The CEO Says One Thing, The Engagement Scores Say Another

A contact called me this morning. They’d just watched their Chief Executive being interviewed in the media talking about how people are their greatest asset and culture is what will make the business successful.

Their engagement scores tell a very different story. Starkly. It is a damaging gap.

I know this particular business well. It’s highly operational. Tight margins. Fast paced. New teams, new systems and a very clear commercial goal. In my experience, a business like this shouldn’t try to be warm and cuddly. Nobody expects that and frankly nobody believes it.

You don’t have to be a people-first business to treat your people well. And you certainly don’t have to claim to be something you’re not. In my experience, when leaders say one thing and people live another, the damage is swift and significant.

Few things will make people leave faster. And the ones who stay stop caring. That’s when the customer feels it.

Here’s something I’ve observed consistently over more than twenty years. The best employers rarely shout about the fact that they are. Their engagement scores speak for themselves. Their reputation precedes them. Their people stay, grow and bring others with them.

In my experience, the organisations that shout loudest about their culture and their people are almost always speaking aspirationally. They’re describing where they want to be, not where they are. And that gap destroys the trust of their people.

Culture isn’t something you just claim. It’s something you build, deliberately, consistently and honestly. Aligned to your strategy, your commercial reality and the genuine experience of the people who show up every day to make it work.

If there’s a gap between what your leadership says and what your people feel, that gap has a cost. It shows up in recruitment. In retention. In customer experience. And eventually, in the numbers.

The question worth asking is simple. If your people were interviewed tomorrow about what it’s really like to work here, would their answers match your Chief Executive’s?