When a Company Has a Great Culture on Paper but Employees Don't Feel It

Introduction

Imagine joining a company because its website says things like “respect,” “inclusion,” “teamwork” and “employees come first.” The office looks amazing, there are posters with the company values everywhere and leaders keep talking about the culture. So, you expect the workplace to actually feel like that.

But then you join. Your manager does not listen to you. People are scared to disagree with senior employees. Promotions seem to depend on who you know. Employees talk about one set of rules, while managers behave according to another set. So, suddenly you realise that the culture written on the wall and the culture you experience every day are not the same.

This is one of the biggest problems with organisational culture. A company can have beautiful values written in its employee handbook, but culture is not created by words alone. It is created by what people see, experience and learn every day.

So, HR needs to ask a slightly uncomfortable question: Does our culture actually exist in the employee experience, or does it only exist in our presentations?

Problem

The problem starts when there is a gap between stated culture and lived culture. The company may say that it values fairness, but employees may see favouritism. It may say that employees should speak up, but people may stay quiet because they are scared of the manager. It may say that innovation is important, but employees may be punished when an experiment fails.

So, employees start learning that the official values are not necessarily the real rules. They learn the real culture by watching what happens to people who challenge a manager, make mistakes, ask for flexibility or report a problem.

This can become an HR problem very quickly. Employees may become less engaged, stop sharing ideas, avoid raising concerns or start looking for another job. New employees can also become confused because what they were told during onboarding does not match what they experience after joining.

The company may still have a great culture statement. But if employees do not believe it, the statement has very little meaning.

Analysis of the Problem

This is where Edgar Schein's Organisational Culture Model becomes very useful. Schein explains culture through three levels: artifacts, espoused values and basic underlying assumptions. Artifacts are the visible things we can see. Espoused values are what the organisation says it believes in. Basic underlying assumptions are the deeper beliefs that actually guide behaviour.

So, imagine a company has posters saying “Speak Up.” That is an espoused value. If employees can actually challenge managers without being punished, the value is becoming part of the real culture. But if everyone stays quiet because people who speak up get ignored or punished, the deeper assumption may actually be, “Do not challenge senior people.”

This is why employee experience matters. Employee experience is basically what employees actually go through during their time at the organisation. It includes things like recruitment, onboarding, manager behaviour, performance reviews, promotion, rewards, communication and even leaving the organisation.

Another important concept is the culture gap. This is the difference between the culture the organisation says it has and the culture employees actually experience. A small gap may happen in almost every organisation. A large gap is a problem because employees start believing that management's words cannot be trusted.

There is also the idea of behavioural reinforcement. Employees learn what behaviour is really valued by watching what gets rewarded and what gets punished. So, if a company says teamwork matters but only rewards individual sales numbers, employees will quickly understand what really matters.

This connects culture directly to HR systems. Recruitment, performance management, promotions, rewards and leadership development all send messages about what the organisation actually values. So, HR cannot fix culture only by changing the values page on the website.

Real-Life Case: Uber's Culture Problem

A strong real-life example is Uber in 2017. At the time, Uber was growing extremely quickly, but serious questions were being raised about its workplace culture. Former employee Susan Fowler published a detailed account describing what she said happened when she reported sexual harassment and problems with how complaints were handled. Her post received widespread attention and led to further questions about Uber's internal culture.

Uber's Board then hired Covington & Burling to conduct an independent investigation into the allegations and broader workplace issues. In June 2017, Uber's Chief Human Resources Officer announced that the Board had unanimously approved the investigation's recommendations. Uber said the changes were intended to improve its culture, fairness and accountability and rebuild trust with employees.

The case is interesting from an HR perspective because Uber already had cultural ideas and values. The issue was that having values was not enough. The organisation needed systems and leadership behaviour that actually supported those values.

In fact, Uber's current cultural norms say things such as “We celebrate differences,” “We do the right thing,” and “We value ideas over hierarchy.” Its current materials also describe an environment where people should be able to contribute and grow.

So, the lesson from the 2017 crisis is not that having values is useless. It is that values need to appear in everyday behaviour and HR systems. If a company says that people should speak up, employees need a safe way to speak up. If it says people should be treated fairly, complaints need to be handled fairly. If it says different opinions are welcome, managers need to actually listen to different opinions.

HR Theories, Frameworks and Concepts Reflected in the Problem

The first and most important framework is Schein's three levels of culture. The first level is artifacts, which are the visible things employees see. This can include office design, language, rituals, policies and company events. The second level is espoused values, which are what the company says it believes in. The third level is basic underlying assumptions, which are the deeper beliefs employees learn about how things really work.

So, if a company has posters saying “Employees First,” those posters are an artifact. The statement “employees come first” is an espoused value. But if employees learn that hitting business targets is always more important than employee wellbeing, that becomes part of the deeper assumption.

The second concept is culture alignment. A healthy culture needs some connection between what leaders say, what HR systems reward and what managers actually do. If these three things are sending completely different messages, employees will follow what they see happening in real life.

The third concept is employee experience. Culture is not something employees experience only during a company event. It appears in small moments. How does the manager react when someone makes a mistake? How easy is it to ask for help? How are promotions decided? What happens when someone reports a problem?

The fourth concept is behavioural reinforcement. Employees watch what gets rewarded, promoted and recognised. So, if a company wants collaboration, it needs to reward collaboration. If it wants ethical behaviour, employees should not be pressured to break rules to hit targets.

The fifth concept is culture carriers. Managers are major culture carriers because employees experience the organisation mainly through the people they work with every day. Senior leaders can announce ten new values, but if the immediate manager behaves differently, employees are likely to believe the manager's behaviour.

The sixth concept is HR system alignment. Recruitment, onboarding, performance management, rewards and promotion should all send similar cultural messages. Otherwise, employees receive mixed signals about what the organisation really values.

Solution Using HR Theories, Frameworks and Concepts

The first step is to understand the real culture before trying to change it. HR should not simply ask employees, “Do you like our company values?” That can give very positive answers without showing what actually happens. Instead, HR should ask questions like, “What happens when someone disagrees with their manager?” or “What behaviour gets people promoted here?”

This connects directly to Schein's model. HR needs to look beyond the visible artifacts and written values and understand the deeper assumptions guiding behaviour. Basically, HR needs to find out what employees believe they have to do to succeed.

The second step is an employee experience audit. HR can map the employee journey from recruitment to exit and look for places where the promised culture and actual experience are different. For example, if the company says it values learning but employees have no time for development, there is a clear gap.

The third step is to align HR systems with cultural values. If the company values teamwork, performance reviews should include teamwork. If it values ethical behaviour, employees should not be rewarded for results achieved through unethical methods. If it values inclusion, promotion and hiring processes should support that goal.

The fourth step is to focus on managers as culture carriers. Managers need to understand that culture is not only an HR responsibility. They create culture every day through their decisions, communication and reactions. So, manager training should use real situations rather than just giving managers another presentation about company values.

The fifth step is to create ways for employees to give honest feedback. Surveys, listening sessions, confidential reporting channels and employee discussions can help HR understand whether culture is actually changing. But there is one important point: HR has to do something with the feedback. If employees speak up and nothing happens, they may stop speaking up.

Finally, HR should measure the gap over time. Employee engagement, retention, internal mobility, promotion patterns, complaint data and feedback can help HR understand whether the culture is becoming more consistent with the company's stated values.

Actual Solution Implemented at Uber

After the 2017 culture crisis, Uber did not simply publish a new values poster. The Board accepted recommendations from the independent Covington & Burling investigation. Uber said the recommendations were designed to improve culture, fairness and accountability and create processes and systems to prevent similar problems from happening again.

Uber also introduced changes to how employees could raise concerns. Its current Ethics and Compliance programme encourages employees to “Stand up, Speak up,” and its Integrity Helpline allows reports to be made through an independent third party, including anonymously in most languages. Uber also states that retaliation for good-faith reporting is not allowed.

The company also made cultural values more connected to employee behaviour. Uber's current cultural norms include ideas such as celebrating differences, doing the right thing, taking ownership and valuing ideas over hierarchy. The company explains these as ways of working rather than simply words about what it believes.

Uber has also created programmes that connect recognition with its cultural values. For example, its Reimagine Awards recognise employees and teams who demonstrate its cultural values, with nominations from employees and input from the executive team.

So, the response moved in the right direction conceptually: values were connected to systems, reporting channels, accountability and recognition. The important HR lesson is that culture change needs actual mechanisms behind it.

What HR Can Learn From This

The biggest lesson is that culture is not what the company says during induction. It is what employees learn after they have been there for six months, one year or five years.

So, if a company says “We respect employees,” HR should ask what happens when an employee disagrees with a manager. If it says “We value innovation,” HR should ask what happens when an experiment fails. If it says “Everyone has a voice,” HR should ask whether employees actually feel safe using that voice.

Like, culture becomes real through small everyday decisions. A manager listening to an employee. A promotion being given for the right reasons. A complaint being taken seriously. A mistake being treated as something to learn from instead of something to hide.

That is why HR strategy cannot stop at writing good values. HR has to make sure recruitment, onboarding, managers, rewards, performance reviews and leadership behaviour all tell the same story. Because employees do not learn culture from the poster on the wall. They learn it from what happens when nobody is looking.