O.C. Tanner Releases 2027 Global Culture Report, Reveals How Organizations Can Amplify People and Connection to Drive Innovation and Productivity

O.C. Tanner, the global leader in employee recognition and workplace culture solutions, released its 2027 Global Culture Report. The ninth annual report examines how organizations can strengthen performance and drive innovation amid rapid technological change, economic uncertainty, and employee skepticism about the future by intentionally amplifying the people and behaviors that already create value.

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Based on data gathered from over 25,000 workers across 23 countries, the report finds that workplace culture acts as an amplifier. While struggling cultures intensify uncertainty and burnout, thriving cultures magnify trust, connection, innovation, purpose, and performance. The research outlines four areas that create these multiplier effects, including embedding organizational compassion into systems and processes, building cultures of growth, practicing active trust, and unlocking employee innovation by recognizing people for sharing ideas throughout the innovation process.

“Organizations are responding to relentless change by asking more of their people, often without strengthening the culture that makes those demands sustainable,” said Dr. Alexander Lovell, Vice President of the O.C. Tanner Institute. “We cannot keep extracting more from employees and expect their capacity to be limitless. Our research points to a better way. People want to contribute, grow, and do work that matters to them and to the organization. When organizations build cultures rooted in compassion, growth, and trust, they amplify what their people are already capable of and create the conditions for greater innovation and performance.”

The research highlights opportunities for organizations to amplify both employee and business performance, with a specific focus on ensuring frontline employees, who often lack the same flexibility and autonomy as their corporate counterparts, are not left behind in these efforts. Key findings include:

• Embed compassion into how the organization operates: Compassion turns into a performance driver when care is built into organizational systems and policies. When organizations have the three pillars of care – a foundation of care, capacity protection, and clear guidelines and boundaries – they see 11x higher odds of organizational growth and innovation. A practice of care is especially critical for frontline employees, and when organizations demonstrate compassion, this employee cohort reports 88% lower odds of burnout.
• Build cultures of growth, not just cultures of learning: Employees are increasingly viewing learning as transactional, and the report reveals that growth cultures create partnerships rather than a one-sided push for greater output. Growth cultures combine empathy, communication, community, support, opportunity, and balance, and when those six elements are present, organizations have 48x higher odds of demonstrating “cultural elasticity,” or the ability to build skills and remain agile when new challenges arise. Frontline workers in particular benefit when their organizations invest in growth and see a 20x increase in their sense of opportunity and a 25x increase in their sense of success.
• The definition of trust at work is evolving: The report finds that trust in the modern workplace goes beyond individual relationships and must be treated as an active pursuit through behaviors and workplace practices. When teams and leaders practice the six elements of active trust – transparency, reliability, accountability, judgement, safety, and care – the odds of company financial stability increase 12x, and employees are 14x more likely to say their organizations care about them. Frontline employees are less likely than their corporate counterparts to trust their leader, but when the six elements of active trust are present, their sense of belonging increases 19x and their odds of believing their leader supports them through periods of change increase 38x.
• Teams unlock innovation when they celebrate ideas, even when they don’t succeed: Innovation happens when employees have the autonomy to think creatively, the psychological safety to share ideas, and the organizational support to act on innovative ideas. When employees are not recognized for trying new things, their odds of thinking creatively drop 93%. Conversely, employees recognized throughout each stage of innovation – thinking, sharing, and acting – are 21x more likely to be innovative.

“The 2027 Global Culture Report makes it clear: organizations don’t have to choose between the wellbeing of their people and high performance, and the most successful workplaces deliberately create the conditions for both,” said Mindi Cox, Chief People and Marketing Officer at O.C. Tanner. “When employees feel trusted, supported in their growth, and recognized for their contributions, they’re more likely to embrace change, innovate, and bring their best to work every day. Organizations that intentionally amplify those experiences, and recognize the people creating them, are better positioned to thrive.”

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