EP 132: Culture & Engagement - Why It’s the Most Misunderstood Part of HR
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Episode Summary
Culture is not what you say. It’s what you do, consistently, and especially under pressure when things get hard. Culture is the most talked-about and least understood topic in human resources. Everybody wants to speak on it, run leadership workshops about it, and point to the companies with the “fun” cultures. But after 20 years in HR, Kerri isn’t buying it, because a culture problem is almost always a foundation problem in disguise. Before you can talk about psychological safety, perks, and values posters, you have to have clarity, trust, and accountability built into your people operations.
In this episode, Kerri breaks down what culture actually is, the three culture killers quietly wrecking small businesses, what Google’s research says really predicts team performance, and the five things that reliably drive engagement. Plus: how to measure engagement without expensive software, and five things you can do this week to strengthen your culture. You already have a culture, intentional or by default. The only question is whether it’s the one you actually want.
In This Episode
Why culture is the most talked-about and least understood topic in HR, and why the foundation has to come first
The real definition of culture: the sum of every decision you make, every behavior you tolerate, and every standard you hold
The three culture killers quietly wrecking small businesses: favoritism, silence, and tolerating toxic behavior
What Google’s research found actually predicts team effectiveness (hint: it’s not talent, experience, or perks)
The five things that reliably drive engagement: clarity, autonomy, connection, growth, and recognition
What does NOT drive engagement: ping-pong tables, team-building without trust, and surveys with no follow-through
How to measure engagement without expensive software: a 3-question pulse, stay interviews, exit interviews, and manager 1:1s
How culture shows up in your hiring process and in the way you treat people on the way out
Chapter Timestamps
0:00 Culture: the most talked-about, least understood topic in HR
2:20 Foundation, operating systems, and strategy - where culture fits
4:43 Why clarity is kind
7:00 What culture actually is
9:24 Culture is what you do, not what you display
11:34 The three culture killers
16:15 Google’s finding: psychological safety
18:38 What psychological safety is NOT
21:00 How to build psychological safety
25:41 The five drivers of engagement
30:21 What does NOT drive engagement
32:36 Measuring engagement without expensive software
34:46 Five ways to strengthen your culture now
39:20 Culture in hiring and offboarding
41:00 Your action item + resources
Resources Mentioned
The HR Easy Button (book): saltandlightadvisors.com/thehreasybutton - paperback, hardback, and Kindle on Amazon
HR Foundations (course, under $400): saltandlightadvisors.com/hrfoundations
HR Operating System (course): saltandlightadvisors.com/hroperatingsystem
Strategic HR coursework - launching August 2026 at saltandlightadvisors.com/resources
Free HR Audit (5-minute quiz): saltandlightadvisors.com/hraudit
Companion blog post: “Culture Isn’t Ping-Pong Tables: What Actually Builds a Healthy Workplace” - saltandlightadvisors.com/blog
Episodes in the HR Foundations Series
Earlier foundational episodes covered hiring and onboarding, policies and handbooks, performance management, learning and development, time off and leave, compensation and benefits, workforce planning, and manager training.
Culture & Engagement (you’re here)
Systems & Tech - the final episode in the foundational series (coming next week)
Your Action Item
This week, name the one behavior you’re currently tolerating that you know is hurting your culture - the one that’s affecting other people or your team’s trust - and address it. Not next quarter. This week.
GET THE MONDAY EMAIL
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Full Transcript
Culture: the most talked-about, least understood topic in HR
Today I’m talking about a topic that is the most talked about but, in my opinion, the least understood topic when it comes to human resources. I don’t like talking about it, you guys, but we’re talking about it today because it is a part of HR, and that is culture.
There are so many people who want to jump right into talking about culture. We’re doing leadership talks on culture. We want to be speakers on culture. We just want to talk about culture, culture, culture all the time. And I would say, as a 20-year HR pro, I’m not having it and I’m not buying it. Culture is not the thing that I want to talk about. If you’ve got the foundation built inside of your organization, and you have trust and clarity and that business foundation built, which is the HR foundation, then talk about culture. But jumping right in and talking about culture, and having people do speaking engagements about culture, to me is kind of laughable if you don’t have the HR foundation built.
Foundation, operating systems, and strategy - where culture fits
This is the reason I’m doing this episode toward the tail end of this foundational HR series. I only have one more episode in this series, and it’s about systems and tech. We’ve talked about everything when it comes to what I call cradle-to-grave HR foundation: hiring and onboarding, policies, handbooks, performance management, learning and development, time off and leave management, compensation, benefits, workforce planning, manager training, all of it. Because to me, all of those things are doing the most. They’re building your culture. They are your culture.
They come to me because they have a cultural issue. And I ask first: Do we have job descriptions? What’s the posting look like? How are we onboarding these people? Do they have clear expectations? What about your policies and accountability? Most of the time when there’s a cultural issue and I bring it back to the foundation, I learn there are major gaps in that area. So you’ve got the foundations, then the operational systems where we live every day, and then the strategic pieces. Culture and engagement fit in those strategic pieces. But you’ve got to have the foundation, then the operational pieces, and then we get to the strategy. That’s why I wrote three books, and I build them in order, because if you don’t know where the guidelines are, how are you expecting your employees to be so grateful about the happy hour when they feel like they’re not paid adequately and there’s favoritism in the workplace?
Why clarity is kind
Welcome back to another episode of Don’t Waste the Chaos. I’m your host, Kerri Roberts. I’ve been doing this HR thing for over 20 years. I didn’t get into human resources because I think it’s the end-all, be-all. I just saw that people in HR were making decisions, and where I was at the time, I felt like they were making wild decisions, or not making decisions in a timely manner, or not providing clarity. So what I do with organizations I partner with, and what I did in corporate for 20 years, is just be clear.
Brene Brown says clarity is kind, and I totally agree. And you know what that actually is? It’s psychological safety. Culture is not what you say, it’s what you do. And it’s not only what you do; it’s what you do with consistency, and it’s what you do under pressure when things get really hard, because that’s when those default operating systems kick in. Today we’re going to talk about what culture actually is, how to measure engagement without a fancy survey platform, and specific things that can build or destroy both culture and engagement.
What culture actually is
Culture is the sum of every decision you make, every behavior you tolerate, and every standard you hold in your business, repeated over time until it becomes “how we do things around here.” One of the things I did as a director at a mortgage company was write out all the unspoken rules of the team. When a new hire came in, why would I want them to take six months to figure out how to operate here? So we say the hard thing. Sometimes the hard thing brings a little conflict, but if you handle conflict well, that’s a relationship builder. That’s a trust builder. That is what culture is.
Culture is what you do, not what you display
Culture is how you’re actually operating, not the shiny thing you put outside, not the job description that shows what a fun place you are to work but has no pay bands on it. How you show up in the marketplace, how you show up as an employer, that’s your culture. Culture is not your values poster. If you’re living by your values, then they’re part of your culture. But a values poster is just pretty. It’s not your perks and benefits, and it’s not how you feel about your team; it’s how your team feels about being there. Culture is how conflict is handled when it happens. It’s whether feedback is safe to give and whether it’s received. It’s whether accountability is applied consistently or selectively. It’s how new people are welcomed and integrated. It’s what behaviors get rewarded, both formally and informally. And it’s what happens when somebody makes a mistake. That’s your culture.
The three culture killers
There are three culture killers I see in most small businesses. The first is favoritism. I’m not talking about spending more time with one person than another. I’m talking about different rules, or a lack of rules, applied to different people. Say you’ve got one manager who’s more flexible and says yes more often, and another who’s more of a no person. Different rules or a lack of rules for different people is favoritism, and it destroys trust faster than anything else I’ve seen. People start to think you like other people better, and sometimes it’s literally just because those people asked.
The second is silence. I’m talking about leaders who don’t communicate. They leave vacuums that get filled with rumors, gossip, and anxiety. Some owners tell me, “We don’t like to spell all that out because we want the flexibility to bless our people.” But what happens is you end up blessing the squeaky wheels, and the consistent worker bees don’t get blessed. So communicate as much as you possibly can. When you don’t, your silence is killing people.
The third culture killer I see a ton is tolerance of toxic behavior. Because we don’t have the foundations built, and it’s hard to hire and hard to retain, we end up kind of held hostage by our employees. So we tolerate some toxic behaviors. One person who treats others poorly and faces consequences, versus another who treats people poorly and faces none, tells your whole team what you really value, or who you really value. It could even come across as discrimination. So: favoritism, silence, and tolerance of toxic behavior. Every time you tolerate a behavior that violates your stated values, you teach your team that the values are decorative.
Google’s finding: psychological safety
Google spent two years studying what makes teams effective. The single biggest predictor was not talent, experience, or compensation. It was psychological safety, whether people felt safe to speak up, take risks, and make mistakes without punishment. Can they bring their full self to work? Can they give you feedback without you taking it personally? What they found was that psychological safety, not ping-pong tables, is the biggest factor in a healthy culture. So here’s what psychological safety looks like in a small business: Employees bring problems to you before a crisis happens. People disagree in meetings, and that’s okay. Mistakes are openly discussed. And new ideas are heard, even if they’re a little impractical.
What psychological safety is NOT
It does not mean there’s no accountability, that’s actually a poor culture. You can have high safety and high standards. It doesn’t mean everybody gets along all the time. Healthy conflict is a sign of safety, not a problem. And it doesn’t mean the leader is always agreeable. Candor is part of safety too. The leader does not always have to be agreeable.
How to build psychological safety
The first thing you do is model it yourself. Make a mistake, admit it. Be the first to offer up that you made a mistake. And respond well when people bring you bad news. How you respond in that moment dictates whether they’ll bring you a mistake again. It’s the same as with your kids. Separate the person from the problem. “The idea didn’t work” is much healthier than “You failed at this project.” And follow through. If you ask for input and then ignore it, you cause major problems and people stop giving it. Don’t survey for engagement if you’re not going to discuss what you learned and put an action plan in place.
The five drivers of engagement
Gallup has been measuring engagement for decades, and only about 30% of employees are actively engaged. The actively disengaged are the most expensive people in your organization. Here are the five things that most reliably drive engagement. First, clarity. People have to know what’s expected, how they’re doing, and where they stand. This is the number one most reliable driver. Second, autonomy. Ownership over how they do their work, not just what they do. Third, connection. They feel part of the team and part of a mission that matters. If you’re not a nonprofit, you have to attach the individual to the objectives and goals. Fourth, growth. They see a path forward, not a dead end. Even simple level one, level two, level three criteria within a role make the next step real. Fifth, recognition. It’s whether they feel seen, valued, and appreciated specifically, not generically. Not “I love what everyone is doing,” but “Sarah, you’re knocking it out of the park on this client, and here’s the impact.”
What does NOT drive engagement
Ping-pong tables and free food, nice to have, but never a substitute. Team-building events, meaningful only if the team already trusts each other. And annual surveys with no follow-through. The fastest way to destroy trust is to ask people for feedback and then not act on it.
Measuring engagement without expensive software
You don’t need expensive software to start. First, a three-question pulse survey you run quarterly on a five-point scale: Do you feel valued? Do you have what you need to do your job? And, also known as your Net Promoter Score, would you recommend working here? Second, stay interviews. Ask your best people, before they think about leaving, why they stay. Third, exit interviews. If you do them, you’ll find trend data you can act on. Fourth, manager one-on-ones. Meet with every direct report at least once a month, and don’t push those meetings.
Five ways to strengthen your culture now
You cannot not have a culture. The question is whether it’s the one you want. Name what you actually value, not aspirational things, but behavioral ones. If your value statements don’t help you hire, discipline, manage performance, and clarify terminations, they aren’t very good. Recognize a person very specifically. Address a behavior you’ve been avoiding that contradicts your values. Share something real with your team, a business update, because in the absence of information we fill in the blanks with rumors, gossip, and anxiety. Transparency builds trust. And ask that stay-interview question: “What’s keeping you here? What would make your work more meaningful?” Then listen without being defensive.
Culture in hiring and offboarding
Be honest in job postings about what it’s actually like to work here. Ask values-based interview questions. One of my favorites: “Tell me about a time you disagreed with your manager or the direction of the company, and what you did.” And let candidates meet the team. Include a couple of teammates in the interview process. And how you treat people on the way out, your employees are watching. Whatever you call your organization, how you treat people on the way out the door, even if that employee was a real jerk, tells the people still inside that you’ll treat them with kindness and respect too.
Culture is not an initiative and it’s not a committee. It’s how you show up, day in and day out, even when it’s hard. Get the decisions right, and get them right consistently, and you’ll have a culture that takes care of itself. So here’s your action item: What’s one behavior you’re tolerating right now that you know you shouldn’t be, because it’s hurting your culture and hurting other people? Address it this week. You as an employer, what you’re doing really matters. I know it’s hard. But this work is worth it. So don’t waste the chaos, embrace it, friends. I’ll see you next week.
Resources To Keep Building
If your team keeps hitting the same culture snags, take the free HR Audit to see whether your people foundation is actually built to support the culture you want. Take it at saltandlightadvisors.com/hraudit
🎯 Take the free HR Audit - Score your HR systems in 5 minutes and see exactly where your gaps are. saltandlightadvisors.com/hraudit
🎙️ Listen to Don’t Waste the Chaos - This episode, plus more at the show feed.
📚 Explore the HR coursework - Self-paced courses, tools, and resources to build your HR systems step by step. saltandlightadvisors.com/resources
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