Rethinking Culture: What I heard (and learned) from our webinar
Returning to work recently after maternity leave, has made me reflect even more about the role culture plays in our day to day experience – so it felt particularly timely to be part of our recent webinar: “Rethinking How Organisations Measure & Act on Culture.”
What stood out to me wasn’t just the content we shared, but the level of engagement, challenge and honesty from the audience throughout the session.
Because this isn’t a simple topic – and it’s certainly not a new one.
But it is one that organisations are still wrestling with.
The “measurement gap” is real – and widely felt
One of the core themes we explored was what we call the measurement gap.
Despite more tools, more data and more focus on employee experience than ever before, many organisations are still:
- Over relying on engagement surveys
- Measuring culture too infrequently
- Struggling to fully trust or act on the data they do have
And judging by both our poll results and the chat discussion, this really resonated.
There was a clear sense that while organisations are investing time and effort into understanding culture… they’re not always getting the clarity or confidence they need in return.
You see, it’s not just about listening – it’s about what happens next
One of the most interesting threads in the discussion was around what happens after insight is gathered and several attendees highlighted a familiar challenge:
Employees are willing to share feedback, but they don’t always see meaningful action follow this, and as one participant put it, there’s a growing expectation not just to understand “what people think” – but to clearly communicate “what will be done about it”.
This is where trust is either built… or destroyed.
There was also a strong theme on the webinar around collective accountability… moving beyond leadership only action plans and involving employees more directly in shaping solutions.
Because when people are part of creating change, they’re far more likely to believe in it and sustain it.
Culture needs to be translated into the language of business
Another point that came through strongly was the need to better connect culture to business outcomes.
Several contributors highlighted that “people topics” are still too often seen as a “nice to have”, rather than a core driver of organisational performance.
And this creates a real barrier because if leaders can’t clearly see how culture impacts performance, risk, or growth – it becomes much harder to prioritise or invest in it.
Which is why there’s an increasing push to:
- Link culture to tangible metrics (e.g. retention, performance, absence)
- Frame intelligence and insights in a way that resonates with leadership priorities
- Move from intuition to evidence based decision making
