In most organizations, staff work harder than their bosses ever know. They push deadlines, stay late, sacrifice weekends, and show up every day with commitment and resilience. Yet, their voices remain muted, their struggles invisible.
Policies are drafted for employees, not with them in mind. HR departments often measure activities, trainings held, leave days approved, or workshops conducted, instead of outcomes that truly reflect employee productivity. Boards applaud glossy PowerPoint slides about “employee engagement,” while in reality, a silent wave of disengagement grows within the workforce.
This silence is dangerous. It erodes trust, kills innovation, and slows execution.
Culture Is Productivity
Workplace culture has long been misunderstood. Too often, leaders equate it with perks, free fruit, coffee machines, ping-pong tables, or casual Fridays. But culture is not a cosmetic benefit. Culture is productivity. It is the heartbeat of execution.
The only way to prove this is by measuring it not through surface-level satisfaction surveys or feel-good initiatives, but through a weighted, evidence-based scorecard that links staff satisfaction directly to organizational performance.
Introducing the People & Culture Productivity Scorecard (PCPS)
To close this gap, I designed the People & Culture Productivity Scorecard (PCPS). It is a tool that helps leaders, Boards, and internal auditors ensure the one factor that determines whether a strategy succeeds or fails.
When customized to your staff profile, sector, and country context, the PCPS does three critical things: Gives employees a voice, turning hidden struggles into measurable insights.
Forces management to act – linking staff well-being and productivity to business outcomes.
Drives accountability at the top – ensuring Boards track culture and people outcomes with the same rigor as financial performance.
How it works
The methodology is simple but powerful: Weighting: Each factor (e.g., communication, leadership support, workload balance, recognition, etc.) is weighted by its importance to productivity.
Scoring: Employees rate each factor on a scale of 1–5 (1 = poor, 5 = excellent).
Calculating Contributions: Multiply the score × weight to determine each factor’s contribution.
Indexing: Add all contributions to calculate the People & Culture Productivity Index (PCPI).
For example:
A PCPI score of 3.39 out of 5 translates to a 67.8% overall staff satisfaction productivity score. This gives Boards and CEOs a clear, numeric measure of the health of their people and culture.
Why boards must take this seriously
Boards and executives track revenue, profits, and costs with precision. They scrutinize EBITDA, cash flows, and market share every quarter. But rarely do they track employee productivity linked to culture with the same rigor.
This is a blind spot. Strategy succeeds or fails based on people. If your staff are disengaged, overworked, or unheard, no amount of financial capital will save your strategy.
Boards that ignore culture are effectively gambling with execution.
The way forward
The People & Culture Productivity Scorecard is not just another HR tool. It is an assurance mechanism. It transforms culture into a measurable, boardroom-level discussion item. It gives employees a structured voice, compels managers to take action, and forces leaders to see beyond slogans.
A call to action
If you are a CEO, Board Member, or Internal Auditor: demand a People & Culture Productivity Index at your next strategy review.
If you are in HR, move beyond activities. Report productivity with evidence.
If you are an employee: ask for this tool. Share your voice in shaping culture.
Comment below if you would like me to share the editable People & Culture Productivity Index template that you can adapt to your organization, sector, or country context.
Because at the end of the day, the greatest risk to strategy is not competitors, not regulation, and not technology. It is silent.
I remain, Mr. Strategy.
