September 24, 2026
The right workplace culture can enhance trust, creativity and performance, report claims
Workplace culture can have a significant impact on employees’ capacity to adapt to change and innovate, according to new polling from O.C. Tanner, which argues that organisations should pay greater attention to compassion, employee development and trust. The firm’s 2027 Global Culture Report, based on data gathered from more than 25,000 workers in 23 countries, claims that organisational culture can act as an “amplifier”, either exacerbating uncertainty and burnout or strengthening employees’ sense of trust, connection and purpose.
The report identifies four areas which O.C. Tanner says are particularly important: embedding compassion in organisational processes; creating opportunities for employee growth; developing what it calls “active trust”; and recognising people for contributing ideas, including those that ultimately prove unsuccessful.
According to the research, organisations which incorporate care into their systems and policies are 11 times more likely to report organisational growth and innovation. Among frontline employees, the presence of what the report describes as organisational compassion is associated with 88 percent lower odds of burnout.
The report also draws a distinction between conventional learning and development programmes and a broader “culture of growth”. O.C. Tanner defines the latter in terms of six factors: empathy, communication, community, support, opportunity and balance.
Where all six are present, the research claims organisations have 48 times higher odds of demonstrating what it calls “cultural elasticity” – their capacity to develop skills and adapt to new challenges. Frontline workers in such organisations were also reported to have a substantially greater sense of opportunity and success.
Trust should similarly be treated as an organisational practice rather than simply a feature of interpersonal relationships, the report argues. It identifies transparency, reliability, accountability, judgement, safety and care as six components of “active trust”.
Where these characteristics are evident, employees are 14 times more likely to believe their organisation cares about them, according to the findings. The research also suggests they can be particularly important for frontline workers, who are less likely than office-based colleagues to report trusting their managers.
The report identifies recognition as another factor in creating the conditions for innovation. Employees who are not recognised for trying new things have 93 percent lower odds of reporting that they think creatively, it claims. Employees recognised across the stages of developing, sharing and acting on ideas are reported to be 21 times more likely to demonstrate innovative behaviours.
Dr Alexander Lovell, Vice President of the O.C. Tanner Institute, said organisations were responding to technological and economic change by demanding more from employees without necessarily addressing the workplace conditions needed to sustain those demands.
“We cannot keep extracting more from employees and expect their capacity to be limitless,” he said. “People want to contribute, grow, and do work that matters to them and to the organisation.”
Robert Ordever, Managing Director Europe at O.C. Tanner, said European employers had made progress on issues such as work-life balance and flexibility, but suggested recognition was being neglected as organisations dealt with economic uncertainty and AI-led transformation. “Organisations that build cultures of growth will strengthen trust, innovation and engagement,” he said.
