People and Culture
- Matt Trustrum
- Mar 21
- 2 min read
KEY TAKEAWAY - Traditional businesses manage employees, High-performing businesses unlock their potential. High-performing businesses don’t just hire people—they create environments where talent thrives, evolves, and drives innovation.
What’s changing & Why this is important for business owners who seek higher performance.
Many traditional businesses overlook modern people strategies, leading to talent retention struggles, disengaged employees, slow adaptability, lower morale which ultimately can hinder company growth.
While high-performing businesses are fundamentally rethinking how they approach people, culture, and talent, moving beyond traditional HR practices. Revolutionizing people, culture, and talent initiatives through innovative strategies that blend technology, employee-centric practices, and adaptive frameworks.
These approaches often go unnoticed by traditional organizations clinging to outdated HR models. Below are the most impactful modern strategies driving organizational success
Crucial activities & tactics that modern, high performing companies employ when seeking to enhance their People & Culture activities to strengthen their growth potential.
ESOP (Employee Share Ownership) & similar retention focused programs to ensure retention of key talent. ESOP’s are a well proven tactic to attract & retain key talent, whilst improve staff morale, engagement, loyalty, contributing to increased company growth.
Employee Experience (EX) Design & treating Employees Like Customers. Companies design employee experiences with the same care as customer experiences, focusing on personalization, flexibility, and purpose-driven work. Improving morale, engagement & performance.
Skills-Based Workforce Architecture. Replace rigid job descriptions with dynamic skills matrices, using AI to map internal capabilities and identify hidden talent. Platforms like Workday leverage predictive analytics to forecast skill gaps and recommend personalized upskilling paths.
Skills based hiring. Instead of hiring based on degrees or past job titles, high-performing businesses use skills-based hiring—evaluating candidates on competencies, problem-solving ability, and adaptability.
AI-Powered Performance Management & Personalized Employee Growth. Instead of annual performance reviews, high-performing companies use AI-driven real-time performance tracking to provide continuous feedback and career development plans.
Immersive Digital Auditions. Replace traditional interviews with AI-simulated work scenarios (e.g., coding challenges mirrored in production environments) to improve suitability matching of new hires.
Radical Workplace Flexibility (Beyond Remote Work). Instead of simply offering remote work, high-performing businesses redesign work models around individual productivity rhythms.
Hyper-Personalized Learning. Deploy AI-driven platforms (e.g., SAP SuccessFactors) that curate microlearning content based on real-time performance data and career aspirations, increasing knowledge retention by 40% compared to traditional LMS systems
How many of these examples are used in your business?
For more information & guidance on any of the above, book your Free session with the team at Insights, to review, then improve your People & Culture activities to enhance growth within your business.
Further analysis on your business with a deeper dive Level 2 assessment is also available.