What Most Cultures Are Missing

Many companies strive to create compelling cultures and employer brands but frequently overlook essential elements that can diminish the impact of their efforts. The success of your culture goes deeper than communication—it’s about aligning actions and creating experiences and narratives that truly connect with employees.

Having worked with many organizations to build inspiring cultures and employer brands, we’ve identified the elements most likely to be overlooked and how you can employ them to strengthen your culture.

1. Bookends to Corporate Strategy: Purpose & Behaviors
Most organizations have a mission, vision and values, however, many overlook what we call “the missing bookends”—purpose and behaviors. Purpose gives meaning to the work people do, while behaviors clearly state how each person within the organization must act to uphold your values daily. While mission, vision and values are critical, alone they can be inert—living primarily in posters on the walls. Purpose offers a compelling reason for employees to want to associate with your company. It draws people together and inspires action. As a part of a full set of Foundational Statements, behaviors bring your purpose and values to life for others.

2. A Vision of What You Want for Employees
It is common for leaders in an organization to focus solely on defining what they expect from employees—like hitting targets or driving innovation—while overlooking the importance of defining what they want for their employees. Creating a culture that truly engages requires more than setting expectations; it involves setting intentions for the types of experiences and specific outcomes you want for employees. It involves painting a vivid picture of what employees stand to gain from their time with your organization. When clearly articulated, actively measured, and consistently attended to, “what they can expect from you” creates a supportive environment that allows employees to see “what’s in it for them.” This builds trust and drives both individual and organizational success.

3. Experiences That Support Communications
Communicating your message is important, but it’s not enough. For what you say to become real, it must be reflected in each decision you make and action you take as an organization. In other words, employees’ experiences must align with your words. From recruiting and onboarding to recognition programs and leadership, every touchpoint should embody your employer brand’s promises. Without this alignment, your messages will fall flat and ring untrue for your workforce. To be truly effective and resonate deeply, your culture must be lived, not just communicated.

4. Impact Storytelling
Despite the very success of our species being inextricably linked to our unique ability to tell stories, storytelling is a largely lost art in the business world. The ability of stories to motivate and inspire collective action is precisely what makes them so valuable. Yet, much of today’s organizational communication focuses on performance and goals and fails to capture the power of storytelling and its ability to bring groups of people together to accomplish great things. As a leader, you can have the grandest vision and if you fail to rally others to bring that vision to life, nothing will be accomplished. When you build narratives that focus on the impact of your efforts—how the work touches the lives of the employees, communities, and customers you serve—you connect at a deeper, more emotional level which taps into that power and enables you to rally teams around shared beliefs and drive meaningful change. By building storytelling capacity within your organization, you can transform how people connect with your company and each other, creating compelling narratives that inspire and engage.

5. Moving Employees From Awareness to Advocacy
Too often companies fall victim to the ‘tell them once’ approach to employer branding and culture-building efforts. You cannot relegate your messaging to an announcement at a town hall, a blurb in a newsletter, or a poster in the breakroom and expect change. True cultural transformation is a journey that happens over time through a process we call Awareness to Advocacy. It involves consistently reinforcing the brand intention and message at every stage—from awareness to understanding, connection, belief, engagement, loyalty, and finally advocacy. It’s a long-term commitment that requires ongoing communication, authentic experiences, and strategic engagement.

6. Employing a Top-down and Bottom-up Approach
A successful culture-building effort is leadership-led, middle management-driven, and employee-informed. It must be championed by leaders, but its true momentum comes from empowering middle managers and staying attuned to employees’ perceptions and experiences. While leaders set the tone by aligning around the purpose and vision, it’s the middle managers who bring the culture to life daily, translating it into actions that resonate with employees. For leaders to create a culture that truly connects, they must actively listen to their workforce through feedback loops which could include surveys, ambassadors or focus groups and demonstrate that they have listened to input. This will ensure that the culture reflects the realities, needs and aspirations of employees, creating a culture that’s authentic, aligned and resonant across all levels of the organization.

7. Vigilant Brand Management
Creating a strong foundation for your employer brand is only the beginning; maintaining consistency across all internal communications is essential for impact. While there will be a lot of heavy lifting upfront to bring communications materials into alignment with a new strategy, look and feel, there must be ongoing oversight and management to ensure your employer brand isn’t diluted over time. Every piece of internal communication, whether it’s related to safety, DE&I, or employee benefits, must consistently reflect the employer brand’s positioning. Regularly reviewing and managing these touchpoints ensures that the employer brand remains cohesive and resonates powerfully with employees, preventing mixed messages and maintaining the integrity of your internal brand.

8. Continuous Measurement and Adaptation
A culture isn’t static—it needs ongoing measurement and adaptation to stay relevant and effective. It’s essential to regularly assess how well your messages are resonating with employees through metrics like employee satisfaction surveys, feedback loops, and sentiment analysis. Having your finger on the pulse of how your efforts are landing helps identify areas where communications or experiences might be falling short or where adjustments are needed to better align with your intended desired outcomes and with evolving employee expectations. By continuously measuring and adapting, you ensure your culture remains a powerful tool for engagement, loyalty and advocacy, driving long-term success.

In Conclusion

If your culture feels disjointed, lacks emotional connection, or is failing to create momentum for your most important initiatives, you’re not alone. Many companies struggle with creating a culture that truly inspires and engages. From missing purpose and behavioral bookends to neglecting the employee experience, the gaps are often hidden in plain sight. Addressing these overlooked elements can make all the difference, turning your culture into a powerful force for attraction, engagement and retention.

Ready to relook at your culture or employer brand? Learn more at culture.savagebrands.com/employer-brand