Our survey of more than 1,170 managers and employees, across a range of UK organisations, reveals that only 18% of employees feel their organisation's stated values are strongly aligned to the reality of its culture.
We have a cultural alignment problem: a gap between espoused values and the reality experienced by employees in terms of ‘how we do things around here’.
Read more: Workplace culture: values matter
Why is this a problem? Cultural misalignment is a hidden threat to organisations in several ways. For example, corporate values are often used as a tool to attract new employees. However, when those values are not embedded within culture, this soon becomes a retention issue when new colleagues realise, disappointingly, that the contents don’t match the label.
Misalignment also means that organisations are, inadvertently or not, failing to reap the benefits of their espoused values.
Finally, if the corporate image conveyed externally fails to align with customers’ interactions with the organisation, customer experience is damaged and trust is lost.
Indeed, “an apparent mismatch in many firms between the values espoused by the firm and the way that some employees saw business being done” was identified as a key underlying cause in the UK banking crisis. This triggered amendments to the UK Corporate Governance Code in 2024 (effective 2025) to include that boards should not only assess and monitor culture, but also how the desired culture has been embedded. For many, this is no longer simply desirable, but necessary.
Read more: Brand vs culture – Does it matter?
So what can HR professionals and leaders do to address cultural misalignment in their organisations?
Broadly speaking, there needs to be a shift in the balance of focus placed on defining and communicating corporate values, to that placed on enabling and embedding the behaviours that reflect those values.
More specifically, although culture change is undeniably complex, as a simplified guide, I suggest:
1. Start with the end in mind
Gain clarity on the types of behaviours that need to characterise your culture to enable your organisation’s strategic needs, informed by evidence-based insights.
2. Focus on critical behaviours and practices
Identify the behaviours and practices that will have the biggest impact on the outcomes that matter most.
3. Take a systems approach
Review your systems and processes, including approaches to recruitment, promotion, reward, and performance management, and change any features that undermine or inhibit the behaviours you’re trying to embed.
4. Don’t default to training
Identify whether the barriers to seeing more of the key behaviours identified relate to understanding (e.g. I don’t understand how or even why it’s important), capability (e.g. I’m not confident operating in that way), motivation (e.g. because I’m not rewarded for it, as alluded to in point three), socialisation (e.g. I don’t see influential people around me doing it), or physical factors (e.g. our processes or physical work environment doesn’t facilitate it).
Read more: Why cultural alignment should be HR's priority in 2024
Training is mostly useful in strengthening understanding or capability, but more diverse means are needed to tackle the others.
5. Make it sustainable
Conscious efforts are needed in ongoing communications, both formal and informal, signalling and role-modelling across all levels of the organisation, to reinforce desired changes.
6. Keep going
Culture change never stops. However, you may find that employees are surprisingly receptive to it. In our wide-scale survey, 85% agreed that improving culture would increase their organisation’s value. The majority (59%) indicated cultural evolution, not revolution, is what’s needed.
By Zara Whysall, associate professor of business psychology, Nottingham Business School, NTU