How Do You Make Culture a Talent Differentiator?

Many companies are struggling to attract, recruit, and retain top talent.

Recruitment is particularly difficult as HR leaders are struggling to fill open positions, spending considerable time, money, and recruiter capacity to reduce high-impact vacancies. This increase in spend is primarily driven by an increasingly selective talent pool and a low-hire/low-fire employment environment.

The challenges don’t end there; retention is also causing headaches as HR leaders are facing a workplace culture crisis. Since 2020, Gallup has found a 36 percent decrease in job satisfaction, a 20 percent decrease in connection to mission, and an 18 percent decrease in engagement. These considerable dips are driving rising attrition rates.

Within this ambiguous talent market and amid a culture crisis, one thing is clear: Employers need to invest in building stronger workplace cultures.

Three Questions to Ask About Your Culture Value Proposition

In recent years, cultural factors have significantly shifted for both the workforce and the workplace. Friction points between what employees (both prospective and current) want and the value employers are offering are causing many HR leaders to question their existing EVPs.

Below are three questions HR leaders should ask when assessing the strength of their current culture.

1. Do our material offerings meet employee flexibility priorities?

Traditional preferences such as commute distance and office perks have declined in importance. As more employees live farther from the office, remote flexibility has become one of the most attractive benefits.

2. Are we offering the developmental opportunities our employees need?

Professional development has become a key lever for improving engagement and job satisfaction metrics. However, HR leaders often struggle to ensure their organizations can accurately assess performance and provide timely developmental interventions.

3. Do our community-building efforts balance inclusion and flexibility?

Community-building has declined in many organizations. Although remote and hybrid work models are attractive benefits, they have diminished day-to-day connections. Many HR leaders are caught between prioritizing the flexibility their employees want and the community-building teams need for success.

Employee Benefits That Improve Culture

In response to workforce and workplace shifts, many HR leaders are exploring ways to increase cultural value. The goal of these levers and unique policies is to make roles more attractive to prospective candidates and to improve engagement for current employees. These efforts include changes to:

• Formal Learning Opportunities: Job seekers and current employees increasingly want structured professional development and upskilling. Visible investments such as financial support for continuing education or an internal gig program can improve engagement and commitment, addressing challenges that affect workplace satisfaction.

• Benefits and Rewards: Unique and personalized benefits can strengthen engagement and serve as key differentiators in talent attraction. Expanded mental health support, additional PTO, experiential rewards, and flexibility related to different life stages reflect organizational trust and responsiveness to evolving employee needs.

• Workplace Communities: Although flexibility remains highly valued, remote work can lead to isolation, and hybrid schedules can be difficult to work around. Customizable digital collaboration spaces and purposeful in-person gatherings help sustain community and belonging across dispersed teams. Investment in employee resource groups can serve as a strategic initiative to promote community-building and belonging.

Embedding Culture Across the Employee Lifecycle

When implementing new culture initiatives, HR leaders should ensure those efforts shape every stage of the employee lifecycle—from a candidate’s first impression to their long-term connection with the organization.

For example, your company has a strong culture of professional development. You’ve identified it as a talent differentiator, and you want to incorporate it more into talent branding and employee experience. How might you embed that across the different touchpoints HR has with the employee?

Attraction and Recruitment

During attraction and recruitment, the culture of professional development should be clearly visible across all talent materials. Career sites and job descriptions can highlight internal mobility pathways and tuition assistance. Articles on the talent page or LinkedIn posts should highlight employee stories that demonstrate how growth is supported in practice. Recruiters and hiring teams should be trained to speak authentically about these programs so candidates see professional development as a lived part of the culture.

Onboarding

Onboarding should make the culture of professional development more tangible. New hires can hear from colleagues who advanced through learning programs or internal promotions. Early feedback conversations help employees plan to participate in professional development opportunities and connect them to their individual goals. Mentorship and skill-building programs can reinforce professional development as an ongoing expectation.

Growth

In the growth phase, performance reviews and recognition programs should emphasize continuous learning. Highlighting achievements such as completing certifications or mentoring peers helps employees see how their growth supports the organization’s success. Opening pathways for team leaders to nominate employees for professional development opportunities in the review process can acknowledge efforts and show further investments. Regular feedback sessions can then capture employee insights on these programs, ensuring that developmental efforts evolve alongside both personal and organizational priorities.

Retention and Offboarding

Done right, a more intentional culture of professional development will improve satisfaction and retention, delivering measurable savings in attrition costs. 

However, if an employee departs, off-boarding should continue to reflect the same commitment to culture. Use the time during an exit interview to collect feedback on professional development experiences and surface insights employees may share only after leaving. Those findings can inform future initiatives and sustain organizational health.

The Bottom Line—Culture Drives Performance

When HR leaders focus efforts on culture, it does more than just support talent acquisition and retention efforts. By identifying culture strengths and opportunities, HR leaders have the opportunity to drive impact on KPIs across the organization. Why?

Strong cultures encourage and equip people to do their best work.

Investing in culture is an investment in the long-term productivity and development of an effective workforce. However, it’s not enough to simply build a great culture. HR leaders need to implement elements of culture across the employment lifecycle to impact recruitment and retention in an increasingly difficult labor market.

Given their ability to address current culture challenges and incorporate culture across the employee lifecycle, HR leaders are uniquely positioned to motivate and prepare employees to do their best work and contribute to a culture of success.