Today’s organisations live in the Glassdoor era. Every corporate decision is immediately publicly exposed and debated. Once-private issues are now posted online for every employee — and every potential employee — to read. An organisation’s culture — which can be loosely defined as “the way things work around here” — is increasingly visible for all the world to see.

Given the harsh spotlight of this new transparency, an organisation’s culture can become a key competitive advantage — or its Achilles heel. Culture and engagement are now business now business issues, not just topics for HR to debate. And there’s no place for organisations to hide.

This is a new and systemic problem for organisations worldwide. Why has it become so acute?

• Employees are now like customers: As the job market has heated up and new technologies have exploded, power has shifted from the employer to the employee. Websites like Glassdoor, LinkedIn, Facebook, and others not only increase transparency about a company’s workplace; they make it far easier for employees to learn about new job opportunities and gain intelligence about company cultures.

• Leaders lack an understanding of culture: Culture is driven from the top down. Yet most executives cannot even define their organisation’s culture, much less figure out how to disseminate it through the company.

• The new world of work changes the way we engage people: The world of work is very different from and more complex than it was only a few years ago. Employees today work more hours and are nearly continuously connected to their jobs by pervasive mobile technologies. They work on demanding cross-functional teams that often bring new people together at a rapid rate. Flexibility, empowerment, development, and mobility all now play a big role in defining a company’s culture.

• Employees’ motivations have changed: Today’s workers have a new focus on purpose, mission, and work-life integration. Research shows that a variety of complex factors contribute to strong employee engagement, including job design, management, work environment, development, and leadership. Today, more than twice as many employees are motivated by work passion than career ambition (12 per cent versus 5 per cent), indicating need for leadership to focus on making the work environment compelling and enjoyable for everyone.

Although culture and engagement play such a critical role in business performance, most organisations do a poor job of measuring their achievements or shortcomings. Historically, companies have relied on annual engagement surveys, often costing hundreds of thousands of dollars and taking months to deploy. And very few companies have a process or tools to measure culture and learn where it is strong, weak, or inconsistent. At a time when corporate cultures are being continuously debated, shaped, and redefined on social networks, the once-a-year survey is perilously obsolete.

Fortunately, new tools are emerging to provide organisations with real-time sentiment and employee feedback. A new breed of vendors offers pulse survey tools, employee sentiment management tools, culture assessment tools, and real-time employee monitoring tools to help leaders and supervisors rapidly assess when engagement is high and when problems are arising. These new tools make it possible for organisations to monitor employee sentiment with the same level of rigour and speed as they measure customer sentiment.

Ultimately, the issues of culture and engagement are driven by leadership. Companies pushing aggressive growth plans, experiencing financial stress, or going through layoffs or mergers often see a radical shift in culture. While most leaders are measured on the basis of business results, organisations must begin holding leaders accountable for building a strong and enduring culture, listening to feedback, and engaging and retaining their teams.

HR should also understand the impact of performance management, work-life balance, and flexibility on engagement. While management practices once pushed companies toward a highly competitive performance management process, in 2015, many companies are finding that pressure and competition often lead to high turnover and ultimately poorer business results.

Where companies can start

• Engagement starts at the top: Make engagement a corporate priority, and modernise the process of measuring and evaluating engagement throughout the company. Benchmark the company, strive for external recognition as validation of efforts, and reinforce to leadership that the engagement and retention of people is their number one job.

• Measure in real time: Put in place real-time programmes to evaluate and assess organisational culture, using models or tools to better understand where it is strong, where it is weak, and how it really feels to workers.

• Make work meaningful: Focus on leadership, coaching, and performance management to help employees make their work meaningful. Reinforce the importance of a coaching and feedback culture, and teach leaders how to be authentic and transparent.

• Listen to the Millennials: Their desires, needs, and values will shape the organisation’s culture over the next 10 years.

• Simplify the work environment: Read our research in this report on the simplification of work to help reduce the burden of today’s 24/7 work environment.

Bottom Line

The old adage “culture eats strategy for breakfast” applies to every organisation today. Business and HR executives must understand that highly engaged companies attract the best talent, have the lowest voluntary turnover rates, and are more profitable over the long run. By focusing on driving engagement through the right corporate culture, companies can improve execution, retention, and financial performance.