every single day.
So, you know, if an employee I guess, think about it this way. Right? If an employee is observing an institutional or organizational message that inclusion is important, but they're not feeling it in their day to day interactions, then if you ask them, is this an inclusive place? They're probably gonna say no. Right?
But if you, if they come to work every day, they feel like they're, the people on their team take their opinion seriously, they feel like, you know, they're able to collaborate openly, make mistakes. They feel that they have a purpose and that everyone on their team is united in a specific purpose, and they just feel that sense of inclusion with the people they talk to on a daily basis. You ask them, you know, does this feel like an an inclusive organization? They're, in that case, they are probably going to say yes. Right?
So, you know, even though we're talking about inclusion at the team level, it really does scale up because if you have employees working on inclusive teams, that reflects well on the organization as a whole because their daily experience of interacting with people in the workplace is a positive one, is is an experience that makes them feel included.
And so, you know, that being said, we also, of course, have stats that that back this up. Right? You know, so when we ask that question, what exactly is the impact on organizations when teams feel inclusive to employees?
This table right here in front of us, shows the impact on sort of a slew of outcomes when teams are inclusive. So for example, when teams feel inclusive to employees, they have increased odds of valuing organizational safety rules. So, again, something that doesn't necessarily apply at the team level. This is talking about the organization as a whole. Right?
They also have increased odds that they'll feel that a company's policies and procedures, that those are valuable.
Also have a more positive perception that their organizations, which oftentimes you know, this also includes senior leaders as kind of representatives of the organization. They have a more positive perception that they're making smart decisions about the future and that their organizations are financially healthy. So it really does scale up. The data tells us that inclusive teams really make a difference at the organizational level.
DANIEL: Yeah, and I really like this. And then to your point, this really is a great example, again, of how those inclusive practices really scale up. But this also has me wondering, what is the role of direct leaders in fostering inclusive team practices?
CRISTEN: Yeah. That's a great question, Daniel. And, you know, inclusive teams can exist in theory separate from a leader who's practicing inclusive behaviors. But if leaders really adopt these behaviors, it just makes the positive outcome soar. So, for example, when leaders model the inclusive behaviors that we just outlined, employees are thirty four times more likely to take up those behaviors themselves.
DANIEL: Yeah. That is an astronomical number and very striking. And, clearly, the importance of leaders can't be overstated here. And, obviously, that's a message you're hearing throughout this related to all of these different topics.
But I'm also wondering, if there are any leaders out there listening. They might be saying them to themselves, okay. This all sounds great, but, where do I start? What's step one?
So where's the best place to start when it comes to supporting inclusion on teams?
What would be your advice based on our research?
CRISTEN: Yeah. That's a great question. And I think it's a very fair question given that, you know, the model includes a handful of different things. And, you know, within each of those words is a number of different behaviors. Right? So my advice is that this actually is, to not actually be overwhelmed by the model because it really is, it can it's a lot more simpler than it seems.
My advice is just to start where you are. You know? Look at that model. Think to yourself, which of these characteristics seem the most attainable? Where are we closest? And I say that because even though I, you know, in a perfect world, we would see all of these things on all of our teams all of the time, even just focusing on one can make a difference.
So if we look at this table here, you know, here, what we're looking at is the impact of the separate components of the index on different outcomes. And this is an amended version of a table that appears in the report as well.
So as you can see, you know, each of the components separately have an impact on things like innovation, trust, organizational reputation, and great work. So, you know, for example, if we just look at one of them. So one of the ones that I really like is and I think is one that hopefully is a good place to start if you feel like none of these are present on the team is just goals and purpose. Right?
So when employees feel like they are united around a common goal or common goals and that those goals are serving a larger purpose for the organization, they have five times increased odds that they're gonna see their organization as innovative, that they're going they're going to have six times increased odds that they trust their organization, seven times increased odds that they feel the organization is respected in the industry, and they're also seven times more, they have seven times increased odds of putting their best work forward.
And you can kind of look at the chart, the sort of, I won't read the entire chart, but you can sort of see that no matter which of the five elements you choose, each of them by itself actually moves the needle.
So my advice is, you know, if you can only focus on one of these, you can still make a difference. So don't be overwhelmed. You know? Just start somewhere.
Just starting where you are is a good place to start.
DANIEL: Well and, you know, I love that because, again, so much of what we do, it's just, there is no escaping the fact that leaders just play a critical role within organizations, within the health of an organization.
But I like that what you know, with this model, we're not saying, okay. You've gotta master it all before you're gonna see, you know, positive outcomes. But what is also striking here too, and this also speaks to the strength of how this model is constructed, all of these elements are interconnected. And so, you know, again, to Cristen's point, even just starting with one of these, you're going to, you're gonna see it naturally start to lead into moving into some of the other ones.
So for example, with emotional intelligence, you know, if you start, you know, if you feel like as a leader, you might more naturally have some of those capabilities and behaviors kind of dialed in a little bit, what's also gonna start happening as a result is part of that emotional intelligence also may, also makes you more aware of and sensitive to the voice of the people on your teams. And so that's gonna naturally lead to some of those practices. So, again, yeah, I think that's great advice, Cristen. You know, start somewhere.
Pick one where you think you've got that strength and that ability, and it's gonna naturally start kind of a domino effect to help you really start embracing and putting into practice the other the other principles.
CRISTEN: Well, thank you, Daniel. But I do think, you know, one last piece of advice I can give, maybe if you, if you're still unsure, is that if you've got a recognition program, this is actually another way to promote those inclusive behaviors.
So, you know, just to give you an example, when organizations have integrated recognition and so at O.C. Tanner, when we say integrated recognition, we're really just referring to this question of is recognition baked into the everyday culture of the organization? If it is, then we call that integrated recognition. So when that is the case, it increases the odds that employees will practice all components of the model. And you can kinda see on the table here how integrated recognition bolsters the, basically, the odds that there's going to be these inclusive team, these inclusive behaviors present on the team.
DANIEL: Yeah. I love this. But one thing I'm still wondering about here is the business case for inclusion. So, you know, in reality, there still might be some out there who are skeptical of putting the resources needed into fostering inclusion, especially in a time when everyone is overworked and overstressed. And, I mean, let's be honest, budgets are tight as well.
They may ask, is it really worth it, or is it just nice to have? Can we go without it for the time being?
CRISTEN: Yeah. Those are important points to address, I think. Right? And, you know, it goes way back to the sort of intro to this webinar where, you know, we talked about the times are a little bit tough for different reasons. Right? And I'm sure many of you listening are feeling that.
But that being said, you know, there's a clear case to be made, I think, that we should support inclusion because it's the right thing to do. But this is also the business world we're talking about. And, you know, luckily, when it comes to inclusion, there's not just cultural, but there's also real business ROI reasons to put forth the effort to encouraging inclusive practices.
So, you know, just to kinda give you an example, this is a quote from one of our focus groups in, in Los Angeles that I think really illustrates why inclusion is something that's not just a nice to have, but something that can actually, set you apart from the competition.
So this participant, said, "I work for a retail company, and we sell to everyone. It doesn't matter what you look like. So I think having a diverse group of people running it, meaning the company, and group meetings where everyone has different ideas and everyone is trying to sell to the different type of customers, it benefits the bottom line."
So, you know, this quote's really making the point that in this organization, you know, they've got a diverse group of customers, and the more people that they can get in the room sort of, trying to figure out how to make customers love their product, the better their outcomes are probably going to be from a business standpoint.
Right? So inclusion, inclusion just makes sense.
DANIEL: Absolutely. No. It's a great point, Cristen. Inclusion really is not only what employees want, but it also just makes sense from a business ROI standpoint.
CRISTEN: Right. And I think it's important to share the business case too because, you know, depending on the industry, there might be some skepticism or questioning of whether inclusion is really necessary or whether it's just a nice to have. Right?
But, you know, in our work and the work of other scholars for, and this is actually not just necessarily recent. We've been finding this for years now. You know, there's a clear case that inclusion just makes sense from both a cultural standpoint and a business standpoint. You know, your people feel better when they're part of an inclusive culture, and inclusive, organizations that have inclusive cultures routinely outperform the competition.
And, you know, not to mention, when employees believe their teams are not inclusive, there are real tangible costs to this. So as you can see in this table right here, you know, the odds of anxiety and burnout increase for individual employees, while perceptions of things like trust, financial health, and confidence that the organization produces quality products plummet.
So, really, across the board, you know, we see increases in things we don't wanna see increases in and decreases in things that we, want to see increases in. Right? We see more negative outcomes when inclusion is just not present on teams.
DANIEL: Yeah. Really, it's really important too that we not only, I mean, first and foremost, we wanna highlight all the positive outcomes that happen when these changes are made and these things are implemented. But, you know, this kind of data, it really makes it pretty clear that organizations, you know, they avoid inclusion at their own risk. There are genuine real costs, when inclusion is sidelined.
CRISTEN: Yeah. Exactly.
And so I think I may have said something a little, like decreases and things we don't wanna see do. But, anyway, you get the point of what I was saying, everyone. Just had to point that out.
DANIEL: We know what you're talking about.
CRISTEN: Okay. Cool.
Alright. So bracketing all of that, you know, I think it's time, I wanna share before we kinda move on to kinda wrap all of this up. I do wanna share an example of an organization that's really committed to putting the work in when it comes to building an inclusive organizational culture. And, you know, one organization that is just doing a really great job putting all these ideas into practice is ICF.
So valuing differences at ICF has always been important. But a few years ago, the VP of talent and organizational development, Liz Janssen, and her leadership team proactively saw the need to become more intentional, not with programs, but with purpose in order to embed inclusive behaviors into everything they do.
So the key to her team translating this strategy into daily behaviors was by focusing on their leaders, you know, which is, as you can, probably have gathered from this whole conversation so far, it was a really smart strategy. So as their leaders modeled and practiced inclusive behaviors, it had a positive contagious effect on the rest of the organization.
And here's just some of the things that ICF did to support inclusion.
You know, first, they started by setting clear expectations for what inclusive leadership looks like for all of their people managers.
And not just that, they built tools to help and guide them. So for example, they introduced a baseline training for new managers and built a people manager playbook, which you can you can kinda see on the slide here.
And this playbook had practical tools for things like inviting feedback, fostering psychological safety, and prioritizing employee well-being and flexibility.
So then as teams became more inclusive across their daily interactions, ICF expanded on another key lever, which is recognition. So they introduced a belonging spotlight to spark cross team connection, encourage caregiving, and amplify the power of leader and peer to peer recognition.
And in the process, they also created custom ecards as part of their You Matter recognition platform that reinforced inclusive behaviors they wanted to see in daily interactions. So messages like, you know, your voice opened the door for mine. Your support made a huge difference. You know, you made me feel like I'm part of the team. So, really, you know, speaking of playbooks, what they are doing at ICF is kind of following the playbook of what we're finding in our research too.
DANIEL: Oh, this is I mean, it's absolutely inspiring in terms of their commitment to really putting the ideas behind how to build inclusion into actual practice at every level.
CRISTEN: I agree. And, you know, they've really done an impressive job when it comes to embedding inclusion into just the natural flow of of day to day work. Really, I can't think of a better example, honestly.
So, okay. Believe it or not, we have reached the recommendation section of our presentation. You know, now that we've taken you through both of those chapters, I think it's time to talk about actionable insights.
So the first recommendation that we have is to foster a workplace environment where employees can find inspiration. So if you remember from earlier in this webinar, you know, we found in general throughout all our report chapters this year that employees' social interactions are critical in determining their experiences at work.
You know, are they feeling inspired or not? Are they feeling that their organizations and leaders are transparent or not? Are they feeling that sense of inclusion, or is it missing?
So here's a slide that we also shared in our last webinar too, but I think it applies here as well, so I wanted to share it again. You know, when we look at the top sources of inspiration for employees, we found that although variation does exist, you know, people are finding inspiration in all sorts of different places, employees are most often looking for inspiration from other people. You know, whether it's a leader, a coworker, just their colleagues on their team. While employees can find inspiration elsewhere, like I said, by and large, they're most often looking to the people around them to help spark that inspiration.
Inspiration is all about those meaningful human interactions. Make sure that those interactions are supported at work. Right? And as we talked about throughout this whole webinar, you know, those interactions are not just key for inspiration, but they're also key for transparency and inclusion too.
So make sure that you give employees the opportunity to have those meaningful interactions just every day.
DANIEL: Okay. So our second recommendation, first and foremost, leaders need to communicate with their employees openly and often. As we discussed earlier, employees want leaders to share, not only information, but also explain how that information impacts their roles, their work, and their place within the company.
And, again, this is particularly critical right now where so much is changing in how we work, where we work, just at every every level. And so we're seeing changes happening in real time for organizations, and employees need that sort of security, that sense of connection, and that really, that feeling connected to others' purpose, and sort of a bigger vision for an organization.
Next, you wanna build transparency into workplace processes.
Organizations should prioritize integrating transparent practices into their leadership training, decision making procedures, team building activities, and their cultural initiatives.
And lastly, leverage employee recognition to amplify the effects of transparency. It goes without saying that, you know, while focusing on transparency in the four key areas we've discussed today, is going to improve cultural measures, and as you can see here, including talent magnets, like purpose, opportunity, and success. Our research shows that adding integrated recognition, and as we've mentioned, that's a recognition that's embedded daily, an embedded daily part of the employee experience. It actually can double or even triple the impact that employees experience.
CRISTEN: Thanks, Daniel. And last but not least, when it comes to inclusion, we recommend focusing on cultivating inclusion at the team level through those five sets of practices, emotional intelligence, voice, goals and purpose, learning. And, you know, in addition, make sure that leaders understand their critical role in bringing inclusion to life. Right?
So it's not just that employees, you know, are kinda left to their own devices, but how the leaders are modeling inclusion really is making a difference, how and if they're modeling it. Right?
So here's another table from the report that highlights the important role of leaders. You know, when leaders practice those inclusive behaviors, employees are not only more likely to practice inclusion themselves, but they're more likely to rate their team higher on measures like morale, understanding, innovation, and conflict management, which, you know, are not unimportant factors here.
DANIEL: Absolutely. And from this table, I think it's pretty clear that we should remember that leaders are an important part of the team too, And how they approach the topic of inclusion increases the likelihood that inclusion will be achieved on teams and the individual team members will feel that sense of inclusion.
Okay. Now let's see if we can wrap all of this up with just a few key takeaways.
Always fun.
So breaking it down simply, first, employees' daily interactions are important.
Something that definitely needs to be prioritized and kept front of mind.
Second, greater transparency helps employees feel informed and valued and gives them a strong sense of belonging.
And lastly, inclusion works best when it's supported by key practices happening at the team level.
And that brings us to the end of our main presentation. We have a few minutes left here to take some questions. Raven, do we have any questions from our viewers today?
You know, no questions coming through as of yet. We did have a request for the ICF playbook, and I thought that might be a great idea for some content, partnered content down the road even though we don't have that to share today.
I will take just a second to let this audience know about our brand new podcast called Culture by Design, and Cristen and Daniel will actually be on it soon discussing our upcoming State of Employee Recognition Report. So we'll just encourage everybody here to to check it out wherever they listen to their podcasts.
CRISTEN: Oh, this is actually pretty exciting because we have not said much about the upcoming State of Employee Recognition Report yet. So by attending this webinar, you're getting a little sneak peek that something exciting is coming.
DANIEL: Absolutely. Absolutely. Lot of great data, great insights and data that will be in that. So, yeah, definitely excited to share that.
Okay. Well, in that case, we can give a few minutes back to you. But what I will point out for additional insights and a deeper dive into the research, please feel free to download the entire global culture report at octanner.com.
And thank you for attending.
You'll see here are the program codes for SHRM and HRCI. Please, again, check out the the GCR, and a lot of the other great IP insights and research out on octanner.com, and we, look forward to seeing you next time.
CRISTEN: Yeah. Thanks, everyone. Like Daniel said, I guess I'll just reiterate. Keep your eyes on octanner.com and on that space because we've got exciting content there, exciting content coming up, and 2026 is gonna be just an exciting year when it comes to all of the things that we have coming out. So, yeah, again, keep your eyes on the space, and thanks for coming today, everyone.
