Designing culture that scales
Why empathy‑led solution design is the missing link in employee engagement
Designing a culture that scales doesn’t happen by accident – it requires intention, empathy, and design.
As organisations grow, the complexity of maintaining a unified, engaging employee experience increases exponentially. Legacy behaviours clash with new mindsets. Communication slows. Values get diluted. And suddenly, the culture that once felt natural starts to feel… disconnected.
Growth is good, but it demands intentionality.
The engagement landscape and why it’s time to rethink
Recent data paints a clear picture:
- According to Gallup’s 2025 State of the workplace report, global employee engagement has dropped to just 21%, matching the lowest levels seen during the COVID-19 lockdowns. This decline is driven largely by a steep fall in manager engagement, which fell from 30% to 27%, a critical concern given that managers influence up to 70% of team engagement.
- Low engagement costs the global economy $8.8 trillion annually, equivalent to 9% of global GDP.
- Employees who perceive their organisation as unempathetic are 1.5× more likely to quit within the next six months.
- Deloitte’s 2024 Human Capital Trends report highlights structural tensions leaders must navigate, reinventing the manager role, balancing human outcomes with AI adoption, and redesigning organisations for speed and adaptability.
In short: the rules have changed. And so must the way we design culture.
The missing link: empathy‑led solution design
Many organisations still build programmes around operational needs rather than human needs. Empathy‑led solution design flips the sequence – understand lived experiences first, then architect systems, rituals, and tools that fit how people work.
A recent systematic review synthesising 42 studies shows empathetic leadership is associated with improvements in performance, wellbeing, relationships, and retention‑relevant attitudes.
MIT Sloan’s 2025 agenda foregrounds work design to prevent burnout and the leadership behaviours that enable people to engage and contribute, reinforcing that how work is designed is as critical as what gets done.
Put simply, empathy isn’t softness, it’s a design input that turns insight into interventions people adopt.
A practical model for empathy‑led design
1) Map the employee journey
Start by mapping the actual employee journey, not the idealised one. Listen for friction points, micro‑moments of recognition (or lack of it), and local variations across geographies or functions. Gallup’s data suggests addressing manager realities first amplifies impact, because managers shape most day‑to‑day engagement.
2) Co‑create with domain expertise
Blend behavioural insights with people‑science and change know‑how. Deloitte’s trends caution against one‑size‑fits‑all fixes; microcultures and human performance call for context‑specific design.
3) Translate insight into operating practices
Practices, or habits such as cadenced recognition, feedback hygiene, and decision forums carry culture better than standalone programmes. Gartner’s change research shows that routinising change, making new behaviours the default, beats one‑off campaigns.
4) Make culture trackable and measurable
Use leading indicators (manager coaching frequency, recognition quality, psychological safety signals) alongside lagging ones (retention, absence). CIPD’s 2025 findings emphasise that wellbeing strategies reduce absence and improve engagement when embedded, not bolted on.
What is Design Code™?
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Design Code™
Design Code™ reimagines programme design. By combining ‘design thinking’ with BI WORLDWIDE’s research and proprietary Employee Engagement and Channel Performance tools, we create custom solutions that put your people at the centre of our solutions.Learn More
Design Code™, is our proprietary human-centric design methodology that helps organisations reimagine how they engage their people. It’s not a product. It’s a process. One that blends design thinking, domain expertise, and strategic frameworks to uncover deep insights and build solutions that work.
It starts with empathy. We listen. We map journeys. We diagnose culture. Then we co-create with our clients to design recognition and engagement strategies that reflect their people, their values, and their ambitions.
Case study: A software intelligence company
One fast-growing tech company came to us during a period of warp-speed growth. Revenue was soaring. Talent was pouring in. But culturally, things were starting to fray.
Using Design Code™, we helped them:
- Identify the root causes of cultural friction.
- Create a unified recognition framework that honoured both legacy and new employees.
- Embed leadership rituals that made recognition part of the everyday rhythm.
- Develop a strategy that aligned with their future vision and values.
The result? A renewed sense of purpose and a culture ready to scale.
Design Code™ in action
Design Code™ has already been used by some of the world’s fastest-growing companies across various sectors – from automotive and retail to financial services and agriculture. It’s not just about designing programmes. It’s about designing belief systems, behaviours, and belonging.
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Case Study
Automotive design workshop case study
Discover how BI WORLDWIDE supported a global automotive company’s Learning and Development team to get under the skin of the Retailer Network and identify routes for future success with their reward and recognition strategy.
Don’t leave culture to chance. Design it.
If your organisation is wrestling with rapid growth, hybrid complexity, or fragmented employee experience, an empathy‑led design process can help translate values into scalable behaviours and rituals that stick. For a deeper dive or examples of how the approach works in different sectors, we’re happy to share more.
Let’s talk
Want to know more or looking for support? Speak to one of our expert team!