“An organization’s ability to learn and translate that learning into action rapidly is the ultimate competitive advantage.” This insight from General Electric (GE) Chairman and CEO Jack Welch captures a fundamental truth in today’s fast-paced business environment—where a strong performance culture rooted in continuous improvement can drive innovation and adaptability. Several studies consistently show the tremendous benefits of such a culture across various areas of business, from performance to innovation, and trends further validate this.
Personalized development plans are the result of performance culture, empowering employees to grow within inclusive, diverse, and tech-enabled ecosystems. Leading firms are also leveraging hybrid learning models tailored to individual and organizational needs, making education an integrated, adaptive journey crucial to business agility and innovation.
Meanwhile, employees in high-performing organizations are encouraged to adapt and reinvent themselves by fostering an attitude of constant learning. Through the development of a growth mindset, curiosity, and an openness to failure and experimentation, experiment-and-learn environments promote personal development and progress. An example of this culture is Google’s 20 percent time policy, which encourages staff members to dedicate time to their own ideas. This approach contributed to the creation of innovations such as Gmail and Google Maps, among others.
Similarly, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s transformation of company culture in 2014 from competitive to learning-focused further illustrates the impact of this approach. By encouraging continuous learning, fostering a growth mindset, and empowering cross-functional teams through initiatives like Microsoft Learn and Hackathons, Nadella’s leadership has led to a resurgence in both innovation and profitability.
While these trends reveal ideas that can help build a performance culture, the biggest challenge is determining what such a culture actually looks like and how to sustain it, rather than having it be just a one-off initiative. To gain clarity, an organization should rethink its approach to performance culture and continuously improve it to make sure that the right people, behaviors, and systems are in place.
According to the Global Performance Audit Unit (GPA Unit)—a division of The KPI Institute specializing in strategy and performance management system (PMS) maturity assessments—what makes developing a high-performance culture tricky is that it extends beyond strategy and performance management systems. The GPA Unit states that, “With no actual framework to lay down its fundamentals, the performance culture is a holistic impersonation of the strategy and performance management system. While more than many organizations associate a high-performance culture with the proper working environment, there is much more to the concept than a friendly office, random perks, and casual benefits.”
A performance culture is characterized by solid employee engagement, continuous learning and development, an aligned performance management system, inclusive environment and workforce diversity, effective leadership and relationship management, sustainable work-life balance, and a commitment to the principles of governance, responsibility, and high accountability.
In addition, the GPA Unit emphasizes that people analytics and data-driven strategies have been providing useful insights into the core components required to transform culture from a collection of superficial perks to a more strategic aspect of an organization.
Measuring culture with KPIs – KPI results can help identify strengths and weaknesses in the existing organizational culture and facilitate decision-making to drive improvement.
Actively using culture surveys – Simple yet meaningful culture surveys can collect employee sentiment and feedback, becoming the perfect internal assessment tool.
Building on talent data and HR analytics – People analytics equips leadership with insight on talent recruitment and development, employee performance, and retention.
Relying on the performance management system to strengthen alignment – A structured and coherent performance management system will ensure that the performance culture is aligned with the strategic mission and values of the organization while maintaining focus, agility, communication, collaboration, and well-being.
This approach suggests that a performance culture does not mold employees who are simply focused on performing tasks but are also growing in ways that support the organization’s long-term strategic goals.
Assessing Performance Culture Maturity
How can an organization determine whether its performance culture is sufficient and sustainable enough to achieve continuous improvement? The GPA Unit recommends the use of the Performance Culture Maturity Model Framework v1.0 to ensure a systematic, scalable approach to building and evaluating organizational and individual competencies. Using this system also allows organizations to identify its culture’s strengths and weaknesses and nurtures the right cultural elements.
The expected behavior of this framework focuses on establishing a cycle of continuous learning, measurable development milestones, and strategic alignment of skills with core business objectives. One of the framework’s key dimensions exemplifying this is Education and Knowledge. By integrating this dimension, organizations move through stages of maturity from ad hoc learning efforts to an optimized, fully integrated culture of performance.
As organizations mature, best practices such as continuous feedback loops, knowledge-sharing platforms, and leadership-driven learning initiatives become embedded in their DNA. For example, as organizations progress, the expected behavior transitions from static skill development programs to dynamic, adaptive learning ecosystems that respond to industry demands. This shift encourages employees to engage in cross-functional knowledge-sharing initiatives, develop expertise aligned with market needs, and accelerate personal and organizational growth.
The other dimensions of the framework are Integrated Performance Capability, Communication and Leadership Support, Creativity and Education, Education & Knowledge, Benefits & Recognition, and Happiness & Well-Being.
The journey toward a mature performance culture isn’t a quick fix—it’s a continuous evolution fueled by a commitment to learning and an openness to change. When employees are empowered to develop their skills and contribute their insights, they become not just participants but catalysts of transformation.
The restaurant industry was hit hard by the pandemic. It has to manage many changes, and the most challenging one is retaining talent. According to the National Restaurant Association’s State of the Restaurant Industry (2022) report, more than one million jobs in the hospitality and restaurant industries remain unfilled, and 78 percent of restaurant operators lack the staff to meet customer demand. Data also shows that three out of every four employees intend to quit their jobs within the next year.
In order to mitigate talent management concerns, Chipotle, an American fast-casual restaurant chain with a presence in the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, and France, developed new strategies and launched programs that are focused on meeting employee expectations and boosting employee experience.
Retention strategies
Chipotle’s benefits program, Cultivate Me, provides its employees with a best-in-class benefits and perks package. It includes bonuses (annual and quarterly), education assistance and debt-free degrees, free meals (one free meal per day), paid time off, assistance program (free access to counselling), 401(k) retirement savings, healthcare services and advocacy, and benefits in Chipotle partners (discounts in big brands and gyms).
Observing that the turnover rate raised continually in the industry, Chipotle launched learning and upskilling programs. Employees are given multiple options, ranging from high school diploma programs and college classes to courses teaching high-end computer networking skills. The company also introduced a mentoring program for future executives.
Another initiative to boost employee retention was asking employees about the tasks they want automated. The restaurant chain started its automation efforts by developing together with Miso Robotics an autonomous kitchen assistant that makes tortilla chips. The robot called Chippy is already being tested and is soon to be integrated into restaurants, leaving employees to focus on more important tasks. The company also started implementing a new digital scheduling program and upgrading its learning portal. As stated by Brian Niccol, CEO of Chipotle for QSR magazine, the brand’s automatization’s radar scans for those “jobs people don’t love doing.”
The restaurant chain also launched a new Learning Management System, the Spice Hub, where restaurant employees can enhance their skills through gamification, social learning, personalized learning paths, and instructor-led training.
Chipotle ended 2021 in need of 20,000 employees, who should fill its 200 restaurants. Like most of its competitors, Chipotle raised wages as the first step in employee attraction. But that is an initiative that only makes the company keep up with the market. Since the entire restaurant industry is struggling, Chipotle needed to do something more for its employees. That is how Chipotle promotes its differentiator: equitable access to education and mobility.
Chipotle partnered with Guild Education, a private company that helps companies manage their education assistance benefits, to carry out a national Back-to-School campaign. It aims to attract and maintain interest in school for those employees that can either balance work and online schooling or decide to follow a path of on-campus education. Leveraging its educational benefits in the national campaign, Chipotle’s recruiting team has received 7,500 total applications.
Evaluating employee performance
Broadly, an employee’s performance is periodically evaluated by a representative of the company. The evaluation should result in new goals for improvement and rewards for desirable results.
Chipotle replaced its annual performance review with more regular review sessions. Its performance review now comprises at least four meetings per year. During these sessions, managers ask employees four questions. The so-called 4×4 conversation contains the following questions:
What are your most significant accomplishments since we last met?
What are the most important things you will focus on before meeting next?
What obstacles are you encountering right now?
What can I do better or differently as your manager to support you?
This type of review and the questions themselves consider the employee as the owner of the evaluation. Employees give feedback to the company and challenge themselves with new objectives.
The employees’ performance can be acknowledged through benefits, recognition, compensation, and rewards. Since the beginning, Chipotle has rewarded its employees with prizes. If prior, the employees were rewarded with free menu entrees, now, Chipotle employees can win multiple Chipotle goods and a variety of discounts from Chipotle Partners.
As a result of all Chipotle restaurant chain’s efforts to retain employees in 2021, they managed to:
Internally promote 90% of restaurant management roles
Promote almost 19,000 team members
Offer free and confidential Employee Assistance Program (EAP) services to all Chipotle Employees in need of mental and emotional support
Achieve a Human Rights Campaign Corporate Equality Index score of 100
Establish an inclusive, award-winning culture
At Chipotle, the company’s values have been agreed upon altogether with employees. The leadership team defined an initial set of values that were later discussed with employees. The fact that the leadership team involved all employees in such a decision empowers them and increases their loyalty.
Culture is from the beginning communicated and present in all interactions inside a team. One of the first ingredients of culture reinforcement is investing in people. Increasing communication within all organizational levels and enhancing collaboration can strengthen teams, leading to an increased retention level and a high-performance culture.
Culture is an intriguing component of the organizational system, wouldn’t you say? Although most professionals agree on the importance of building a strong organizational culture, measuring the extent to which this goal has been achieved is quite challenging, and the tools for doing so have been few and far between. Fortunately, one such tool enables us to get the pulse of the organizational culture—the Global Performance Audit Unit’s performance culture audit.
Another way to get an idea of the state of an organization’s culture is to use metrics. For example, Sears uses what it calls Total Performance Indicators (TPIs) to monitor employee attitudes and retention. Similar to key performance indicators (KPIs), TPIs also relate to the more quantitative aspects of measurement. Using metrics to monitor performance or inform decision-making is always useful, but can we actually capture organizational culture in one metric or index?
Culture is a phenomenon that happens naturally in any group without necessarily being guided. Thus, it will always be a reflection of the people’s attitudes within that group. Culture appeals more to emotion than reason. Elusive and intangible, culture is something that can be easily felt but difficult to explain or justify.
Organizational culture embeds the beliefs and values that define a company, which serve to guide employees in their daily actions. Culture is a reflection of the company’s spirit, and to a large extent, I believe that an organization’s worth is equal to the value of its people.
Performance is a concept usually associated with processes that are more technical than cultural, such as financial performance or machinery performance. So why would anyone want to have a performance-oriented culture? For many people, this may seem like a very cold and profit-oriented working environment. In practice, there are several reasons to embed performance within your organizational culture:
Impact on Internal Stakeholders
Increases accountability regarding the quality of their work
Raises awareness on the importance of being efficient and results-oriented
Nurtures constant learning and professional improvement
Brings clarity on their roles and contributions to the organizational strategy
Increases engagement by rewarding performance
Impact on External Stakeholders
Positions the organization as a trustworthy and reliable partner
Influences the quality of products and services positively
Enhances customer experience
Improves employer brand and market image
A change management initiative to shift organizational culture to a performance-driven perspective can become quite an advantage for companies wishing to get ahead of their competition. To have more clarity around what a performance-oriented culture looks like, consider the following key attributes:
Shared Vision
Strong leadership is essential for any organization. Strong leaders can communicate their vision and inspire employees to follow them. This shared vision brings and keeps people together, empowering them to work as a team.
Communication
Intense and effective communication increases employees’ awareness and understanding of the company strategy. This impacts how they work and can help them make better decisions in full alignment with strategic directions.
Transparency regarding decisions and performance levels establishes greater levels of credibility and confidence in relation to leadership and generates employee interest towards understanding the impact of their actions on bottom-line results.
Continuous Learning
A performance-oriented culture acts as an enabler for implementing a performance management system (PMS) within the company. Monitoring performance facilitates the development of a constant learning process for the entire organization.
A performance-oriented culture not only sets targets but also provides employees with the necessary training or mentoring to achieve these targets.
Process Improvement
A common characteristic of performance-oriented organizations is their concern for constant optimization. By not being satisfied with “good” and always striving for “great”, the people in the organization adopt a state of mind in which they are constantly striving for efficiency.
Data Analytics
In the age of big data, we need to make sure that both the younger and older generations are accustomed to working and making use of data in their decisions. Modern organizations must have the competencies and habits of data analysis.
Technology
Progress in today’s business environment is limited without the support of modern technology. A performance-driven organization will invest in technology to support business processes.
Innovation
Technological growth will be conditioned by the organization’s ability to adapt to market dynamics and innovate to stay ahead of the competition. Innovation comes from employees, but what can make a difference between two companies that have the same talent pool is how each one manages to nurture innovation among its employees.
Rewards
A performance-oriented culture reflects a working environment where effort and success are acknowledged and rewarded. Rewards don’t have to be exclusively financial.
Engagement
A performance culture should nurture employee engagement through its employee-centered initiatives.
Authenticity
Organizations should be able to identify their uniqueness and acknowledge and promote it among stakeholders. This is what makes a company feel real and meaningful for its employees, customers, and business partners. For example, Zappos prides itself on its authenticity, which is reflected in one of its corporate values—weirdness.
The myriad of benefits that stem from a performance-oriented culture should be reason enough for any organization to adopt it. However, it’s worth noting that culture can be inherently divisive, especially when change is in the air. Leaders must take care when shifting from a culture that many of their employees have grown accustomed to in order to mitigate friction and foster buy-in.
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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published on March 12, 2016. It has been updated as of April 16, 2025.
Because of the Industrial Revolution, when everything was primarily based on manufacturing, we became obsessed with process and efficiency, an obsession that has characterized businesses up until the present day, when we tend to think only about numbers.
